CHAMPAIGN, Ill.—Cobalt Digital announced enhancements for its broadcast-grade 9992 encoder and decoder family of openGear card modules.

The company has enhanced the 9992-ENC encoder with a new built-in frame synchronizer to ensure the encoder continues to run, either with a flat field or the last good frame, in the event video is lost, it said Adding the frame sync to the HEVC encoder eliminates downstream glitches due to input signal loss issues, such as unsynchronized video switches. The feature is provided at no additional charge, the company said.

Cobalt Digital also has incorporated support for Dolby AC-4 (the audio codec specified for ATSC 3.0 deployments in North America) into its 9992-DEC decoder, a software-defined, multistandard decoder for MPEG-2, AVC H.264 and HEVC H.265 with resolutions up to 4K, the company said.

The 9992-DEC, which supports multiple audio decoding capabilities, is now equipped with the ability to decode and pass through Dolby AC-4 as well as display AC-4 metadata. Users may select which audio presentation to decode. If there is an associated channel, users can control how the 9992-DEC mixes the main presentation, it said.

The company also has added Dolby-E decoding support to the decoder. The card simultaneously decodes all programs from a Dolby-E stream, outputs them as SDI embedded channels and displays associated metadata.

More information is available on the company’s website.

NEW YORK—Cobalt Digital will showcase a number of its card-based solutions for openGear frames, including its new 9992-DEC Series of HEVC/AVC/MPEG-2 decoders. A companion technology to the company’s 9992-ENC Series of encoders, the flexible 9992-DEC Series supports up to 4K resolution with audio decoding capabilities. Plus, its pay-as-you-go licensing means users only pay for required features when needed. The series includes the 9992-2DEC dual-channel decoder, as well as the 9992-DEC-4K-HEVC with single-channel 4K or dual-channel 2K and support for H.265.

Cobalt also will demonstrate its new SafeLink software, which protects the transport of live video and audio data over unsecure networks. Through the use of the RIST protocol, the company says SafeLink eliminates video glitches and provides reliable video transport, even in live production environments that may experience network delay. SafeLink supports a variety of compression standards and up to eight discrete transmit and receive paths. The software can be installed on most computers or Cobalt’s openGear OG-PC-x86 platform, and is controlled through Cobalt’s DashBoard control and monitoring application.

For HDR content, the new SL-HDR Decoder feature for the 9904-UDX-4K provides SDR-to-HDR conversion using SL-HDR technology, which allows broadcasters to distribute SDR and HDR content over the same signal. Once an SDR signal has been processed through Cobalt’s SL-HDR Encoder, the SL-HDR Decoder software uses the metadata within the signal to reconstruct an HDR picture for compatible devices.

Attendees will find Cobalt in booth N531. NAB Show New York runs Oct. 16–17 at the Javits Center.

AMSTERDAM—Cobalt Digital has a handful of new products in its openGear line that offer support for 4K and HDR that will be shown during the upcoming 2019 IBC Show in Amsterdam. Among its products include decoders, encoders, RIST Main Profile, bi-directional SDR/HDR converters, multiviewers and distribution amplifiers.

One of the highlights from Cobalt will be its new 9992-DEC series of HEVC/AVC/MPEG-2 decoders for openGear. Similar to the 9992-ENC encoders, the 9992-DEC features pay-as-you-go licensing. It also features support for resolution up to 4K and has a complement of audio decoding capabilities. The 9992-DEC series includes the 9992-2DEC dual-channel decoder and the 9992-DEC-4K-HEVC with single-channel 4K or dual-channel 2K and support for H.265.

Cobalt will also use the IBC Show to debut its support for the RIST Main Profile, which adds features such as encryption (DTLS or PSK), tunneling, NAT traversal, point-to-multipoint distribution, low bit rate optimization and ST-2110 transport.

Additional products that will be on display at the Cobalt stand include the 9904-UDX-4K up/down/cross converter for generating dynamic metadata when converting HDR to SDR and back to SDR to preserve full HDR picture information; new versions of the 9971 series of multiviewers with added dual outputs and user controls; the new 9915 series of DAs that support 4K 12G-SDI sources; a new 12G-SDI openGear routing card with a 12x12 routing matrix; and SafeLink, an openGear system that can take in multiple transport streams and provide a RIST wrapper to protect video links between two points.

The 2019 IBC Show will run from Sept. 13-17. Cobalt will be located at stand 10.B44.