NAB 2016: Cobalt Digital, Lawo Integrate Multiviewer Products

Cobalt Digital is partnering with Lawo to combine Cobalt’s 9970-QS openGear multiviewer card with theWALL, Lawo’s mobile app for setting up and controlling multiviewers. The integration reduces configuration and operation time in controlling the 9970 multiviewer.

“We’re bringing together Cobalt’s award-winning openGear multiviewer card and Lawo’s award-winning control app to create a smart multiviewer system that can be configured quickly and efficiently,” says Bob McAlpine, EVP, sales and marketing, Cobalt Digital. “Thanks to this partnership, operators can control and view their monitor walls in a studio or OB truck with one seamless solution, and both companies will be able to promote and sell an integrated system.”

Cobalt’s 9970-QS 3G/HD/SD-SDI/CVBS quint-split multiviewer card for openGear frames integrates five discrete 3G/HD/SD-SDI or CVBS inputs onto a single 3G/HD/SD-SDI quint-split output, with each input image flexibly inserted into the output image area. Users can perform custom layout changes in real time and, by cascading the devices, can expand the system to provide multiviewer layouts of up to 8×8 (64:1). A master-output up/down/crossconverter scales HD- or 3G-SDI formats for the combined multiviewer output, which also includes an HDMI output (with audio embedding), to feed directly to a specific wall monitor.

Lawo’s theWALL is a multiplatform, hardware-agnostic app that lets users configure any monitor wall, route signals, change mosaic layouts, or save and load user presets with unprecedented flexibility — all from the comfort of a touch-enabled mobile device. Its elaborate reformatting algorithms talk directly to the multiviewer hardware and enable easy access through a comprehensive GUI with drag-and-drop functionality. Anyone working in front of a monitor wall can change its layout on the fly, including altering the design of patterns and controlling parameters, such as borders, colors, and spaces. theWALL ensures that any layout is perfectly rendered to any output format, and users can save and load presets to or from a database, swap productions from one OB truck to another, or designate preferred multiviewer setups in any control room. Changes are stored in a user-managed environment and, if required, hosted in the cloud.

Together, the 9970-QS card and theWALL app provide an integrated multiviewer/control system that offers reduced setup and control time and an intuitive operation scheme.

“With its quint-split system, Cobalt offers a highly attractive and scalable multiviewer solution to the market,” says Axel Kern, senior product manager, Lawo. “We consider theWALL to be the perfect addition to that system because it brings together the flexibility of the quint-split with theWALL’s own highly flexible user interface and control.”

Cobalt and Lawo are demonstrating their integrated solution at NAB 2016 in the Cobalt Digital booth (N1418) and the Lawo booth (N1822). The systems will be available for order at the show.