Vizrt Intros Latest Version of Viz Video Hub

Vizrt will introduce Viz Video Hub version 1.2.1 at the 2009 NAB Show (booth SL5508) as a scalable, upgradeable solution for IT-based production and archiving. Viz Video Hub is currently in operation at several of the world’s leading broadcast, sports and media companies.<!–more–>

Enhanced capabilities within version 1.2.1 give Vizrt’s Video Hub plug-and-play media asset management (MAM) system an extended support for archive functionality through a Tape Robot feature. The Tape Robot support enables broadcasters to archive video assets directly within Viz Video Hub. The functionality includes capabilities for ingest and playout, transcoding, browsing, craft editing, and more on a smaller scale.

“With these additional capabilities, Viz Video Hub can serve as a pivotal component anchoring the entire Vizrt workflow, spanning newsrooms, editing stations, channel branding, control rooms, and every production task from ingest to playout,” said Petter Ole Jakobsen, Chief Technology Officer of Vizrt.

With its new support for Viz Link workflow, Viz Video Hub 1.2 allows graphics solutions, including the Viz Trio HD/SD CG graphics engine, Viz Content Pilot for real-time template-based graphics creation, and Viz Multichannel for channel branding, to search for video clips on the MAM storage, retrieve and edit them, and add them to graphics and templates. (Viz Video Hub also stores and manages associated metadata using the Dublin Core standard.)

The Viz Link support enables video assets contained in the Viz Video Hub to be quickly and easily retrieved and repurposed by Vizrt graphics solutions such as Viz Content Pilot, Viz Multichannel and Viz Trio. Additionally, the video assets of Viz Video Hub can be directly accessed from within the Escenic Content Studio software for managing and publishing media content to web, mobile, and other new media distribution platforms. Viz Video Hub 1.2.1 helps media organizations maximize the value of their media assets by making them accessible throughout the organization.

Viz Video Hub 1.2.1 is directly tied to Viz Ingest Manager, a control interface for automating the recording of live feeds, as well as Viz Capture from tape, and ensures that these systems automatically update content onto multiple Viz Video Engine video servers. Based on the schedule in the user interface, Viz Ingest Manager will control video servers to record the material indicated in the schedule. The base license comes with support for eight concurrent ingest feeds.

Video Hub 1.2.1 increases support beyond 80 concurrent clients and a greater number of Viz EasyCut licenses. Ideal for newsrooms, Viz EasyCut is a nonlinear, timeline-based editing tool, bundled with Video Hub, that can access Video Hub’s assets so they can be edited into new clips.

With the integration of Viz Video Hub 1.2.1 and Viz Escenic Content Studio, web journalists can now search and add video content stored within the Viz Video Hub to their online news stories directly from the Escenic Content Studio interface. File transfer and conversion are handled as background processes.

Vizrt will also preview Viz Video Hub 2.0, which features a new control interface for transcoding and streaming service as well as a whole new user interface experience. Viz Video Hub 2.0 will also support tighter integration with Escenic Content Studio 5. The integration will allow automatic updating of the Escenic software with all of the assets from the Viz Video Hub.