At NAB2007, MicroFirst Engineering Inc. will demonstrate new enhancements to its Digital Automation System, a fully expandable real-time automation and management system. DAS provides metadata management and device control, complete with media management, logging functionality, integration with any traffic system, and graphical device control.
Instead of using PCs for real-time automation processing, machine control, or database management, MicroFirst handles all of these activities on a specially designed embedded hardware platform (MPC 3200), running the company's real-time OS (WinMOS). This environment removes the vagaries associated with Windows and reduces the OS boot up/down time to 10 seconds.
In addition to its own OS, MicroFirst has developed its own automation processing software and its own application GUI software. The AP is the heart of the DAS, which includes automation processors, commonly called device controllers, that can control hundreds of devices for recording, playback and routing.
The company will also demonstrate its near line control software providing economical and hierarchical storage and retrieval between a NAS (network attached storage) and a video file server.
Microfirst will also show the MPC 3200 processing platforms, which provide real-time mission critical operation for the automation processing software in a 1 RU box, powered by a Motorola PowerPC processor. It provides frame-accurate serial machine control for up to 32 serially controlled devices. It also has two Ethernet ports, multiple types of memory, a 30 GB hard drive, keypad, and LCD and LED indicators.
MicroFirst also offers an optically isolated 16-in-by-16-out General Purpose Interface product.
MicroFirst Engineering Inc. will be in booth SU727.
