SportsTechBuzz at NAB 2017: Thursday’s Latest From Vegas
The NAB Show is in full swing in Las Vegas, and the SVG editorial team is out in full force, covering all the latest news from the show floor. In an effort to make the tidal wave of news and announcements more digestible to our readers, SVG is providing a daily “SportsTechBuzz at NAB 2017” roundup. This daily rundown provides snippets of big announcements and what is on display at more than 150 booths at the LVCC this year. Here is SVG’s first SportsTechBuzz roundup, featuring news from the show floor.
Today’s edition features Adorama, Aperi, Audio-Technica, Auro, Calrec, Cisco, Convergent Design, EEG Enterprises, FingerWorks Telestrations, Fujifilm, Ikegami, Lawo, Limelight Networks, Multidyne, Net Insight, NeuLion, Nevion, Reality Check Systems, SES, Signiant, Telestream, TSL Products, Verizon Digital Media Services, WESCO, Wheatstone, Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Zaxcom.
CENTRAL HALL
Adorama (Booth C9539) has launched Adorama Business Solutions (ABS), a B-to-B sales division focused on end-to-end sales for broadcast, education, government, and corporations. At NAB 2017, ABS has been walking customers through the products on Adorama’s stand, delivering a range of product and service capabilities to all content owners and assisting with the buying process. ABS will also offer post-sales support, training customers to use the equipment. — KHK
Audio-Technica 6000 Series high-density wireless system
Audio-Technica (Booth C2622) is introducing its 6000 Series high-density wireless system, a spectrum-efficient solution that allows users to pack 31 channels in 4 MHz of bandwidth. The 6000 Series’ channels are spaced at 125-kHz intervals and can all be used simultaneously. The system operates in the 944-952 MHz band, which is free of broadcast TV. The FCC has expanded license eligibility for this band beyond broadcasters and content creators to include sound companies and venues that routinely operate 50 wireless microphones or more. — Daley
Besides showcasing an IP-based remote-production demo, Calrec (Booth C3118) has introduced its Artemis Ray console. Capable of operating at multiple sample rates, at 48 kHz the Artemis Ray provides up to 456 channel-processing paths, 128 program buses, 64 IFB/track outputs, and 32 auxiliaries. — Davies
Convergent Design (Booth C12316) is showing off its Element series of multicamera recorders and switchers. Ideal for budget-conscious colleges and high schools, the Element series comprises a low-cost HD recorder, HD recorder and switcher, and 4K recorder and switcher. The portable multicamera HD recorder and switcher enables recording and iso recoding of multiple cameras and enables switching between the sources without a laptop to drive it. — KHK
The Optical Devices Division of Fujifilm (Booth C7225) has announced the first sale and delivery of the company’s just-introduced UA18x5.5B 4K-compatible, UHD, handheld zoom. The Orlando-based event and systems-integration firm LMG purchased five UA18x’s for use within its expanding Touring and Show Technology divisions. The new zooms will complement Sony HDC-4300 4K/HD cameras and Panasonic AK-UC3000 4K studio cameras and will be used to shoot large-scale music concerts and corporate events. The UA18x, UA14x, and UA27x6.5B studio zoom lenses make their debut this week. — FR
Visitors to the Fujifilm booth C7225 on the hunt for HD lenses might have to look elsewhere: with the exception of the 55X lens, all the lenses being exhibited are designed for 4K use. Four portables and three box lenses are on display (two of the portables are new as is one of the box lenses), and Gordon Tubbs of Fujinon says the company is not walking away from HD lenses: “I think we will be selling HD lenses for a long time, but the 4K lenses are taking over, and they are great for HD and HDR.” — KK
NAB 2017 (Booth C7217) has marked the debut of the HDK-73 camera, the latest addition to Ikegami’s Unicam HD camera series. Featuring F12 high-sensitivity ⅔-in. CMOS sensors, the HDK-73 is said to provide exceptional picture quality in either 1080i or 720p in a cost-effective system. — Davies
Ikegami (Booth C7217) is offering two 8K prototypes, a format that is beginning to see some interest as an additional production tool for those looking for super-zoom or cut-out functionality. Alan Kyle of Ikegami says the ⅔-in. 8K prototype is derived from the 4K camera but with the use of two 4K parallel processors rather than a 4K and an HD parallel processor. “There was a lot of desire for ⅔-in. for 4K needs,” notes Kyle. “This is in anticipation of the same theory.” — KK
For fiber-solutions specialist Multidyne (Booth C5109), 12 Gbps is one of the major themes here at the show. The company is offering solutions for its camera-back products to support 12-Gbps–capable cameras throughout the industry. Multidyne’s SilverBack-12G models have added 12 Gbps support to the SilverBack family of camera-mounted transceivers, and FiberSaver-12G optical remapper/multiplexers now enable as many as 36 signals of up to 12 Gbps each to be transported over just two fibers. — BC
Singular has announced the release of Singular Live, a cloud-based platform for OTT that allows content producers to easily design, build, control, and publish interactive graphics on top of live video feeds for delivery to a range of connected devices. Backed by investment partner Reality Check Systems (Booth C2617), Singular.Live is built on common web standards and an open architecture to streamline the production and delivery of compelling live content to most web-enabled devices — from smartphones and tablets to desktop computers and smart TVs. It enables broadcasters, live-production professionals, and streaming enthusiasts to deliver customized graphics for each viewer from language localization to targeted ads, interactivity, and more. — FR
Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems (Booth C1725) celebrated its 30th birthday at NAB 2017 with a look back at some early digital audio consoles, such as 1991’s DMC 1000 and the following year’s DMR-8. But it wasn’t all nostalgia: Yamaha’s flagship RIVAGE PM10 digital-mixing system has been expanded with the launch of the new CS-R10-S control surface and now supports up to 64 channels of Dan Dugan Sound Design automated mixing. — Daley
Zaxcom (Booth C2330) made the world of wireless transmitters a bit smaller with its new ZMT3 miniature transmitter. Building on the Zaxcom High Density (ZHD) modulation that allows up to 10 channels of wireless in 1 MHz of spectrum space, the ZMT3 is an ultra-small wide-band digital transmitter filled with features like internal recording, PowerRoll, and NeverClip. “We can pack 30 channels into 3 MHz, which is something sports really needs, post repack,” says company president Glenn Sanders. — Daley
SOUTH UPPER HALL
Joop Jansen and the team at Aperi (Booth SU11413) are settling into their own this year with its virtualized, native live IP media platform shipping. In addition Ericsson is now providing codec applications that can run on the platform and make it suitable for 4K and OTT needs Says Jansen, “It’s a huge thing for us as our business model is based around working with the best brands in the industry.” — KK
With a focus on delivering high-quality digital experiences, Limelight Networks (Booth SU10714) is showing new enhancements to its Video Delivery Services. The service offers DRM support, low-latency live-streaming capabilities, live-to-VOD recording, and live-streaming support for mobile devices. Says Mike Milligan, “It’s not about just having the live video; it’s how do you monetize it? We talk to a lot of our customers who do live events, and the thing that you need to know during live events is how’s it going, what are the issues, what is my engagement?” — BC
The latest update to Nevion’s (Booth SU5510) software-driven media platform, Nevion Virtuoso, adds support for JPEG 2000 encoding of 4K UHD video; 2K resolution format for film production; audio embedding/de-embedding; frame synchronization, audio processing, and PTP synchronization; monitoring of SMPTE 2022-6, JPEG 2000, and SD/HD/3G-SDI; and AES encryption. — Davies
SES (Booth SU1910), along with Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI and Newtec, is demonstrating an immersive VR experience with a live 360-degree UHD VR satellite broadcast this week at its booth. The live VR broadcast originates from Fraunhofer HHI’s OmniCam-360 camera, which is capturing the sights and sounds of the SES booth. The 10K x 2K panoramic broadcast signal is transmitted over an SES satellite to multiple UHD TV screens and VR goggles at the SES booth and other locations throughout the LVCC. — FR
SES (Booth SU1910) announced that two U.S. MVPDs have launched the first commercial linear UHD services to cable and IPTV subscriber homes using SES’s satellite-delivered, prepackaged, UHD solution. Marquette-Adams of Oxford, WI, and Highlands Cable Group of Highlands, NC, have licensed the SES-provided UHD programming through Vivicast Media and have initiated their UHD offerings following successful trials of the SES platform. Additional cable and IPTV operators are also close to launching their own milestone UHD services on SES’s fully managed, scalable system, which is aimed at accelerating 4K UHD deployments across North America. — JD
As part of a demonstration of the transportation of mission-critical media files, Signiant’s (Booth SU5021) Manager+Agents software solution — which automates the delivery of large media files across geographically dispersed locations — is operating in conjunction with Media Links’ new 10-Gbps Hitless Data feature for its MD8000 Media over IP transport platform. — Davies
“Streaming is exploding,” revealed Scott Murray, VP, marketing and desktop products, Telestream (Booths LSU5, SL3316) at the company’s press conference yesterday. He said that 18% growth in devices capable of receiving streamed content is expected by 2021 and that, currently, 3 billion devices can receive streamed content with 4 billion hours of streamed content being viewed each week. — Davies
Verizon Digital Media Services (Booth SU3605) is demonstrating its new Verizon Media Xperience Studio, a first-of-its-kind, cloud-based content-intelligence system (CIS). According to Jason Friedlander, the company has “worked hard over the past two years to develop a software-based, web-based workflow for managing live events, primarily sports.” This solution — which is making its North American debut — is the fruit of that labor. — BC
WESCO (SU11613) is reinvesting in its broadcast business and launching WESCO Broadcast at NAB 2017. WESCO Broadcast is focused on the future of broadcast, facilitating the copper-to-fiber transition for network infrastructure and customizing solutions for assemblies, panels, and more for a wide variety of broadcast applications. In addition, after Belden acquired Gepco in 2016, the Gepco-brand cable line is back with WESCO, which now serves as mass distributor of Gepco copper and fiber solutions for broadcasters. — KHK
SOUTH LOWER HALL
EEG Enterprises (Booth SL7610) is debuting Lexi Automated Cloud Captioning, a new cloud-hosted automated captioning system. Rather than rely on hardware, the cloud-based system takes in audio feeds and sends out automated captions, which are either encoded into a live stream or fed into the SDI output of an encoder for playout within approximately three seconds. Users can feed information, such as anchor names or team rosters, into the system, which absorbs the information to create more-accurate captions. — KHK
FingerWorks Telestrations (Booths SL5130, SL5421) returns to the NAB Show with a few new additions to its product line. In time for NAB 2017, the company added native 4K support with a 12G card, as well as a collaborative streaming-server client system that connects multiple touch panels on one system and enables multiple analysts to telestrate the same play simultaneously on separate displays. FingerWorks Telestrations is also showing a small demonstration of telestration in virtual-reality environments. — KHK
NORTH HALL
MC296 Grand Production Center
Lawo (Booth N1424) brings back the battleship console: the huge Lawo mc²96 Grand Production Console for IP video-production environments set sail at the show. Specifically designed for IP video-production environments through native support for all relevant standards — SMPTE 2110, AES67, RAVENNA, and Dante — the mc²96 is available in frame sizes with 24 to 200 faders and features 21.5-in. Full HD touchscreens as well as multiple mini color-TFTs in channel strips. — Daley
Lawo (N1424) and Cisco (SU8502) are collaborating in the development and marketing of IP-based video and audio systems for broadcast television. The cooperation involves the Cisco IP Fabric for Media infrastructure, its answer to complex IP workflows in television broadcasting, based on Software Defined Networking (SDN) principles. As the industry moves rapidly toward Broadcast 3.0 (broadcast infrastructure built around COTS technology), broadcasters everywhere are planning to produce more content on format-agnostic IP platforms, finally delivering on the promise of ‘future-proof’ production technology. — FR
In addition to highlighting monitor-product ranges including MPA and PAM, TSL Products (Booth N5615) is drawing attention to the rapid growth — 1,000 installations worldwide and counting — of its TallyMan advanced broadcast-control system. The latest additions to the popular system include support for IP and 4K production environments. — Davies
Wheatstone (Booth N6531) has introduced its second-generation FM-55 audio processor, the FM-55e. The FM-55e includes all the same features as the FM-55 but adds enhanced iAGC controls as well as an entirely new bass-processing design. The FM-55e is a multi-band audio processor ideal for FM stations requiring sound consistency across a variety of source material. It includes intelligent five-band AGC technology (iAGC) coupled to a five-band limiter and stereo generator, plus five-band stereo enhancement and program adaptive L-R control for multipath mitigation. — Daley
MORE NEWS
Auro (offsite), a third entry in the immersive-audio horserace, showed its Auro-Cx high-quality audio codec intended for streaming markets. The new codec version, which is intended to be used as a distribution codec in broadcast and OTT, was developed for streaming applications as well as digital downloads over the internet. — Daley
Net Insight (Booth SU2806) will add Microsoft Azure Media Services to its offering, allowing broadcasters and media companies to purchase Microsoft’s cloud-based production services from within its own ScheduALL system. The Microsoft Azure Media Services offered on the Connector Marketplace will include cloud transcoding, file transfer, media analytics, and quality control for media-production workflows. — Davies
NeuLion (Booth L, Central Lobby) is having its “biggest and best NAB in the 11 years it’s been coming,” says Executive VP Chris Wagner. The company is premiering its ACE Analytics business intelligence tool for the NeuLion Digital Platform. Designed to acquire, maintain, and retain OTT customers, ACE Analytics delivers such features as customer-lifestyle tracking, revenue tracking and trending, churn trends, and customer-file management. — Davies
SVG SportsTechBuzz is compiled by the SVG U.S. and SVG Europe editorial
teams: Ken Kerschbaumer, Brandon Costa, Jason Dachman, Dan Daley, David Davies, Karen Hogan Ketchum, and Fergal Ringrose.
