TV Tech: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2026 NAB Show?

Mo Goyal: The biggest trend this year is simple: How do you create more value from a single live event?

Content owners are under pressure to produce more diverse content, deliver personalized feeds across multiple platforms, and maximize monetization—all at the same time. Audiences still want the “big game” experience, but they also expect something tailored to them—whether they’re in the stadium, at a watch party, at home or following along with a favorite creator online.

And personalization is going far beyond highlights. Fans want control—choosing camera angles, following specific players or diving deeper into moments that matter to them. Ultimately, it’s about telling more stories from the same event.

That creates real challenges. Traditional production workflows weren’t built for this level of scale and flexibility, and balancing innovation with cost is critical. What we’re seeing now is a shift toward rethinking the entire workflow—from camera to screen—with smarter, more efficient tools that make this level of personalization achievable.

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

MG: At NAB Show, our focus is on unifying our technologies to help customers solve these challenges end to end.

We’re showcasing how ENX, BRAVO Studio and evertz.io STREAM come together as a single production ecosystem. ENX provides a high-performance IP fabric to move live signals seamlessly. BRAVO Studio enables producers to turn one event into multiple tailored productions. And evertz.io STREAM extends that capability into the cloud for scalable distribution and personalization.

Together, this allows content creators to deliver viewer-specific experiences from a single live source—maximizing engagement, reach and revenue across every platform.

For the U.S. market specifically, the upcoming C-band transition is another major driver of change. Broadcasters will need to rethink traditional satellite-based distribution. We’re addressing that with XPS, Reflektor, and evertz.io XChange—a fully IP and cloud-based alternative that delivers secure, scalable, low-latency transport over managed networks and the public cloud.

This approach not only reduces reliance on satellite infrastructure but also opens up new opportunities like dynamic market switching and more flexible monetization models—turning a regulatory shift into a modernization opportunity.

TV Tech: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

MG: For us, it really comes down to unification.

Evertz has long been known for its leadership in hardware and IP infrastructure—from switching fabrics to edge devices to timing. At the same time, we’ve been at the forefront of cloud playout, helping customers adopt both full cloud and hybrid models.

What’s unique is that we bring these worlds together. We span content creation, distribution, and monetization within a single ecosystem, allowing customers to rethink their entire workflow and deploy faster.

That said, this isn’t a closed system. We know no single vendor has every piece. That’s why we’ve built our platform on open standards like SMPTE ST 2110, NMOS, SRT, and RIST. This gives customers a strong, flexible foundation that integrates easily with best-of-breed partner solutions.

TVT: What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year?

MG: This will be my 20th NAB Show, and it still doesn’t disappoint.

It’s one of the few places where the entire industry—customers, partners and vendors—comes together to solve real challenges. Some are small and practical, others require completely new approaches, but the collaboration is what makes it special.

And honestly, it’s also where ideas turn into reality. You see where the industry is going, but more importantly, you see how to get there.

Monitoring audio and video content in today’s increasingly complex media environment requires more flexibility than ever. Fortunately, broadcasters’ adoption of IP and the cloud have brought that flexibility to a more reasonable integration level and price point.

As production environments evolve, the role of multiviewers continues to expand, according to Ketan Patel, product manager, multiviewer systems for Evertz. “Today’s multiviewers must handle a wide variety of signal types—compressed and uncompressed, IP and SDI—and operate seamlessly across both on-prem and cloud infrastructures,” he says.

With more operations adopting the SMPTE 2110 IP protocol, demand is increasing, Patel added. “Evertz has deployed over 600 SMPTE ST 2110 systems globally, many of which feature our high-density ev670-X30-HW-V2 modular platform and the ultra-high-density PREFEX multiviewer system.”

Michael Demb, vice president of product strategy for TAG, agreed that having flexibility across both cloud and on-prem is paramount in today’s multiviewer platforms.

“Multiviewers are evolving from passive displays into active operational hubs, central to how media teams manage software-defined workflows today,” he said. “As infrastructures decentralize and scale dynamically across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments, multiviewers like TAG’s are becoming the front line for real-time insight, signal integrity validation, and workflow control.”

Saving Money
Budgetary pressures are also driving broadcasters’ demands, and whether they’re deployed in a full-cloud scenario or hybrid on-prem, multiviewers are becoming more versatile, according to John Mailhot, senior vice president, product management, at Imagine Communications.

“Operational and cost efficiencies are top of mind in today’s dynamic production operations,” he said. “Whether signal processing is done in the cloud or on-prem, the multiviewer plays a critical role in enabling operations teams to make fast, informed, content-critical decisions.

“A robust multiviewer system allows operators to quickly identify and resolve issues in real time—ultimately enabling the team to manage more signals across more productions,” Mailhot added. “As a result, multiviewers will continue evolving from passive display systems to active enablers of efficient, scalable media operations.”

Erling Hedkvist, sales and business development for manifold, said his company’s platform can provide the best of both cloud and on-prem worlds.

“One of our big differentiators is that our customers get the flexibility of software and virtualization but with the performance of dedicated hardware that the live production industry demands,” he said. “This gives them subframe latency and uncompressed, high-quality processing but also a service-based architecture where they can spin services up and down on-demand and that is self-healing in case of an underlying hardware issue.”

Hedkvist touts the “secret sauce” of manifold’s cloud-based live production system: “The underlying design of manifold CLOUD is built around a shared memory architecture,” he said. “Media is first written into memory, allowing multiple services [such as multiviewers, format converters, color correctors and codecs] to access and process that data directly rather than relying on traditional signal paths. This architecture decouples processing from format and frame rate, as services work on pixel data in memory.”

Lower Latency
Monitoring live production often requires making split-second decisions, something that remains top of mind when dealing with latency. Suzana Brady, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Cobalt Digital, said that even though the company’s UltraBlue SW-MV multiviewer is implemented in software on a PC platform, “it was designed with latency in mind.”

“For baseband inputs, the latency is around three frames to a screen, and less than that for a streaming output,” she said. “Scalability is provided by the PC platform, from lower-cost units for simple multiviewers to large platforms for units with lots of inputs and heads. There is a full-featured modern API to ease integration in complex workflows.”

The importance of integrating software-based multiviewing into live production platforms has been demonstrated through the flexibility offered by the cloud and IP, according to Evertz’ Patel.

“All [Evertz] platforms are designed to be part of a unified system, enabling operators to build highly dense, format-agnostic monitoring solutions across 3G, UHD, compressed and uncompressed feeds,” Patel said. “Whether it’s for native IP, hybrid or SDI workflows, users can scale according to their operational requirements without compromising quality or latency.”

When it comes to the variety of high-resolution formats, including HDR, vendors have adopted a format-agnostic approach and upped their processing power.

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content for Lawo, says the efficiency of the company’s HOME Multiviewer—available as a standalone solution and as part of Lawo’s HOME Apps ecosystem—is architected to consume less power, making monitoring more efficient.

“In combination with a .edge Hyper-Density SDI/IP Gateway and Processing unit, which can simultaneously receive and output SDI signals and generate smaller-resolution versions of video input signals, the HOME Multi­viewer can be used in a so-called intelligent workflow that uses no more than the absolutely required amount of network bandwidth for each PiP [picture in picture], based on its size, thus ensuring that the input bandwidth never exceeds the output bandwidth,” Sheck said, adding that such proxies are important when operating in a bandwidth-
restricted environment.

“UHD streams, for instance, comprise a lot more data than is needed for a small PiP; not having to downscale such PiP footage therefore means that fewer CPU cores are needed to process the information,” he said. “The allocation of the relevant proxy to each PiP/tile is handled automatically while the multiviewer head is being configured with the intuitive theWALL app.”

New Features
While multiviewing continues to evolve, vendors are continually adding new features that take advantage of the flexibility offered by IP and the cloud.

At IBC this month, Mediaproxy is introducing Instant Replay for live incident review along with the ability to monitor HTML content directly within mosaic outputs. Designed to streamline the process of incident investigation, Instant Replay allows broadcast operators and engineers to instantly review incidents that occur during live broadcasts.

“Being able to have high-quality instant replay within our ecosystem of monitoring tools will significantly reduce the time it takes to investigate and clear on-air incidents,” says Erik Otto, Mediaproxy CEO. “The addition of HTML data panels in both our interactive server-side multiviewers further underline our commitment to solving real-world problems for customers today.”

Lawo is taking its HOME Video Monitor app out of the facility and making it more accessible to operators, according to Scheck.

“With its HOME Video Monitor app, Lawo is about to launch a solution that allows users to monitor video feeds on their laptops and mobile devices, which is extremely useful for busy operators who quickly need to check something on their way to a different location,” he says. “While this may not be a replacement for a full-blown multiviewer, it may be practical for certain workflows.”

What About AI?
Vendors are taking the same cautious approach towards implementing artificial intelligence into their multiviewing platforms as their customers are.

TAG is actively exploring the potential of adding AI as part of its long-term innovation road map. “We’re engaged in early-stage development to evaluate how technologies like Multimodal AI and agentic AI could support operational efficiency, simplify workflows, and enhance the monitoring experience,” Demb said, adding that “any future capabilities will be designed to augment—not replace—human decision-making, and to serve the real-world needs of our customers.”

There are no immediate plans for manifold to integrate AI into its multi­viewer line, the company says. In fact, “we recently signed a significant contract with a major U.K. broadcaster that explicitly prohibits the inclusion of AI in the deliverables,” Hedkvist says. “[This is] a clear sign that there’s still hesitation among Tier-1 customers when it comes to unsupervised AI in live production workflows.”

Scheck concurs that the jury is still out when it comes to adopting AI.

“Lawo’s HOME Multiviewer comes equipped with a flexible logic system for alarm and tally functions to allow users to catch errors in a timely fashion and remain in control,” he says. “Whether AI could play a part in this is certainly worth investigating, even though a deterministic approach based on algorithms and real-world experience may be hard to beat for some time to come.”

Scheck adds that some operators are taking multiviewing to another level.

“One of our customers now operates OB trucks that are no longer equipped with multiviewer walls; the screens have been replaced by Apple Vision Pro headsets,” he says. “From what we have heard, getting used to them was rather straightforward, and operators in those trucks like the thrill of working with flexible cutting-edge tools and increasingly consider multiviewer walls as somewhat ‘old-school.’ ”

Nevertheless, all the bells and whistles being added to multiviewers don’t take away the essential role of the technology, according to Cobalt’s Brady.

“We don’t see the fundamental role of multiviewers changing in live broadcast, their purpose has remained consistent since the early days of television,” she says. “What is changing is the scale, quality, and accessibility of multiviewing in modern, software-defined infrastructures.”

BURLINGTON, Canada—EvertzAV, a division of Evertz Microsystems, has announced that it will unveil a new family of MMA25G IPMX-Ready Gateways at InfoComm 2025, set for June 11 to 13 in Orlando, Florida.

Purpose-built for high-performance UHD media workflows, these gateways deliver unprecedented flexibility, powerful JPEG XS and RAW processing, and seamless interoperability between Pro AV and Broadcast environments, the company reported.

“We are proud to announce the introduction of our new IPMX-Ready family of MMA25G devices,” said Paulo Francisco, vice president of engineering at EvertzAV. “Interoperable with SMPTE ST 2110-20 and -22, and under the control of our industry-leading MAGNUM-OS orchestration platform, these gateways enable the bridging of Broadcast and Pro AV domains under a unified single control system.”

The company described its key features as follows:

• On-the-fly JPEG XS and RAW processing for pristine UHD (4K60/4:4:4) video.
• Configurable transport—dual 25 GbE or single 25 GbE with full redundancy.
• Up to dual IP encode and dual IP decode, depending on the model.
• Live transcoding for backwards compatibility with MMA10G, simplifying the expansion of legacy systems.
• Seamless SMPTE ST 2110-20 and ST 2110-22 interoperability, aligned with IPMX standards.

With live transcoding capabilities, the MMA25G gateways empower operators to receive RAW 4K60/4:4:4 streams, transcode to JPEG XS, and route signals to existing MMA10G or other JPEG XS-capable IPMX-Ready devices, ensuring seamless integration with both modern and legacy infrastructures and removing barriers to adopting next-generation AVoIP technology.

The MMA25G line integrates with MAGNUM-OS, Evertz’s robust orchestration, monitoring and control solution. MAGNUM-OS provides unified, secure and intuitive management across MMA25G, MMA10G, and third-party devices, streamlining operations and improving reliability for complex media workflows, the company explained.

Building on EvertzAV’s expertise in IPMX development and its extensive MMA10G heritage, the MMA25G family exemplifies Evertz’s ongoing commitment to standards-based, future-ready solutions as an active member of the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) and a contributor to the IPMX standard.

EvertzAV will be in Booth 1910 at InfoComm. To book an appointment with the EvertzAV team, email avsales@evertz.com.

More information is available on the EvertzAV (https://av.evertz.com) and Evertz Microsystems (https://www.evertz.com) websites.

During its NAB Show press conference, Mo Goyal, senior director, international business development, live production for Evertz, emphasized how its technology helps media companies create, deliver and capitalize on their content. 

“It’s about enhancing elements that help [broadcasters] not only create the stories, but move the stories around the facility, help them finalize that story and then deliver that story to the end users,” he said.

New products launched at the show included the FRCX-2000 Real Time Live Frame Rate Conversion, which can move content between 50 Hz and 59.94 Hz.

“This helps us bridge the gap between North America and Europe and Asia, and be able to move content very quickly and do it in a live form,” Goyal said. 

“With our FRCX-2000, we can now handle not only SDI but 12G SDI and UHD, as well as doing conversion for IP facilities, both in the uncompressed world of SMPTE ST 2110 as well as the compressed world of HEVC or H.264,” he added.

Goyal also discussed the development of the JPEG XS codec and how it is becoming critical for live sports production. 

“We see JPEG XS as a very critical part of remote production, moving signals from point A to point B,” he explained. “There are a number of advantages to taking that approach. 

JPEG XS is a very versatile codec, meaning that it can be deployed in both a hardware application or hardware solution, as well as software, and we still don’t give up the quality or the latency,” he said.

© NAB

BURLINGTON, Canada—Italian broadcaster Mediaset S.p.A has teamed up with Evertz to design, deploy and successfully launch Mediaset’s next-generation channel origination and playout solution. The solution is a comprehensive, low latency and fully SMPTE ST-2110-based design, utilizing Evertz Mediator automation/MAM, Overture-RT-LIVE integrated playout servers, MAGNUM-OS orchestration, VUE control interfaces and more, to deliver superior efficiencies across Mediaset’s broadcast operations.

The system design delivers exceptional resilience by adopting a highly distributed architecture within and across, multiple sites while maintaining full synchronization, Evertz said. Supporting over 26 channels, the system delivers advanced features and functions supporting highly dynamic live Sports/News channels, in addition to thematic channels. Mediator provides system automation but also advanced MAM functions to streamline and automate content ingest, quality control and scheduling workflows for a multitude of different content types and signal sources.

With its ability to support on-premise, cloud and hybrid architectures, the solution provides future-proofing that will allow Mediaset to drive business transformation by leveraging the underlying technology stack as its business evolves over time, according to the broadcaster.

“We are extremely pleased with the flexibility, agility and scalability of the Evertz solution,” said Maurizio Raffaeli, Director of Broadcast TV Technology at Mediaset. “This was a fast-moving project requiring collaboration across multiple teams at Evertz and Mediaset. Over the course of just 18 months, we have completely transitioned to IP and streamlined both operations and facilities while delivering a better control plane for operations at the same time.”

"This modernization marks a significant milestone in Mediaset's journey towards a more agile and future-ready broadcast infrastructure," said Mario Ailano, Head of Broadcast Operations at Mediaset. "The integration of Evertz's cutting-edge technology has not only enhanced our operational efficiency but also provided us with the flexibility to adapt to the rapidly evolving media landscape. Our teams can now deliver content with greater precision and reliability, ensuring that our viewers continue to enjoy the highest quality experience across all platforms."

“We thank Mediaset for the opportunity to partner with them”, said Dan Turow, SVP of Media Distribution and CIO at Evertz, “Their innovative and forward-thinking approach has enabled the deployment of a very powerful system delivering industry-leading features/functions, resilience and operational efficiencies.”

BURLINGTON, Canada, and SÃO PAULO, Brazil—Record, a free-to-air television network in Brazil, is poised to transform its digital content delivery with a strategic move into streaming linear TV and direct-to-consumer (DTC) content to drive its monetization goals.

Record is launching a state-of-the-art streaming solution to power its PlayPlus application to deliver superior video quality and seamless streaming driven by Evertz.io.

The Evertz.io cloud-native software-as-a-service (SaaS) playout platform supports custom Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming via HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology and a multichannel dashboard. The solution provides for live inputs, video and audio mixing, multilanguage captioning and branding and graphics. It integrates SCTE markers into content for seamless live-event transitions and offers a user-friendly interface that makes content import simple, Evertz said.

The new solution features a custom ABR HLS ladder for optimal video quality. Its centralized dashboard makes it possible to manage multiple channels. It also supports automated live-event transitions, the company said.

The design of Evertz.io allows for rapid deployment and scaling of additional channels, tailored to meet the needs of Record’s diverse audience, it said.

“Evertz.io's solution delivers significant operational advantages,” Record technical project manager Antônio Carlos Sobrinho said. “The multichannel dashboard enables efficient monitoring and management, while SCTE Taker Service enhances the viewer experience with automated transitions. Rapid development and deployment, meeting tight deadlines, further underscore evertz.io's capability to meet high standards.”

Record places a strategic focus on monetizing content and plans to use Evertz.io’s dynamic ad insertion, customized to network conditions and viewer preferences. Working with the solution has streamlined channel launches and management, said Evertz.

Record plans to roll out 21 more channels and to integrate evertz.io with an automation system to enable new channel management possibilities and advance its monetization goals, it said.

Media technology solutions provider and systems integrator CIS Group is assisting Record in this transformation. “As a key partner in this transformation, CIS Group is excited to be involved in Record’s transition to cloud-based playout technology. evertz.io’s scalable and efficient solution, combined with our industry expertise, ensures Record’s success in expanding its digital reach while maintaining top-tier operational control,” Felipe Andrade, vice president of sales at CIS Group, said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—Thunder City Productions, a design and installation company here, incorporated key production technology from Evertz, as well as solutions from Sony and Calrec, into a mobile production unit (MPU) for Florida Atlantic University used for live content broadcast on ESPN+.

The BOLT Series MPU, launched last year, is available as a 16-, 24- or 32-foot unit. Customers can select a predesigned floor plan, a preintegrated unit or a truck specifically designed and built for them.

“BOLT came about because many of our clients were looking for smaller production vehicles that were more cost-effective to build and run, and easier to transport around the country,” production designer and Thunder City Pro CEO Justin Stancil said. “As very few companies were addressing this market, we decided to launch BOLT with a view to improving on what was already out there.”

FAU chose a 32-foot trailer and Thunder City Pro—in conjunction with its production company, Digital Wave Productions—specified, ordered and installed the equipment. FAU uses the production truck to televise its sports teams’ away games and to generate revenue through hire. It also is used to teach students enrolled in FAU’s Multimedia and Production programs.

The unit is now being used to capture content across several sports, including baseball, soccer and basketball.

“We worked closely with FAU to ensure that the MPU met FAU requirements and ESPN+’s technical specifications,” he said. “FAU wanted five cameras, seating and workstations for up to 10 people and high-quality, industry-standard equipment so that students could train on technology they will find in the real world. We also had to make sure that the unit was 3G 1080p and 4K/HDR-ready for the future.”

Evertz supplied key technology for FAU’s new mobile unit, including a DreamCatcher DC-ONE system with two DC-RCP10 controllers, a NEXX 64 x 64 embedding and de-embedding 12G-SDI router controlled by MAGNUM-OS and an 5700MSC-IP Grand Master clock and video sync generator.

“The DreamCatcher DC-ONE is industry-standard for live shows at this level,” Stancil said. “I am very accustomed to working with DreamCatcher and the Evertz MAGNUM orchestration platform, to the point where I refuse to use anything else.”

The Evertz DC-ONE is an 8-channel replay system with 7.68 TB of continuous loop recording that supports 720p, 1080i, and 1080p video formats. Features include slow-motion replay, live steaming between networked systems, clip creation, clip naming, metadata tagging, playlist creation and editing, audio editing, internal audio routing, content import and export, content transcoding and searching and one-touch zooming, the company said.

The university’s MPU is equipped with on-board Network Attached Storage (NAS). Because this can be mounted on the DC-ONE as a drive, operators can quickly import and export clips and graphics, Evertz said.

“Being able to access pre-pro elements, such as clips and graphics via the NAS, without having to mark in and out or clip everything saves so much time,” Stancil said. “It is a very precise, self-sustaining system, and its ability to access the NAS and all other devices that are connected to it was super important to us.”

The Evertz NEXX router on the trailer operates with MAGNUM-OS orchestration software. It is capable of embedding and de-embedding on every input, handling Multichannel Audio Digital Interface (MADI) inputs and outputs, generating multiviewers and supporting processing functions such as frame syncing and format conversion, Evertz said.

“The density was more than twice that of other routers we were considering,” Stancil said. “We can have four multiviewers per card, and we don’t lose critical I/O resources by having to reinsert multiviewers. We can route any multiview in the router to any output we want.”

FAU’s MPU is also equipped with an Evertz 5700MSC-IP Grand Master clock and video sync generator, which has the GPS component needed to synchronize the unit’s SMPTE ST 2110 audio console, Evertz said.

LONDON, BERGEN, Norway, NEW YORK and BURLINGTON, Canada—ATP Media, the global media and distribution arm of professional tennis' ATP Tour, has entered into a multi-year strategic partnership with Play Anywhere for interactive tennis graphics.

“We are honored to partner with ATP Media to bring enhanced consumer experiences to viewers while ensuring that all parties in the value chain are remunerated, helping to expand the Play Anywhere ecosystem as a global standard," said Yaacov Ben-Yaacov, CEO of Play Anywhere.

The agreement establishes Play Anywhere as the exclusive provider of contextual and monetizable interactive experiences across all of ATP Media’s broadcast and streaming distribution worldwide.

Based on Play Anywhere’s interactive rights framework, the partnership enables ATP Media to provide engaging interactive experiences powered by official data from Tennis Data Innovations (TDI) to fans worldwide while ensuring that production quality is preserved through the Play Anywhere compliance platform. The system includes the front-end television-quality interactive graphics engine of Evertz-owned Ease Live, Evertz said.

Play Anywhere will be offered to ATP Media’s worldwide broadcast partners and launched via its direct-to-consumer streaming service Tennis TV, across both linear and digital distribution.

“Our collaboration with ATP Media and Play Anywhere will revolutionize the tennis fan experience globally,” said Kjetil Horneland, CEO of Ease Live. “Our interactive graphics platform integrates seamlessly with existing broadcast and sports data workflows, giving ATP Media the scalability to engage audiences worldwide. By delivering interactive overlays across the screens, we help ATP Media foster deeper connections with fans and open new avenues for monetization automated by Play Anywhere."

The partnership follows Play Anywhere’s launches with LALIGA and at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Play Anywhere’s LALIGA launch has engaged sports fans around the world, and its Olympics interactivity was enjoyed by viewers in over a dozen countries across more than 30 sports. This partnership with ATP Media further cements Play Anywhere’s position as the leader in interactivity compliance and monetization, Evertz said.

“We are very excited to partner with Play Anywhere and Ease Live. We are impressed with their best-of-breed interactivity, their field-tested and cutting-edge clearinghouse platform, and their creative approach to identifying new revenue streams for content owners, rightsholders and other participating stakeholders in the sports broadcast and streaming ecosystem, while always ensuring that we can control the production quality through their unique compliance platform,” said ATP Media CEO Mark Webster.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Remote production has helped improve media companies’ bottom line ever since it went from being a “want to have” before 2020 to a “need to have” in this post-pandemic world. By now, many of us have become more aware of the advantages of producing live events remotely but they bear repeating: cost savings, flexibility and scalability, access to a wider pool of talent and improved collaboration that leads to more seamless productions that can, in turn lead to increased viewership.

In our latest Guide to Remote Production, we offer insight and case studies that will help you better understand the trends and management techniques that are making remote media production a reality for more broadcasters than ever before.

Click here to download your free copy.

Missed any of our recent product news? Here is TV Tech's weekly wrap-up of new products, services and deployments we published in our newsletter between August 19 to August 23. The stories are listed from the newest on Friday August 23, day by day back to our stories from Monday August 19.

Dish Business Launches News Evolve M2 Set Top Box for Hotels

Evolve M2 allows hoteliers, senior living facilities and others to update internal systems and tailor settings and apps available to guests on each property.

Nugen Audio to Celebrate 20th Anniversary at IBC 2024

From the outset, Nugen Audio has been fully focused on providing solutions to real-life problems and will be highlighting new solutions during the show.

PilotDesk and LG Ad Solutions Ink New Long-Term Ad Tech Deal

As part of the agreement, YieldPilot will optimize and streamline ad inventory with automated yield optimization for publishers.

Three Reasons Why Brazil’s TV 3.0 Decision Matters Here

What does the accomplishment mean to U.S. broadcasters grappling with the myriad of challenges the voluntary transition to 3.0 has created?

Multiple Trends Driving Dynamic KVM Market for M&E

With the industry’s move to IP, lower latency, more flexibility in the offing.

Revolutionizing Broadcast Production Models With Dante

Access to Dante in the cloud allows broadcasters to rethink how they approach audio production.

Evertz to Focus on Software Defined Video Networking at IBC 2024

Company’s SDVN solution targets media companies moving to IP or expanding all-IP infrastructures using SMPTE ST 2110 and NMOS.

Yospace To Showcase Dynamic Ad Insertion Developments At IBC 2024

The company’s technology powered delivery of 10 billion ads on four continents this summer.

SDVI to Feature Latest Rally Access Workstation Developments at IBC 2024

Rally enables anywhere, anytime access to hosted edit workstations and content in the cloud.

Actus Digital To Highlight Compliance, Monitoring Product Developments At IBC 2024

The company will showcase its technology and mark its 20th anniversary at the show.

Sony Electronics Unveils 4K Handheld Professional Camcorders with AI-Based Tools

The camcorders offer AI-based subject recognition autofocus, tracking, and auto framing.

RCN Colombia Leverages Zixi To Streamline Content Distribution To U.S. Affiliates

The Latin American broadcaster is using Zixi’s IP solution portfolio in place of satellite.

NAB Studio Deploys Unytalk Live Interactive Webcast Solution

The studio is using the solution to produce and broadcast interactive content.

You Can Now Smell Your TV Programs for Just $180

Elevated Perceptions has launched “MovieScent,” an AI-powered device that the company says releases real-time scents based on events and environments within movies, TV shows, televised sporting events and streams.

Chyron To Feature Latest Enhancements for PRIME, PAINT and LIVE At IBC 2024

The company will show a new Chyron PRIME playout workflow that simplifies operation.

Mo-Sys To Feature MoViewer Multi-Camera Virtual Production Preview Solution At IBC 2024

MoViewer eliminates the need for per-camera render nodes.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will show the latest updates to its Software Defined Video Networking solution at the 2024 IBC Show at the RAI Amsterdam, Sept. 13-17.

Among the new additions are a small form factor network and analog timing module—the MIO-PTP—which is ideally suited to broadcast and telecom networks. MIO-PTP can be deployed in both baseband and IP-based networks to provide timing synchronization a root leader, boundary, or to extend timing over a WAN to locations that do not have a synchronization source (e.g. GPS).

Also on show at IBC 2024 is NATX-LT, a next generation network fabric that offers a cost-effective entry point for both core or aggregation requirements in any media facility or mobile deployment. Fully integrated with Evertz' MAGNUM-OS, NATX-LT switch fabric offers flexible, format agnostic and scalable infrastructure options, allowing seamless routing for SMPTE ST 2110 and other media standards with standard SFP or QSFP Interfaces, Evertz said.

In addition to NATX-LT, Evertz is introducing its new PREFEX Media Processing Edge (MPE). The company says the ultra-high-density platform offers the industry’s highest encapsulation IP gateway, along with the video processing features that are commonly required when transitioning from SDI to ST 2110. This fully featured MPE has the power and flexibility to handle tasks such as frame sync, up/down/cross conversion, and audio shuffling – all in a compact 1RU package.

For bulk signal processing and conversion, Evertz will be releasing the new up/down/cross conversion app for the ev670-X30-HW-V2. This app will feature up/down/cross conversion (up to UHD), interlace support, HDR conversion using LUT (selectable), video processing, video and audio delay adjustments, and audio grooming (4x4, 2x8, and 1x16 combinations).

Evertz will also be showing new features and advanced tools for MAGNUM-OS, a comprehensive orchestration, monitoring and analytics platform for SDI, IP, or hybrid facilities. Positioned at the heart of Evertz’ SDVN solution, MAGNUM-OS simplifies workflows, reduces operational costs, and increases efficiency by allowing broadcasters to connect facilities, resources, and devices together within a city, country or globally, according to the company. MAGNUM-OS also supports hybrid workflows where devices or resources are located on premise or in cloud (public or private).

Among the many critical features that MAGNUM-OS offers is support for third party devices over NMOS and direct APIs. This allows MAGNUM-OS to discover and register third party devices using IS-04 and move flows between devices using IS-05 as connection management. MAGNUM-OS also provides control of network switches that include (but not limited to) Evertz EXE and NATX, Cisco, Arista, and cloud-based swxtch.io. It manages the link bandwidth between the discovered edge devices and the network switches to ensure reliable switching of ST 2110 flows.

In addition to advanced control and orchestration, MAGNUM-OS provides comprehensive monitoring and real-time analytics. MAGNUM-OS includes tools that include PTP traffic and network monitoring and IP-flow tracking over the IP networks for unprecedented visibility in the broadcast media industry, within and between facilities. For IBC 2024, Evertz will be introducing an updated AI/ML log anomaly detection features called LogSNAP, which builds on the real-time analytics in MAGNUM-OS to perform detection based on learned model to identify root causes for issues based on logs.

Evertz will be in Stand 2.B51 at the show. For more information, visit https://show.ibc.org/.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will show its NEXX next-generation processing and routing solution for use in broadcast facilities, OB trucks, venues and stadiums at the 2024 NAB Show, April 13-17, in Las Vegas.

The compact solution built for 3G/12G-SDI with the ability to support users when they transition to IP, NEXX offers broadcast facilities access to 4K UHD and HDR. Supporting SD/HD/3G/6G/12G data rates, the fully passive solution provides a clear pathway to future IP expansion, allowing customers to effortlessly transition to SMPTE ST 2110 and adopt more cloud services as part of their workflow, Evertz said.

“Flexibility is key to the success of NEXX, and the reason why it is proving popular with so many broadcast facilities and OB trucks around the world,” said Joshua Vanarnhem, Evertz product manager for routers. "With its additional processing capabilities, uncompromised mono audio routing, more than one multiviewer option and ability to handle SDI and IP, this multifaceted router is incredibly versatile and can be tailored to suit every broadcaster’s needs.”

The NEXX processing and routing platform is now available as 5RU (384x384) and 3RU (96x96) options. Every NEXX offers fully redundant control and hot swappable components, fans and I/O modules, it said.

Supporting native full audio shuffling between embedded audio, MADI and TDM (for analog, AES and Dante), NEXX also comes with an integrated, penalty-free, software-enabled multiviewer with more than 40 pre-configured layouts, the company said.

This year the company will release NEXX-SCORPION module that takes advantage of Evertz’ SCORPION miniature I/O (MIO) modules. The additional support for these SCORPION MIO modules expands the NEXX I/O to interfaces beyond SDI and Ethernet to include Dante and HDMI more natively. The MIO-BLADE provides more granular flexibility by having different functions that process signals with compression—up, down, cross conversion, it said.

The company’s MAGNUM-OS controls NEXX. It provides common user interfaces, including traditional hardware router panels, virtual web-based control panels and VUE intelligent panels.

See Evertz at NAB Show booth SU2027.

More information is available on the company’s website.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz Technologies’ DreamCatcher Video Assistant Referee (VAR) platform has achieved certification status from the FIFA Quality Program for VAR technology, the company said today.

FIFA, the international governing body of association football (soccer), has implemented the FIFA Quality Program, which seeks to improve the game and protect the players, clubs and associations by endorsing products that comply with the highest safety and quality standards, it said.

Achieving FIFA Basic certification enables DreamCatcher VAR to be used during professional soccer competitions and by leagues and federations, enabling them to fulfill their VAR and VAR Light requirements over the next four years, it said.

"Attaining FIFA Quality Program certification for the DreamCatcher VAR platform is a testament to our relentless pursuit of excellence,” said Dominic Ventresca, company VAR product specialist. “We are honored to play a pivotal role in enhancing the integrity of football matches worldwide. This achievement exemplifies our commitment to pushing the boundaries of innovation and delivering solutions that empower the world of sports officiating.”

The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) and Hungarian Football Federation (MLSZ) currently use DreamCatcher VAR for video refereeing services for every match in their topflight pro leagues, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will show a range of products to assist broadcasters transition from capital expense-based business models to virtualized equivalents of broadcast hardware and an OPEX model with cloud-based workflows during IBC 2023, Sept. 15-18, at RAI Amsterdam.

Evertz will feature its Reflektor Software-as-a-Service media transcoding and distribution platform, which offers processing and transcoding in and from the cloud. Reflektor handles a wide range of signal formats, including MPEG-TS, NDI, SMPTE ST 2110, HLS and MPEG DASH, used in cloud-based transport and production, it said.

Reflektor supports multiple applications and serves as an on-boarding cloud gateway for secure, reliable transport protocols, such as SRT and RIST, and codecs, including H.264, HEVC and JPEG-XS, used in today’s remote contribution applications. It also can transcode incoming formats to handoff NDI and route SRT/RIST streams for cloud applications, the company said.

The solution uses licensed microservices, on-premise processing nodes or in the cloud, to normalize signal types to meet the needs of users or final applications, making it a well-suited cloud solution for UHD/4K field contribution, remote production, return-feed monitoring, remote collaboration and cloud production, it said. 

The company will also highlight new features for its XPS live 4K/UHD/3G/HD video encoder and decoder series, a real-time video streaming platform designed for mission-critical applications. New XPS features include SMPTE ST 2110 inputs and outputs, support for JPEG-XS using TR-07 and TR-08 and high bandwidth encode/decode for UHD contribution. The next-generation UHD live encoder platform supports SRT, RIST and Zixi, it said.

Evertz also will show its cVIP Evertz cloud-based multiviewer with new, additional monitoring of IP payloads using TR-101-290, SRT and RIST metrics.

See Evertz at IBC 2023 Stand 1.B79.

More information is available on the company’s website.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will show a range of solutions that are enabling broadcast facilities, OB trucks, venues and stadiums to leverage 4K and 8K UHD technology regardless of the signal type they are using during IBC 2023, Sept. 15-18, at RAI Amsterdam.

With more than 600 installations around the world, Evertz’ Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solution offers an end-to-end, format-agnostic solution for moving to IP on premise and in the public cloud and is advancing the industry’s transition to an all-IP infrastructure using SMPTE ST 2110 and NMOS, the company said.

At the heart of SDVN is MAGNUM-OS, an orchestration, monitoring and analytics platform for IP-based facilities that is designed to simplify workflows, reduce operational costs and increase efficiency, it said. 

The MAGNUM-OS architecture allows broadcasters to connect facilities, resources and devices together within a city, country or globally. MAGNUM-OS also supports hybrid workflows where devices or resources are located on premise or in cloud –whether public or private. MAGNUM-OS manages devices and flows within public cloud infrastructure, including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, and between cloud and broadcast facilities, it said. 

As a JT-NM tested NMOS Controller, MAGNUM-OS can discover and register third-party devices using IS-04 and move flows between devices using IS-05 as connection management. MAGNUM-OS also provides control of network switches, including Evertz EXE and NATX, Cisco, Arista and cloud-based swxcth.io. It manages the link bandwidth between the discovered edge devices and the network switches to ensure reliable switching of ST 2110 flows, it said.

For monitoring and analytics, Evertz offers MAGNUM-NMS and MAGNUM-ANALYTICS modules, which allow MAGNUM-OS to provide comprehensive integration with Evertz monitoring and data analytics technologies, it said.

At IBC 2023, Evertz will also be showing its EXE 3.0 and NATX-32/64-100G switch fabrics, which offer a flexible, format agnostic and scalable infrastructure for SD, HD, 3G and Ultra HD (4K and 8K) video, it said.

The company also will highlight processing and conversion applications (apps) for the ev670-X30-HW-2 virtualized media processing platform, which supports either 12G-SDI, ST 2110 or ST 2022-6, it said.

Building on the existing IP Multiviewer apps, these new apps enable multiple paths of frame synchronization and up/down/cross or SDR-to-HDR conversions on the ev670-X30-HW-2, Evertz said.

For more granular or modular 12G-SDI or IP signal processing and conversion, Evertz also will show the MIO-BLADE for the SCORPION Flexible Media Processing Platform, it said.

Evertz is showing its NEXX next-generation processing routing solution using 12G-SDI. It is a compact and robust product that provides a solution for broadcast facilities and OB trucks, it said.

See Evertz at IBC 2023 Stand 1.B79.

More information is available on the company’s website.  

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will feature full integration of its Studer brand Vista digital mixing consoles with its Evertz Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) platform as well as audio console support for SMPTE ST 2110 during IBC 2023, Sept. 15-18, at RAI Amsterdam.

Evertz, which acquired Studer in 2021, also has brought together Studer Vista and its DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio virtual production control, enabling users to produce high-quality live content quickly and easily at a lower cost, the company said.

The addition of Vista BRAVO provides virtual access to a full mixing console featuring all of Studer’s enhanced audio capabilities. Vista BRAVO gives users the flexibility needed to enhance audio whether they are working on-premise or via the cloud, it said.

Another innovation to the Studer Vista range is expanded Vista control using the Evertz VUE Intelligent User Interface. Now offering more than 2,000 bidirectional controls, the combination of Vista and VUE has created a tool well-suited for multiple small production suites and remote productions, it said.

“The amalgamation of VUE and Vista is remarkable,” says Paul Shorter, Studer-Evertz Audio Solutions product manager. “Its ease of use has been a paramount focus for the VUE interface, whilst retaining the power and flexibility of the Vista’s controls.”

New to the Studer Vista console range is the Video PFL (Pre-Fade-Listen) feature that maximizes the capabilities of Evertz MAGNUM OS orchestration, monitoring and analysis software. With Video PFL, audio operators can select an input to pre-fade while listening to the audio and seeing the accompanying video for that channel on the multiviewer in the audio control room. By allowing the video to follow the audio, Evertz gives engineers a visual representation of the audio on the PFL, thereby ensuring that the right source is always selected, the company said. 

Evertz will also show other developments for BRAVO Studio, including the new Highlight Factory, where clips and stories are automatically created using AI technology and published to Ease Live where users can pick their own highlights, it said.

See Evertz at IBC 2023 Stand 1.B79.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Evertz announced a number of new products, services and partnerships at a press conference ahead of the opening of the show, designed to help broadcasters manage, distribute and monetize content over an increasing array of services.

“Our customers not only want to know how they can integrate content cost-effectively and generate more content, but how they can monetize archives and keep audiences engaged,” said Mo Goyal, senior director for Evertz.

Among the highlights at its booth, Evertz is showing how its BRAVO Studio’s new “Highlight Factory” — where clips and stories are automatically created — uses AI to publish to Ease Live where users can pick their own highlights. The cloud will be a big focus for Evertz as it demos how its Mediator-X and OvertureRT-LIVE — available on Google Cloud — provide media companies enterprise-class and cloud-based playout and content management solutions. It is also showing its popular DreamCatcher platform operating in Google Cloud for ingest, playback, live editing and slow-motion replay. Evertz is also featuring evertz.io Stream, a streaming and playout SaaS for OTT, DTC and FAST services.

The company is celebrating the 75th anniversary of its Studer audio line, introducing Video PFL (Pre-Fade-Listen), a new feature for the Studer Vista that gives engineers enhanced capabilities, especially when working in a live environment.

NEW YORK—swXtch.io has announced that it will be working with several leading broadcast and IT brands at NAB Show 2023 to demonstrate five use cases showing how customers can quickly and efficiently realize the many business benefits that come with moving broadcast streams to the cloud.

swXtch.io and its cloudSwXtch platform will be featured in three booths (Microsoft, Evertz and TAG Video Systems), where representatives will demonstrate how cloudSwXtch enables such enterprise broadcast workflows as: 

• Channel Assembly and Distribution
• Network Path Redundancy
• Live Production with Precision Time Protocol (PTP)
• Remote Production Collaboration
• Cloud-Path Optimization with Multicast

“We are excited to show NAB attendees how they can use cloudSwXtch to quickly experience the many benefits that come with moving to the cloud,” said Brent Yates, CEO of swXtch.io. “These use-case demonstrations will show how businesses can efficiently manage large volumes of media workflows in ground-to-cloud and cloud-to-cloud applications using mission-critical applications running in the cloud.”

Available on leading cloud platforms, including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and AWS, cloudSwXtch deploys as a virtual machine with functional and performance parity to bare metal networks. Customers can easily add advanced features to support enterprise broadcast applications. This includes multicast, uncompressed video distribution, dynamic ground-to-cloud bridging, SMPTE 2022-7 hitless merge, global mesh networking, protocol fanout, and more without software code changes on the media application. 

The demos include: 

• swXtch.io at the Microsoft booth (W1259). cloudSwXtch will participate in a multi-vendor demonstration with Cinnafilm, Drastic Technology, and Evertz. The demo will show how the protocol fanout capability of cloudSwXtch can bridge on-premises infrastructure with cloud platforms for live streams and allow cloud endpoints to dynamically request on-prem content. Cinnafilm’s Tachyon Live is integrated within the cloudSwXtch platform enabling live stream standards conversion, such as motion compensated frame rate conversion and up/down/cross conversion in the cloud.  swXtch.io will also show PTP clock synchronization, expanded management and monitoring capabilities for all cloud production workflows. Specifically, integrated PTP capabilities will provide the accurate timing for live switching and video/audio synchronization demanded by live production and playout applications.   
• swXtch.io at the Evertz booth (N2225). swXtch.io will demonstrate how media content creators can access the same features, systems, and processes in the cloud that a dedicated on-prem infrastructure might provide. The demo will highlight cloudSwXtch’s new ground-to-cloud, or “dynamic bridging,” concept for PTP distribution in the cloud, enabling creation of world-class content anywhere there is access to the cloud. With swXtch.io, Evertz is showing the ability to extend PTP (SMPTE ST 2059-2) across the cloud. Using a primary PTP clock source (Evertz 5700MSC-IP) on premise, cloudSwXtch can distribute the PTP signals across the cloud to resources in the cloud and/or remote locations as sources to boundary clocks. MAGNUM-OS monitors and analyzes this PTP flows for performance and reliability. This service is a game changer for remote production applications where a reference clock source may be difficult to obtain. In addition, Evertz has integrated to cloudSwXtch’s open API, providing cloud network health monitoring not previously available and streaming control from on-prem to the cloud.
• swXtch.io at the TAG Video Systems booth (W1542). A joint demonstration with TAG Video Systems will provide insight into how cloudSwXtch can enable a more dynamic monitoring approach as media moves through the cloud to multiple endpoints. That includes reliable QC and live signal monitoring with PTP synchronization of video and audio streams. Visitors will also see how cloudSwXtch supports “by-exception” monitoring, which alerts operators that specific problems have been detected in video and/or audio feeds that require attention. The cloudSwXtch wXcked Eye user interface, new for NAB, provides an advanced user interface with detailed data visualization of network performance. TAG Video Systems will connect to the cloudSwXtch API to unlock complementary video monitoring applications in local, national, and global mesh network configurations, including several public cloud service providers.  

Book NAB onsite meetings and booth tours with swXtch.io at https://www.swxtch.io/nab-2023/. 

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz has announced the completion of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Foundational Technical Review (FTR) for its DreamCatcher replay solution for live production.  

The AWS FTR enables AWS Partners to identify and remediate risks in their products or solutions. Led by an AWS Partner Solutions Architect (PSA), the AWS FTR ensures that AWS Partner products and solutions meet a specific set of requirements based around security, reliability, and operational excellence, as defined by the AWS Well-Architected Framework, Evertz explained. 

With the AWS FTR accreditation, Evertz can review projects against AWS FTR requirements to adhere to best practices and ensure the best possible client experience, the companies reported. 

“We are extremely pleased to have completed the AWS Foundational Technical Review and to be working with AWS as one of the leading suppliers of cloud services in the Media and Entertainment space.” said Nima Malekmanesh, director of business development, live media solutions at Evertz. “Customers are starting to rapidly adopt managed cloud services as part of their strategy to migrate from on-premises solutions to optimized cloud solutions. DreamCatcher delivers the agility, flexibility and scalability that our customers need to quickly deliver the production of live events on a consistent basis. By being part of the AWS Partner Network we can further accelerate our customers’ journey to the cloud by ensuring our cloud-native products and solutions always adhere to best practices and deliver optimal excellence.”

With DreamCatcher, Evertz provides a live replay solution that enables productions to never miss a moment in any live game or live event. Production teams use DreamCatcher to create highlight clips and playlists that replay from multiple angles the critical moment of the game to enhance the storytelling. 

DreamCatcher has been architected to operate in software defined data centers (SDDC). The DreamCatcher architecture allows it to be scaled orthogonally for inputs, outputs and operators.  DreamCatcher supports mixed formats including 1080p HDR to 8K and offers additional services including Live Edit for quick turnaround and Metadata Co-pilot for auto clipping of highlights, the company reported. 

TV TECH: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2023 NAB Show?

MO GOYAL: The driving conversation at the 2023 NAB Show will be about content monetization. The industry continues to face challenges regarding consumers’ viewing habits. We’ve moved in a significant way from just linear television to multiple subscription services and free ad-support television (FAST) channels. But delivering these additional services can be costly.

The first shift has happened as media companies have consolidated facilities with IP. This has allowed them to pool resources more efficiently and create more content. Additionally, the adaptation of the cloud has enabled media companies to scale and address the content delivery to multiple platforms. 

The next challenge is audience engagement. Media companies will need to provide innovative solutions to engage the audience to keep them longer on their platforms, and returning to it. This can be done by using AR, VR or other technology to enhance the audience experience. For instance, we have our Ease Live platform that provides interactive overlays that has allowed our customers to add live game stats, watch parties and free-to-play games to engage the audience during a game.

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

GOYAL: This is a hard question. We have a wide range of products that can fit the bill. I’ll narrow it down to a couple. First, we’re excited to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Studer Audio. We acquired the legendary brand in 2021 and have been diligently working on updating the core to support ST 2110 and integrate the Vista product line with MAGNUM-OS and VUE. This year will see the relaunch of the Studer brand under Evertz, to compete in the audio mixing console market.

Next, the continual development of our BRAVO Studio to help content creators produce more unique live content for their various platforms. For the NAB Show, we’ll showcase further integration with Studer for enhanced audio, intro the “Highlight Factory” where clips and stories are automatically created using AI technology, and publishing to Ease Live where users can pick their own highlights.

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

GOYAL: In the case of BRAVO Studio, Studer and Ease Live it’s the integration from the edge device back to the production. The data we collect from user engagement (using Ease Live) can be fed back to the production team to create more personalized content for the end customer. In this case, BRAVO Studio uses the received metadata to curate specific highlights or clips and push back to the user via Ease Live interactive overlays. Essentially this gives users a unique collection of content based on their interactions.

TVT: NAB Show is celebrating its centennial this year. How many NAB Shows have you been to and do you have any particular standout memories of past shows?

GOYAL: Personally, this will be my 17th NAB. I still find it hard to believe that it’s been 17 years. The memories vary from our booth designs to the people that I’ve worked with, to the customers themselves. But, over the 17 years, the highlight was building our own data center in the middle of our booth and essentially assembling a broadcast facility using all IP. The entire booth demonstrations depended on this core working 100% and remaining up and running throughout the show. The power, the cooling and code updates were all challenges we had to meet because the NAB Show will always go on, with or without us. So, the push to get the full IP system running in time for the show was the most stressful, fulfilling and memorable NAB Show experiences I’ve had over the 17 years.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will spotlight Studer Audio, which it acquired in 2021, and the role enhanced plays in helping content creators produce more engaging live content at the 2023 NAB Show, April 15-19, in Las Vegas.

Since the acquisition, Evertz has focused on integrating the brand’s technology into its own live production workflows. This has resulted in advancements with Studer Vista digital mixing consoles, which now support SMPTE ST 2110, making them well-suited to the Evertz range of Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solutions, the company said.

Evertz will introduce its Video PFL (Pre-Fade-Listen), a new feature for the Studer Vista console range that gives engineers enhanced capabilities, especially when working in a live environment. Maximizing MAGNUM OS orchestration, monitoring and analysis software, Video PFL lets an audio operator select an input to pre-fade while listening to the audio and seeing the accompanying video for that channel on the multiviewer in the audio control room, it said.

The company also will show expanded Studer Vista control using the Evertz VUE Intelligent User Interface. Now offering over 2,000 bidirectional controls, the combination of Vista and VUE is well-suited for remote productions. In addition, Evertz has also brought all the power of Studer Vista to its DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio virtual production control suite with the introduction of Vista BRAVO, it said

Alongside its Live Media Production solutions for audio, Evertz will show new developments to BRAVO Studio, the collaborative, web-based live production platform that is redefining the creative experience for content creators and broadcasters, it said. 

Providing virtual access to all the services found in the traditional control room, BRAVO Studio is a simple, reliable and cost-effective platform that accesses live video and audio from remote locations over dedicated networks, 5G networks or public Internet. The platform ingests multiple live camera feeds; provides live video and audio mixing with transitions; multiple video overlays for picture on picture or multi-box looks; slow motion replays; clip playout; highlight clipping and packaging; multiple dynamic graphics layers; and multi-image display of sources and outputs on the user interface. 

At NAB, Evertz also will show BRAVO Studio’s new Highlight Factory, where clips and stories are automatically created using AI technology and published to Ease Live where users can pick their own highlights.  

See Evertz at NAB Show booth N2225.

More information is available on the company’s website.

OKLAHOMA CITY—After more than 60 years, Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV and parent company Griffin Media decided it was time to move to a new home with more capabilities. To manage the move to downtown Oklahoma City, they called on design-build systems integrator BeckTV.

“Working with BeckTV was a natural choice,” said Jack Mills, director of engineer for KWTV. “We’ve worked with them since the 1990s on multiple projects through the years. I appreciate working with them because of the quality of their work and expertise, from changing out a switcher to now having a new building."

Discussions about moving to a new building started almost three years ago, with KWTV engineering and design work by BeckTV starting in 2021. “There are a million things going on when building a new TV station, so the relationship needs to be efficient and productive,” said Brenden Cline, senior engineer and director of engineering for BeckTV. “We have meetings with Jack on design, technical requirements, space planning, and workflow. Giving us that information up front means we get that efficiency with Jack and with the manufacturers we’re dealing with. Seeing eye-to-eye on the technology and agreeing on how things should operate—that was exciting and the kind of projects that you want to do.”

What Do We Take?
Working with the architect and general contractor, BeckTV could verify the space fit and furniture design, pathways for cabling and AC, and low voltage requirements, while simultaneously building the equipment list and specifying equipment a year ahead of time. FX Design Group was responsible for set and lighting design, while Digital Video Group handled the monitor layout and set technology. Onsite integration work began in June 2022; after five months, one month was dedicated to rehearsals, commissioning, and shadowing master control leading up to the cutover day. 

Some of the decisions to be made were focused on what equipment to bring over from the existing facility, what would be purchased, and what might need to be borrowed during the transition. “We brought over our recent purchases, items that haven’t been depreciated yet,” said Mills. 

For example, KWTV has three Grass Valley LDX 90 Worldcams still on the books. Those were brought to the new facility’s news set, with Mills getting loaner cameras for the original building’s news set during the transition. Also moved were KWTV’s Dejero bonded cellular field systems, Vizrt system, master control servers, and 800 kW diesel generator.

While some equipment made the trip, KWTV did replace a lot of gear, Mills explained, because it was time to do so, anyway. 

New equipment included:

• Evertz routing with an integrated enterprise multiviewer and TDM audio router with integrated de-embedding
• Evertz master control switcher and airpath
• Clear-Com intercom with SIP for phone lines over IP 
• G&D KVM 
• Avid video production servers 
• Imagine Communications master control playout and automation systems 
• Three Ross XY camera robotics 
• Two Ross ACIDCams for the newsroom and greenscreen
• Two smaller Ross PTZ cameras for studio ceiling beauty shots 
• Image Video tally system 
• Sony XVS-7000 3 M/E production switcher and ELC automation systems 
• Calrec audio console
• Custom BeckTV consoles

The design of the news set, which is the same size as the set in the older facility, and the two-story open ceiling newsroom include a lot of LED screens. The newsroom features a large Daktronics LED screen that rotates art images and photos. The news studio has Philips LEDs on the anchor desk, LG LEDs behind the anchor desk, and Neoti LED panels for the wraparound weather desk. 

IP plays an important role by interconnecting the two facilities, which are 10 miles apart. “We kept a portion of the old building,” Mills explained. “We were able to keep those IP addresses, which was very helpful, with four dark fibers between the buildings, one for satellite, one for STL, and two for a 10-gig IP pipe.”

Strategic Communications
One of the keys to a successful live cutover is communications involving hours of strategic planning, coordination, installation, testing, training, and rehearsals. To ensure a smooth transition, BeckTV maintained a crew of two engineers and six technicians at the new site to install, commission, and support all new and repurposed systems. 

The project team, led by project engineer Abel Sassehagen, systems engineer Christian Ramirez, and lead technician Travis Peterson, with management assistance from TJ Beardsmore, met with Griffin Media and KWTV on a weekly basis to review and discuss the project schedule, focusing on BeckTV and KWTV deliverables and goals. “We were using so much gear from the old facility that we had to move,” Cline said. “We had to deal with loaners, new equipment with the scheduling of manufacturers’ commissioning, how and when to transition. But with great communication, everyone knew the status of the station.”

A simple homeowner moving task would become invaluable for the transition: tagging the status of the original equipment. “We had separate giant lists for master control and production control equipment," Cline explained, "with each piece and any dongles tagged as to when it would be removed from the rack and transported to the new building—specifically by week, day, hour, at cutover or after cutover.”

When the equipment arrived at the new building, the crew knew exactly where to start to stand up the gear. “Of course, getting integrated into the new system sometimes meant bypassing with barrels,” noted Cline. “Master control was first, with GPIs triggering all sort of secondary events so that it could mirror the original master control. Then we would focus on production control. Once stood up, production control gets fairly vetted with all the rehearsals.”

Cutover in 3, 2, 1...
During the transition period on Nov. 12-13, KOTV, KWTV's sister station in Tulsa, handled the Saturday night and Sunday morning newscasts. This gave Cline and his crew the opportunity to transport almost all of the rest of the gear, a big part of which was the weather system with its independent audio and storm trackers. Cutover was scheduled for the Sunday 10 p.m. newscast.

“We did it during the day and on-air, and it was really just switching a switch,” said Cline. “Since we were running in parallel and then switched to the new building, it was seamless to KWTV’s viewers—but we could also fall back if we needed to. That takes a lot of planning.” Additionally, KWTV’s new master control system is designed to be a master control hub to include KOTV in Tulsa.

“This was a fun project,” said Mills. “Of course, there were little fires, but all in all, a very enjoyable experience with BeckTV and all the other groups. It was interesting keeping everything running with all the contractors involved in the new building.”

Cline added that it’s “a little bit rare to work with people you worked with in the past and understand the process. Our product is delivering a good experience for the customer—typically the biggest project in their careers. We want them to feel comfortable and appreciate our people. But this one was special. I had a good time doing it.” 

This article originally appeared in TV Tech sister publication SCN.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will highlight a range of advanced solutions that encompass IP and 12G-SDI to advance live and remote media production at the 2023 NAB Show, April 15-19 in Las Vegas.  

For live media production, Evertz will showcase its DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio collaborative live switching platform, which gives operators a virtual environment that looks and feels like a traditional control room. This integrates seamlessly with new products such as the 22-fader Vista 1 Carbon compact console from Studer, a world leader in IP audio solutions.

For remote production, Evertz offers its XPS Live 4K/UHD/3G/HD Video Encoder & Decoder Series that gives broadcasters a real-time video streaming platform for mission-critical applications, and  Reflektor, Evertz’ Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) IP distribution platform for Cloud productions.

For those broadcast facilities that have a foot in both the IP and 12G-SDI environments, Evertz will demo several products that support both formats and provide a path to integrate future IP expansion. These include the NATX32/64–100G Network Address Translation router that expands Evertz’ high capacity IP switching platforms and delivers all the power of IP with the simplicity of SDI. In addition, Evertz’ MAGNUM OS orchestration, monitoring and analysis software—which lies at the heart of Evertz’ Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) portfolio of IP-based end-to-end solutions—supports both 12G-SDI and SMPTE ST 2110. 

For broadcast facilities and OB trucks operating in a 12G-SDI world, there is NEXX, Evertz’ next generation processing routing solution. This compact and robust product has a modular-based frame for maximum flexibility and is controlled by MAGNUM-OS, which provides all the common user interfaces including traditional hardware router control panels, virtual web-based control panels, and VUE intelligent panels. 

In addition, Evertz will highlight the technologies it has developed to help content providers attract and retain audiences through exciting and interactive personalized experiences. SaaS solutions such as the evertz.io platform are giving live sports, live entertainment and linear channel customers the ability to launch new channels and monetize content across a wide range of OTT, FAST channels, Connected TV and traditional broadcast distribution/streaming applications. In addition, Evertz will show its Ease Live interactive graphic solution that helps content providers create and build interactive overlays for millions of end users on multiple platforms in real time.

Finally, Evertz will spotlight its latest technology for the RF and Satcom industry, spanning key applications such as RF over Fiber and IP transport, RF distribution and routing matrices, RF Receivers and monitoring, and antenna and teleport services. Among the products on show will be the large-scale XQRF-512 routing platform, an RF router matrix that offers exceptional density, flexible configurations and hot-swappable and modular architecture—all within a compact 14RU form-factor, according to the company.

Evertz will be in Booth N2225 in the North Hall of the LVCC.

HAMBURG, NJ—Rich Lunniss, a familiar figure, friend and mentor to so many in the industry, lost his long battle with cancer and kidney disease on Dec. 19, 2022.

Born in the UK, Rich launched his communications career with Marconi Communication Systems. Subsequently moving to the US, Rich joined New Jersey-based systems integrator, AF Associates as Vice President, Sales, and then became VP of its new Products Division successfully introducing a number of European broadcast manufacturers to the US market that later opened their own operations. Rich joined AVS Broadcast and then Tekniche, a UK manufacturer of interface equipment and standard converters. 

He served as VP US at Tekniche, growing American operations into a multi-million-dollar entity that was acquired by Leitch where he remained until 2002. Rich took on the role of VP Broadcast Sales at Diversified Systems in 2003 and then joined Evertz in a senior sales role, responsible for key accounts. He continued at Evertz as a consultant for many years following his semi-retirement.

While his professional accomplishments were varied and numerous, Rich will best be remembered for his sense of humor, intelligence, and above all, his loyalty. A friend to all and a mentor to many, Rich is responsible for launching multiple careers (including this writer’s) and guiding many to success. He never uttered a negative word about competitors or adversaries, rather seeking the good in all he met.

An amateur boxer in his youth, he leveraged his physical strength with his positive attitude to battle cancer and kidney disease, a fight that lasted nearly two decades. Rich finally lost his battle on December 19th. He is survived by his beloved wife of 40 years, MaryAnn, two daughters, a son, their spouses, two grandchildren, and his extended family which includes many members of the industry.

Celebration of Life to honor Rich was held Jan. 7. Donations can be made to kidney.org.

LONDON—Playout has always been a crucial element in the broadcast distribution chain but it is becoming even more so due to changing requirements and technological capabilities.

Broadcast technology developers like to talk in terms of evolution when it comes to advances in equipment and operational practices. The area of broadcasting that has perhaps evolved in the true sense of the word is playout. Over the years it has moved from being based on videotape—initially played out from banks of individual machines and then later automated carousels—within a broadcaster’s headquarters to third party facilities, with the further shift to file and server-based distribution.

That evolution has continued with the advent of the cloud, where files may be located outside the control center, with the most recent advancement being the further shift to remote or from-home working. 

While the adoption of virtual techniques were largely foisted on the TV sector due to the Covid outbreak, they were already being used in some circumstances and were only going to become more widespread in the future. The coronavirus, as with so many things, compelled broadcasters to bring their plans for this kind of implementation forward.

Comfort Level
“Generally speaking, media companies are more comfortable following pandemic-forced virtualized workforces with virtualized workflows,” said Rick Young, senior vice president and head of global products at LTN Global. “It feels like the industry jumped three-to-five years ahead in terms of location-agnostic production, playout and media management.” 

Pre-pandemic, virtual playout was dominated by channels containing only pre-recorded, non-live programming, according to Young. “That is not the case today, as channel creators are beginning to understand what is possible when mixing live and non-live programs.”

Young adds that audience tastes have also driven a change in how services are organized and presented, with a growing demand for live and more targeted broadcasts. “This evolution is crucial as consumer expectations for FAST [free ad-supported streaming TV] and OTT platforms are trending towards live, regionalized and fresh content, not just a string of re-runs delivered in a linear fashion.”

Mat Shell, head of sales at Pebble, acknowledges that the various lockdowns and resulting shift to working from home increased the need for “secure remote access” to playout systems. 

“System implementations obviously had to change,” he says. “The majority of broadcasters are still commissioning bare-metal systems as they contemplate their transitions to more flexible IP-based technologies,” he said. “But, regardless of whether it’s a playout solution deployed on premises or is virtualized or a mixture of both, what has driven the most change is the need to control those systems remotely in a secure way.”

Web-based monitoring and control systems enable broadcasters to run channels either within a traditional transmission control area or from an outside location, which includes other premises or an operator’s home. As for other requirements, Shell says broadcasters are “likely to want their linear channels or playout facility” to feed any OTT platforms they operate. 

“They may also wish for linear channels to feature on YouTube, complete with unique branding,” he says. “Broadcasters additionally want the ability for playout systems—both on the ground and virtualized—to cater for pop-up or event channels, specifically for OTT streaming.”

Linear, OTT Commonalities
Streaming services, notably for video-on-demand, were included under the general heading of “broadcast” but there was the impression that more conventional TV organizations with roots in the linear world still viewed their OTT rivals as being in a different category, both in terms of audiences and technology. 

These two areas are now much closer together, particularly, observes Martin Whittaker, technical product director for MAM and automation at Evertz, on the technical side. 

“Both groups—broadcast and OTT, DTC [Direct to Consumer] and digital applications—want to create playout channels quickly and easily for the lowest cost possible and control/monitor these systems from anywhere,” he said. “This in turn generates the largest possible return on investment. Overall, customers are looking for systems that give them extreme flexibility, agility and adaptability to optimize content monetization for the lowest possible cost.”

While the market is still polarized, Sanjay Duda, chief operating officer at Planetcast Media Services, views the divide as being between big broadcasters with a large number of channels that feel responsible for delivering content and information to their viewers or subscribers; and “decentralized content generators” that distribute minority interest programming for a set period of time. 

“As a playout operator, you need to be able to cater to both sides,” he said. “You have the long-term solutions on one side but you also need to have pop-up or niche channels.”

Another element in the playout equation, Duda continues, is the commercial imperative, although this has to be considered in relation to technology.

“There’s a huge push towards how this is monetized, [which could be] by creating multiple feeds from the same playout for various platforms. Those are very important features as are being able to push in any last minute ads. In the U.S., FAST channels are taking the whole place by storm because it’s become a revenue-generating model where you create a stream and deliver it on to Smart TVs. 

“It’s ad-supported and the ads are delivered completely through technology,” he added. “Achieving high fill rates is critical to success, but for that, ad insertion technology is not enough. We also need to have good tools that decide which ad to insert for which customer or Smart TV to get the best value for the ads.”

Transparent to the User
At one time this kind of capability would have been delivered by highly sophisticated and complex equipment. Today, says Phillip Neighbour, chief operating officer at PlayBox Technology, broadcasters, content providers and facilities want simplicity, while also benefiting from the latest technologies. 

“They expect a high degree of automation, now supported by machine learning and artificial intelligence,” he said. “The whole system, from ingest to playout, has to be controlled from a single, intuitive user interface that tells the operator when an action is needed but which generally handles everything to the planned schedule.”

All playout functionality, Neighbour explains, can now be implemented in software, with modern design principles utilizing microservices that can be combined as necessary to provide the required functionality for a particular channel.

“Channel-in-a-box is not a new concept,” he says, “although with modern software techniques it is extremely efficient and function-rich. Because of virtualization, broadcasters and media companies are rapidly moving towards channels without a box, either in data hubs in the machine room, a corporate or shared data center or in the public cloud.”

After a relatively long and steady progression, playout as a technology area appears to be going through an accelerated evolutionary period right now. Whether that slows or increases in pace appears to depend not only on the ambitions of broadcasters and streaming services but also the viewing habits of their audiences. 

Remote media production is not new but the increasing use of IP technology and the cloud has made its use far more widespread and accessible. In our latest guide, we bring you the commentary and insight from the professionals on the front lines of M&E technology development and implementation driving this phenomenon.

Access the ebook here. 

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will highlight its evertz.io platform, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution for live sports, live entertainment and linear channel launches that monetizes content across a wide range of Over-the-Top (OTT), Direct-to-Consumer (DTC), Connected TV and traditional broadcast distribution/streaming platforms during IBC2022, Sept. 9-12, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre.

Using hyper-scalable serverless microservices, the evertz.io platform enables users to grow, scale and launch channels with complete confidence, knowing they will only pay for the services they use, Evertz said.

This safeguards customers by reducing time to market and helping them avoid the costs and learning curves associated with leveraging cloud native playout, streaming and digital distribution technologies, it said.

A key feature of the evertz.io platform is evertz.io Stream, a streaming and playout SaaS service that meets the needs of OTT, DTC and Free Ad-Supported TV (FAST) services by delivering flexible hourly, daily and monthly pricing models.

The evertz.io Stream solution provides all of the features found in enterprise class broadcast playout systems, including live inputs, video/audio mixing, comprehensive multi-language captioning and subtitling and full graphics and branding capabilities, the company said. 

It also delivers pre-built recipes for delivery of OTT and FAST TV channels to services like Roku, SamsungTV+, YouTube TV and Tubi. The simplicity of evertz.io Stream and its user interface means content owners and broadcast launch services can start monetizing live and archive content across a wide range of distribution platforms in a few minutes, it said.

“Today’s broadcasters need technology that allows them to quickly and easily distribute their content to any platform, anywhere in the world,” said Martin Whittaker, technical product director of MAM and automation at Evertz.

“This is precisely what the evertz.io platform and evertz.io Stream deliver. Customers choosing our cutting-edge solutions can be much more creative with their distribution strategy because they have the freedom to take risks. Specialty, alternative and hyper-targeted channels that would previously have been too costly or too niche to launch can now be explored and monetized, enabling broadcasters and content creators to maximize their assets and increase revenues.”

The evertz.io Stream combines the specific technological and feature requirements of both traditional broadcast channels and conventional OTT channels into a single platform, the company said.

The evertz.io Stream solution includes support for both file-based playback and advanced live events, a wide range of video streaming inputs and outputs, including 4K UHD with HDR, as well as support for common transport protocols (RIST, SRT and Zixi).

The evertz.io Stream solution is well-suited for pop-up channels, pay-per-view events, limited duration sporting events and disaster recovery, it said.

See Evertz at IBC 2022 Stand 1.F76.

More information is available on the company’s website.

For an area of broadcast operations that changed little over the course of TV technology history, the monitoring display has experienced a rapid pace of development in a relatively short time period. From a passive monitor based on, first, the cathode ray tube and then LED or similar technologies that was able to only show one image at a time, it is now the multiviewer, showing multiple images at once. Not only that, it is able to perform more functions than just displaying pictures.

This has made multiviewers an increasingly crucial element of master control rooms (MCRs) at broadcast and playout centers, providing tools for compliance logging and checking, among other things. On top of these, as Ryan Wallenberg, vice president of engineering for Cobalt Digital, observes, the growing trend is for these units to accommodate a multitude of signal formats simultaneously. “More multiviewers are going hybrid, allowing for a mix of SDI, uncompressed IP SMPTE ST 2022-6/2110 and compressed MPEG2, H.264, HEVC, J2K and JPEG-XS,” he says.

Mix and Match
The ability to mix and match formats also extends to image quality and resolution. Wallenberg adds that new viewing systems can accept both HDR and SDR, with the capacity to convert to a common format for mixing SDR, HLG, PQ and SLOG3 and then switch to the required monitor format. “There is still lots of demand for 3G signal monitoring but with UHD output for higher quality output vs. 1080p output resolutions,” he comments. “UHD for inputs is more common in Europe and China than in the U.S.”

Today, it is unlikely that people are able to buy a display that is not UHD, according to John Mailhot, CTO for networking products at Imagine Communications. “In a mobile there’s usually a requirement that they have to do UHD but it often involves a trade-off,” he says. “It could be having fewer replays if they are working in UHD. The vehicle will be set up differently for different events with varying workflows and probably not run everything in UHD.”

Something that Mailhot considers is becoming the minimum requirement—”table stakes” in his words—is 1080p but in HDR. “I think there’s going to be an interesting amount of broadcasters who produce that as their primary format and then turn it into 1080i or SDI or other things for distribution. UHD is four times the bandwidth but adding HDR to an existing workflow is a much easier lift and arguably more impactful. In the multiviewer world we’re really starting to see people asking about HDR more than they used to.”

Flexibility is Key
Ketan Patel, product manager of multiviewer solutions at Evertz, observes that customers are now looking for three main things in multiviewers: density, format flexibility and advanced features.

“Density of solution in terms of rack space and power are key for applications like OB trucks,” he says. “The number of inputs and outputs per RU is a metric everyone is trying to maximize. Unfortunately, we don’t have one format or standard across the broadcast chain, so flexibility is a big issue with all facilities.

“Ideally, people want to have a singular platform that can monitor the incoming contribution feeds, the production/in-facility signal flows and the distribution feeds,” Patel added. “Monitoring is then visually showing the video and audio bars, the health of the video, the audio and key items such as SCTE triggers.”

Because of this, Patel continues, multiviewers are no longer merely for visualizing video/audio/data sources as multi-images on displays; they’re real-time probes for those sources.

“The probes are also not just concerned with the video/audio/data but also the transport protocols and bandwidth,” he said. “This synergy has become more important as facilities have many more signals to monitor and not enough eyeballs to watch them all. 

“We developed the concept of monitoring by exception when customers found their operational staff were fatigued looking at hundreds of images for potential alarms,” he added. “With our ‘penalty box’ feature we can designate an area/display where only signals that have alarms appear so operators can focus on resolving those issues.”

Paul Briscoe, chief architect for TAG Video Systems, agrees that “monitoring hundreds or thousands of channels with human eyeballs is unreasonable,” which explains why probing, monitoring analysis, alarming and logging have become the norm.

“Visualization is still important,” he says, “and our Adaptive Monitoring allows any number of channels to be monitored but only those needing eyes on them in penalty boxes to be visualized.”

Move to IP and Cloud
A trend that Briscoe says TAG is also following is towards “pure software/IP-based monitoring platforms,” which will lead to the cloud. “That enables deployment in ground, cloud or hybrid scenarios on a global basis,” he explains. “Such a capability is almost infinitely scalable. Another important trend is integration with third-party systems, so we support open standards to enable orchestration and control interoperation with the widest array of other systems.”

At Lawo, Senior Product Manager of Media Infrastructure Stephan Türkay says the company is “absolutely moving to a cloud future,” with IP-based multiviewers being a prime candidate for that transition.

“Operational staff require multiviewers to be as low latency as possible,” he comments, “which can be tricky to achieve in an off-premise cloud deployment. We anticipate there to be an application-specific mix of deployments—on and off premise—as well as software and hardware technology to host the multiviewer function.”

Türkay adds that with the shift of traditional workflows for both production and playout to the cloud, there is the growing need to monitor signals as natively as possible. “Customers want to avoid the costly transcoding and transport costs of bringing signals back to the broadcast facility for monitoring using a traditional multiviewer,” he says.

While the general perception is that multiviewers will be installed in galleries or MCRs and cover the whole wall, Darren Gosney, technical sales manager for EMEA at Blackmagic Design, observes there is a growing realization that standalone screens can be placed anywhere in a broadcast or playout center.

“If they feature loop-throughs of each of their inputs, they can be located anywhere in the production chain,” he explains. This means different departments can each have a dedicated configurable unit in their space and the signals can be passed through to other parts of the facility, even being re-clocked to extend the signal distance further.``

Certainly a move on from the inert, dumb screens of the past.

LAS VEGAS—The evolution of media production over the past several years brought on by restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the accelerated moves to the cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications were among the themes of Evertz’s Saturday April 23 NAB Show press event.  

“We’re seeing a lot of conversations about reliable transport streams and the ability to bring content from the home over the public internet into your production,” Evertz Senior Director of International Business Development Mo Goyal said. “Also, how do I leverage 5G and in terms of creating content that may not have been previously accessible without a lot of OB [outside broadcasting] trucks and things like that.” 

To that end, several SaaS offerings are being demoed at the Evertz booth, including Reflektor, the company’s SaaS cloud-based transport, translation and transcoding solution. Also featured will be Ease Live, a SaaS-based interactive graphics platform, as part of the company’s line of direct-to-consumer solutions. The company will also focus on its evertz.io SaaS, a cost-effective solution that simplifies a customer’s transition to the cloud. 

Goya also announced that its DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio virtual live production studio is now available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace. On the RF side, Evertz is showing their new XRU4 Router as well as an update to its 2400DU outdoor transmission platform. 

© NAB

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz has announced that its DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio is now available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace. 

The DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio is a virtual live production studio that includes all the tools needed to create broadcast quality productions and is designed to provide media companies and enterprises a flexible and cost-effective all-in-one production studio for multi-camera live events,

“In the media and entertainment industry, content is king,” explained Mo Goyal, senior director, international business development at Evertz. “With the inclusion of BRAVO Studio to Microsoft Azure Marketplace, we harness the advantages of a cloud platform to enable content creators to produce high quality live events to tell compelling and engaging stories. As a Microsoft Partner, the availability of BRAVO Studio on Microsoft Azure Marketplace allows anyone to create and deliver a professionally produced, high quality live experience to their audience on any platform.”

BRAVO Studio captures multiple live camera feeds and Microsoft Teams participants and mixes them with other media (including video and audio). Creators and producers can enhance their production with comprehensive audio mixing, multiple video overlays and transitions, slow motion replays, highlight packages, and data-driven dynamic graphics. Using the global presence of Microsoft Azure, operators can access all of BRAVO Studio’s tools via an intuitive web interface from anywhere in the world to professionally produce any live experience. 

At the 2022 NAB Show, Evertz’ BRAVO Studio will be part of the Digital Experience Solution, a collaboration between Microsoft, Lumen, Evertz and MediaKind, which will be showcased on Microsoft’s booth (#W3017). 

Leveraging Microsoft Azure, BRAVO Studio will be used to produce a live, multi-camera podcast at Microsoft Booth throughout the NAB event. 

“With the addition of Evertz and their BRAVO Studio to the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, we’re extending our platform to support the growing needs for live event production of the enterprise, media and entertainment industries – bringing a more scalable and flexible solution for content creation using the cloud,” said Simon Crownshaw, director, worldwide business strategy, Media & Entertainment at Microsoft Corp.

For more information on Evertz DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio visit Evertz’s 2022 NAB Show booth at N5907, or on the Microsoft Booth at W3017.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz will showcase a range of 4K and 8K UHD products designed for broadcast facilities, venues and stadiums regardless of whether they rely upon SDI, IP or a hybrid of both at the 2022 NAB Show, April 23-27.

Evertz is offering a range of both 12G-SDI and SMPTE ST 2110 solutions that will enable users to keep a foot in both the SDI and IP camps without sacrificing quality, flexibility or stability. This hybrid approach also allows facility operators to maximize existing SDI equipment purchases before completely moving into new territory, it said.

The company will show its IP-based, end-to-end solutions built around its Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) portfolio, which has now been installed in more than 500 broadcast facilities worldwide. Its MAGNUM OS orchestration and control system has new tools to address the complexities of large IP deployments in Outside Broadcast (OB) trucks, remote and large-scale broadcast facilities and facilities with multiple locations.

Lessons learned from MAGNUM OS installations have helped to evolve the system’s bandwidth management for moving and managing large volumes of SMPTE ST 2110 signals, including PTP signals, to and from devices spread across facilities, or among multiple facilities, using a 25/50/100/400GbE network connection, it said.

With full NMOS support, MAGNUM OS makes for seamless discovery and management of Evertz or third-party devices. Employing VUE as the operational and control interface (as either a desktop panel or web-based interface accessible from anywhere), MAGNUM OS can provide comprehensive real-time analysis of all devices and signal flows within an IP network, the company said.

The company also will highlight its recently introduced NATX32/64–100G Network Address Translation router. The single rack NAT-X unit offers the power of IP with the simplicity of SDI. Unlike other “off the shelf” network appliances that require extensive IT knowledge and programming experience, NAT-X is a plug-and-play 25/100GbE switch fabric, customized to work seamlessly within a broadcast environment, it said.

Evertz also will introduce the compact, robust NEXX UHD/4K 12G-SDI router. Well-suited for regional broadcast facilities and OB trucks, NEXX offers a modular-based frame design with redundant control and support for native full audio shuffling and the ability to tap into other license enabled features, it said. 

The product offers an integrated, software-enabled multiviewer with more than 30 pre-configured layouts. It uses internal Evertz X-LINK signaling to remain penalty-free and avoid unnecessary output usage. NEXX has been designed to accept future I/O modules for IP and uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110, it said.

See Evertz at NAB Show booth N5907.

More information is available on the company’s website.

BURLINGTON, Ontario—Evertz has announced that Esports Engine has deployed its DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio live production replay platform for their major esports broadcasts.

Esports Engine is a turnkey esports solutions company working with gaming publishers, rightsholders, brands, and teams to provide production, broadcast, tournament, and program design. 

Esports Engine first deployed Evertz’ DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio cloud cluster in October 2021 for a major competition, in which it used the live production platform to feed 16 total 1080p NDI inputs into Amazon Web Services (AWS), while utilizing an S3 bucket to distribute high-quality video, the companies said. 

By leveraging DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio’s ability to virtually operate in any public or private cloud environment, two replay operators located onsite are able to connect to DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio using the platform’s ultra-low latency, low bandwidth web interface and desktop remote control panel, isolate replays and highlights in real-time, and feed that content back into the cloud for use in production.

“We used Evertz DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio to provide instant replay in a cloud-only environment,” said Ryan Thompson, co-founder and chief production officer of Esports Engine. “The demands of replay systems typically require an onsite operator and in-studio physical equipment to provide high-quality replay capability. This solution put all that capability in the cloud for an easily scalable solution that is there only when you need it, keeping costs for us and our clients under control.”

Using NDI, SRT, RIST, RTMPE and RTMPS protocols, multiple sources in different formats can be sent to a DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio in the cloud, where Esports Engine operational staff located remotely or on-prem at its Burbank, California or Columbus, Ohio studios can log in to access feeds, produce live shows, isolate replays, edit highlight packages, and send produced content to a Media Asset Management (MAM) service or distribution platform in the cloud for playout to content distributions networks (CDNs), the companies said. 

“Providing content creators with the flexibility to disperse and reassign resources to achieve greater productivity is one of the key advantages DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio delivers,” said Nima Malekmanesh, director of business development – live media for Evertz. “Evertz is proud of the partnership we have established with Esports Engine, and we are excited to continue working together to build live events and productions that push the boundary of the esports market.”

Evertz said that DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio live production replay system simplifies monitoring and scheduling through the integration of Evertz’ MAGNUM unified control and orchestration system. MAGNUM provides scheduling and resource management to initiate the live event work space and to connect the cloud resources and remote operators into a single cohesive live production.

More information the DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio Live Production platform is available here. 

BURLINGTON, Ontario—Evertz has announced that its DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio live production replay platform has been deployed for use in the EA Sports FIFA 21 Global Series and Apex Legends Global Series broadcasts.

EA Sports FIFA 21 Global Series is an international tournament comprised of hundreds of matches played online using PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Over several months, more than 1,000 competitors go head-to-head in hopes of being crowned FIFAe World Cup 2021 champion and claiming a portion of the $3 million in prizes that the Electronic Arts Competitive Gaming Entertainment (EA CGE) division will hand out to competitors.

Apex Legends Global Series is a competitive online and live event ecosystem produced by EA CGE and Respawn. Played on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the Apex Legends Global Series competition format places teams around the world against each other within five global regions.

EA CGE division uses DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio as the preferred live production tool to match the scale of its largest events due to DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio's ability to virtually operate in any public or private cloud environment over a low latency, low bandwidth interface.

Using NDI, SRT, RIST, RTMPE and RTMPS protocols, multiple sources in different formats can be sent to a DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio in the cloud, where EA CGE operational staff can log in to access feeds, produce live shows, isolate replays, edit highlight packages, and send produced content to a Media Asset Management (MAM) service or distribution platform in the cloud for playout to content distributions networks (CDNs) – all from the comfort of their own homes.

“DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio was extremely easy to set-up and seamlessly integrated with our existing cloud-based production solutions,” said Brian Bredenbeck, senior technical production manager, competitive gaming content & programming for Electronic Arts. “With hundreds of thousands of viewers watching around the globe, the reliability DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio provides is reassuring, especially with Evertz support always available and quick to respond to issues.”

“DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio has exceeded expectations in regards to latency requirements for operator control, as well as the overall quality of the product streamed to viewers,” added Bredenbeck. “The platform successfully produces 1080p 59.94/60 formats without issues, and the dynamic features and tools allow our operators to create unique viewing experiences audiences can’t find anywhere else.”

The BRAVO Studio cloud cluster deployed for the recent Apex Legends Global Series competition event, the largest of EA CGE’s productions, was an extensive, entirely cloud-based live production cluster supporting 36 total 1080p inputs split between 16 NDI inputs and 20 SRT inputs. A total of nine operators supporting seven DreamCatcher replay stations and two logging stations produced the live event controlling 11 NDI outputs. All operation staff were operating remotely using their DC-ANYWHERE interfaces with full DreamCatcher controller integration. A content management station was also added to this event providing a centralized signal acquisition/distribution and content import/export functionality.

The fully featured DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio live production replay system has zero hardware requirements, but does support multiple monitors and an optional DreamCatcher controller, the companies said. 

In addition, the DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio live production replay system simplifies monitoring and scheduling through the integration of Evertz’ MAGNUM unified control and orchestration system. MAGNUM provides scheduling and resource management to initiate the live event work space and to connect the cloud resources and remote operators into a single cohesive live production.

“DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio provides innovative tools for live production in the cloud, enabling EA CGE to embrace new workflows while still being able to reliably reach fans with engaging original content,” said Vince Silvestri, Evertz vice president of software systems. “DreamCatcher BRAVO Studio delivers a reliable, flexible and intuitive collaborative solution that can respond to any production need.”

To learn more about the DreamCatcher Live Production platform, visit evertz.com/applications/live-production/.

BURLINGTON, Ontario—The Russian broadcaster, Channel One, has made the leap from HD-SDI technology to full IP after installing an Evertz Mediator playout and content distribution system at its Ostankino Technical Centre in Moscow, Evertz announced. 

The system is now being used to broadcast 12 channels of news, sports and entertainment to more than 250 million viewers worldwide.

Over the last four years, the Ostankino Technical Centre has been transferring its own technical infrastructure to IP, using Evertz SDVN technology and equipment. 

Several factors played into the decision by Channel One to upgrade its playout facilities, the companies noted. 

These included a need to upgrade its video/audio stream routing and transmission to a more modern infrastructure and a doubling the number of channels broadcast from six to 12 that its facility needed to handle. 

Channel One also wanted to transition to ‘channel-in-a-box’ technology for on-air programs; to be able to handle more complex graphics; to improve compatibility with the output format requirements of satellite and cable providers; and to better integrate its playout system integration with its business applications.

System integrator OKNO-TV and its service company Telerent worked with Evertz to implement this project. Dmitry Sheykin, project engineer for OKNO-TV and technical director of Telerent, said a number of vendors were considered but the decision to use Evertz technology was based on prior good experiences with the company.

“Channel One and Evertz collaborated previously on the installation of a special 4K Channel with Dolby Atmos that was built for the broadcaster’s coverage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup,” he said. 

Igor Yadykin, deputy chief of the Technical department at Channel One, added that "making major changes to our playout facility is not something that we do often so we wanted to be sure it was a good investment. We are now the first broadcaster in Russia to embrace SMPTE ST2110 (IP) and we have modernized our channel distribution and playout by installing a more software driven, adaptable workflow.”

The Evertz Mediator system installed at Ostankino includes 29 Overture (ORT) Live integrated playout engines; 14 ORT Media Client record servers; 2 Render-X proxy generator servers; an advanced multi-node virtualization environment hosting Mediator core and computer nodes; 15 VUE CUBE workstations and two Isilon storage clusters (main and backup), each with 9 nodes.

For the IP infrastructure, OKNO-TV installed two Evertz EXE routers (main and backup) with MAGNUM SDVN and Client Host servers. An EQX router with MAGNUM were also installed for ingest.

Other components include monitoring tools such as VistaLINK PRO with graphics for the network management system (NMS) and inSITE for real-time data analytics; four TR4800E tally routers; two 5700MSC-IP Grand Master Clock and Video Master Clock systems; a 5601AC02 Automatic Changeover and a host of frames with modular products incorporating converters, amplifiers and infrastructure equipment.

Moving to new technology required retraining for over 200 people whose roles covered ingest and archive as well as playout.

OKNO-TV’s Dmitry Sheykin explained that “getting to grips with the new system was initially challenging, but once staff understood its capabilities, they were delighted by what it could achieve. The main highlight is having all control of the processes of air correction and modification carried out through a modern HTML5 web client. In the automation system’s client application, users can now schedule and view a copy of the broadcast programs in low resolution with accuracy up to the frame.”

MUNICH, Germany—Evertz has opened a newly equipped DreamCatcher Training Center (DCTC) in Munich, Germany that will provide broadcasters and content providers with a new resource to assist in the rapid creation of high quality content.

"We understand that moving to a new live production platform not only requires technical excellence, but is also based on operators who know the platform inside and out and feel confident to operate it in a very fast and efficient way", said Sebastian Ruchti, sales engineer at DACH. "Therefore we decided to set up a DreamCatcher ecosystem here in Munich that can host multiple operators, that not only allows operators to come in and familiarize with the system locally, but also allow customers to discover our award-winning BRAVO Studio workflow remotely from anywhere.”

Located in Munich’s SpaceNet Building, DCTC has connectivity to perform full remote production workflow-based demonstrations of Evertz’ XPS RealTime UHD/3G/HD Streaming Platform and BRAVO Studio platforms.

XPS is Evertz’ next-generation UHD/3G/HD streaming platform that uses SRT, RIST and Zixi for secure and reliable contribution over IP networks with ultra-low latency. XPS is a software-defined HEVC and H.264 real-time encoding/decoding platform that is ideal for live or cloud-based applications where secure, high quality and low-latency is essential, Evertz said. 

This provides customers the ability to send broadcast-quality video feeds over public internet from a venue to DCTC Munich, while also having the DreamCatcher output streamed back to the venue via SRT, or have the video feed published directly to social media via RTMPS.

"While DCTC Munich operates DreamCatcherTM hardware on-premises, Evertz has deployed similar workflows for fully virtualized remote production in the cloud,” explained Mo Goyal, senior director, international business development for Live Media Production at Evertz. "Being able to access BRAVO Studio remotely and integrate its full DreamCatcher Training Center Munich is a new resource for professional broadcast operators to expand their knowledge of the award-winning DreamCatcher live production platform.”

Production operators and broadcast engineers interested in attending a DreamCatcher Academy event in September 2021 are encouraged to contact Sebastian Ruchti for more information at +49 (0)89-21552388-1 and sebastian@evertz.com

BURLINGTON, Ontario—Evertz has introduced the XPS Series, a software-defined HEVC and H.264 10-bit 4:2:2 real-time encoding/decoding platform for streaming of UHD/3G/HD contributions via IP networks.

Well-suited for live or cloud-based applications where security, high quality and low-latency are essential, the XPS can be used for live sports and entertainment events. It provides reliable, cost-effective contribution encoding over private IP networks, the company said.

For breaking news events and Esports competitions, the XPS provides reliable, low-latency encoding over public networks using the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) or Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) protocols, it said.

For remote or stay-at-home operations that are becoming common during the COVID-19 pandemic, the XPS provides low-latency remote monitoring of broadcast facilities or can be used as an extension to production control room environments, said Evertz.

The XPS platform also can be used as the on-ramp and contribution encoder for cloud production or playout hosted by public cloud providers, the company said. 

The XPS is available in several form factors, including:

• 5782XPS, a module blade that fits into an Evertz 570FR for high-density encoding and decoding up to 60 3G/HD or 15 UHD in 3RU; 
• XPS-EDGE, a standalone appliance that supports up to four encodes, decodes or bi-directional based on the software license; and 
• MIO-XPS, a module that fits into Evertz’ Scorpion Smart Media Processing Platform 

The new streaming platform seamlessly integrates into Evertz’ Software Define Video Networking (SDVN) orchestration, monitoring and analysis software. The XPS is discoverable and can be added to IP networks where operators can visualize and route data flows using the company’s VUE interface, it said.

Advanced data monitoring is available to engineering staff, providing remote access to resolve issues from a central location, said Evertz. 

“The XPS Video Streaming Platform allows sports, media and entertainment companies to continue providing their global viewership with high quality content,” said Abdullah Merei, Evertz senior director of engineering. “XPS provides a hassle-free, cost-effective streaming solution that can be connected over any network, including the public internet, and delivers the highest video quality at the lowest latency and bitrate on the market.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

BURLINGTON, Ontario—Evertz Technologies Limited and Verizon Ventures led an $11 million funding round for ShotTracker (DDSports Inc.) that will be used to accelerate ShotTracker’s deployment across NCAA Division I Power 6 basketball conferences to bring enhance sensor capabilities and data capture to broadcasters and others.

ShotTracker is a sports technology that captures rich performance data via sensors and provides statistics and analytics to players, coaches and fans, and can be incorporated into game broadcasts.

Tracking data in three parts—a ShotTracker-enabled ball, sensors on players’ jerseys and court sensors that map the court in 3D—the processed data is displayed on the ShotTracker app and dashboard that will be integrated with Evertz cloud-based live production systems. 

The real-time data can be used to automate camera productions from remote locations, Evertz says in the official press release. It also delivers experiential activations and crossover content opportunities via digital and social platforms, enabling content owners to create tailored content across multiple platforms.

Evertz is expected to integrate ShotTracker sensor data with its DreamCatcher suite of products, which Vince Silvestri, Evertz vice president of Software Systems, says will boost both on-premise and cloud-based live productions.

In addition to expanding to NCAA basketball conferences, ShotTracker is expected to use the new funds for new hires, to further partnerships and enhance sensor capabilities.

BURLINGTON, Ontario—Evertz Technologies Limited has announced that it has come to terms on an asset purchase agreement with Harman International for the Studer brand, technology and related assets.

Studer is an audio brand that has been in operation for more than 70 years, developing tape decks, digital mixing consoles and more. Harman acquired Studer in 1994, since which point Studer has developed digital products like the Vista mixing console.

“We are pleased to welcome this iconic audio brand to our Evert family of products and solutions that has been serving the broadcast market for more than 50 years,” said Brian Campbell, executive vice president of Business Development at Evertz. “We also welcome the many valued Studer customers who depend on Studer technology and reliability to deliver the best audio to their audience.”

According to the announcement, Evertz plans to develop next-generation products to meet future broadcast customer needs, while also creating synergies between its current product suite and the Studer product environment.

“We saw an exciting opportunity to evolve these premium products with new products and feature development while having Studer continue to redefine how broadcast audio is produced,” said Campbell. 

Evertz’s acquisition of Studer is expected to be finalized by the close of the first quarter 2021. No financial details were provided on the deal.

BURLINGTON, Canada—Evertz has announced the acquisition of Norwegian-based Ease Live AS, which is now set to serve as a subsidiary of Evertz. Ease Live AS will be integrated into Evertz cloud production technology to offer live interactive graphics for live sports, live events and linear channel customers, the company announced.

Ease Live AS is an interactivity platform designed for use with OTT video services. With the Ease Live AS software-as-a-service technology platform and engineering team, Evertz will offer a cloud-based platform that aims to drive viewer personalization, engagement and interactive features, per the official press release.

“We [Ease Live AS] specialize in creating and distributing new content experiences,” said Kjetil Horneland, CEO of Ease Live AS. “Our interactive TV graphics platform enables connected devices to become interactive and personalized—all in the hands of the end users. It’s all about delivering better viewing experiences on top of what has already been invested in OTT.”

“Digital has become the priority for our entertainment, sports and news customers, so we are excited to bring interactive graphics to the edge,” said Romolo Magarelli, CEO, Evertz.

For more information, visit www.evertz.com.  

DreamCatcher BRAVO, the newest addition to Evertz’ DreamCatcher suite of live production tools, is proving a major asset for international broadcaster Discovery Inc., which has adopted this uniquely collaborative production system for its high profile, direct to consumer streaming service, Food Network Kitchen.

Offering a complete food and cooking digital experience, Food Network Kitchen features thousands of live and on-demand cooking classes hosted by top Food Network chefs, as well as on-demand instructional videos, thousands of recipes, culinary-related original programming and select shows from Food Network’s library. The service is integrated with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, providing hands-free navigation to subscribers as they prep their dishes. Subscribers can also order ingredients via Amazon, Peapod and Instacart.

Launched at NAB 2019, Evertz’ BRAVO is an application on the DreamCatcher architecture that allows producers to maximize live broadcast revenues and capitalize on rights by creating top tier live content at lower cost and for multiple platforms. Ideally suited to live sports, gaming and entertainment programming, BRAVO provides all the features required for a multicamera production, including video/audio mixing, dynamic graphics, support for external graphic engines, replays and highlights. By acting as a software client on the DreamCatcher Playout node and leveraging DreamCatcher’s patented network architecture, BRAVO has access to all inputs and can be used on any production, regardless of its size or scale. Its intuitive, touch surface interface uses Evertz’ VUE technology and can be customized for one, two or more operators, giving them the controls they require to tackle a wide range of production tasks.

Discovery was quick to spot the potential of Evertz’ new BRAVO technology and became the lead customer to deploy the Dreamcatcher and BRAVO solution. Rob Goldheim, Discovery’s Group vice president of Production Engineering, says BRAVO’s arrival on the market coincided fortuitously with the broadcaster’s plans to launch the Food Network Kitchen app, which went on air in October 2019.

Discovery added DreamCatcher and BRAVO solutions to their existing SMPTE ST 2110 facilities based on Evertz’ Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solutions. This includes MAGNUM (SDVN Orchestration and Control), Evertz IPX128 10G/25G switch fabrics, IP Multiviewers, evEDGE conversion where required and 570ITXE’s that allow for multiple formats for distribution, including baseband, IPTV H.264 and JPEG XS for hand off to distribution via the Discovery WAN. 

Goldheim says the main production challenge was delivering a large number of live events without dramatically increasing staffing levels. The system chosen had to be reliable, cost effective and collaborative, while also meeting the stringent quality requirements that Discovery demands of all its programme content.

“From the outset, the concept was to create an app-based cooking show that was outside the normal cable TV food show offering,” he explains. “Live events were key and Food Network Kitchen was planning to do a lot of them. Having a production control room filled with people for every one of these live events would have been totally cost prohibitive as it would have meant staffing across multiple shifts and getting people in and out between each production. This is why we turned to the DreamCatcher BRAVO. By adding DreamCatcher and BRAVO functionality, we are able to manage any number of live events with very small crews—usually just one TV producer and an engineer. DreamCatcher and BRAVO have brought a new dimension to Discovery’s approach to live programming.”

Using BRAVO gave Discovery’s production staff a whole set of useful new tools. According to Christian Jacobs, director of Engineering at Discovery’s New York office, favorites include keyable graphics that can be run by a single operator, the ability to easily bring in pre-recorded clips and files to supplement the live action and the ability to quickly choose audio inputs so that microphones can be switched by simply touching a computer screen.

“Food Network Kitchen’s requirements were not defined very early on, so we needed a Swiss Army knife solution that could do pretty much anything,” Rob Goldheim says. “The clip player, for example, not only records clips but also rolls clips as well, which we anticipated would be a big part of the Food Network Kitchen’s ask. There is also a metadata piece that we are still trying to define because there is a lot of interest in this. It will eventually tag live events for more integrated Alexa control and help identify ingredients, kitchen equipment and the various steps for each recipe. There’s a lot we still haven’t tapped into, and we are developing the tool sets behind our app to allow us to do more.” 

“Working with Discovery on the Food Network Kitchen project has been a great experience, as the application was a perfect fit for BRAVO. The goal for BRAVO has always been to allow media companies like Discovery [to] tell great stories and create high quality content across multiple platforms. We are excited to be adding more advanced features to the BRAVO workflow to enhance the user experience on the streaming service. These features include intelligent automatic framing for 9x16 pan and scan as well as insertion of advanced metadata to allow user step through the content using Alexa,” says Vince Silvestri, vice president of Software Systems at Evertz.

COVID-19 THROWS A CURVEBALL

Food Network Kitchen’s plan was always to incorporate more remote filming, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, this had to happen a lot faster. 

Initially chosen because it allows Discovery to deliver more live shows efficiently, BRAVO really demonstrated its value with its flexibility, ease of use and scalability, and it enabled the broadcaster to continue streaming live programming on the Food Network Kitchen app, despite its talent and production teams being in lockdown.

“When COVID-19 hit, our only option was to film live segments remotely from the chefs’ home kitchens, which were located all over the USA,” says Christian Jacobs. “The combination of BRAVO and DreamCatcher has been a real asset because the system allows us to make production tools accessible remotely. As a result, we have been able to produce new, live content on the Food Network Kitchen app, which is something many other apps and networks have struggled with.”

“When we went into lockdown, live production was halted for approximately three weeks and the app replayed previously recorded content,” Jacobs says. “We used that time to work out what we were going to do. We just had to deal with it. From 70 live events a week, we went down to none, although we have now picked up again to about 40.”

The solution, according to Rob Goldheim, involved sending various Food Network talent— from A-listers to up and coming chefs on social media networks—a basic kit incorporating a couple of iPhones, a tripod and some simple production equipment. Discovery also partnered with a cellular transmissions company to transmit video feeds via its app to Food Network Kitchen’s production crew. 

“We sent kits to talent all over the USA and then spent a couple of weeks working with them to make sure they knew how to use the equipment,” Jacobs says. “Obviously, we couldn’t send a cameraman to each location, so each person had to rely on a family member or significant other to film them while they cooked. It was nerve-wracking, but we kept it simple because we were relying on people who are not production experts to produce live content for us.”

Having good internet was also key as a poor connection could cause dropouts in the picture. “With a stable internet connection, the footage was broadcast quality,” Jacobs says. “The signal we received from the iPhones was compressed full-res 1080i 59.94 resolution, but was good quality and was decoded as baseband video. We have used the footage for linear promotions domestically and Food Network Kitchen intends to use the content on linear channels internationally.”

“It is fantastic that the technology existed to make this work,” he says. “There were certainly things that had to be ironed out, but we managed to solve most issues to the satisfaction of Discovery leadership.”

Rob Goldheim adds that having access to DreamCatcher and BRAVO during this critical period was crucial. During the early stages of COVID-19, Evertz introduced a key new feature on the DreamCatcher called “DC Anywhere” that enabled full low-latency remote access and control from any location with an IP connection. 

“Without it, we would have needed many more crew,” he says. “The real benefit is the ability to do everything remotely because the system is software based and operationally all you need is a touchscreen. During the COVID-19 lockdown, operators connected to a VPN and remotely accessed Discovery’s BRAVO stations so they could work from any location, which was a huge win.”

“Our partnership with Evertz goes back many years, and we have a very good relationship” says Goldheim. “We worked closely in 2016 with Evertz to install and globally roll out a cloud-based Linear playout solution, so we had a high level of confidence in the company to deliver this solution. Our requirements may initially be unique to Discovery, but what we build together tends to develop into something that is ultimately useful for everybody.” 

“Having worked with the group from Discovery for many years, we know that flexibility, reliability and ability to adapt quickly to changing environments is an absolute must. Utilizing an IP-based SMPTE ST 2110 infrastructure with MAGNUM Orchestration and Control, Evertz VUE Technology and incorporating evEDGE and 570ITXE’s along with the DreamCatcher and BRAVO solutions gives Discovery a very flexible and powerful platform to move forward,” says Melissa Davis, Evertz director of sales, Washington, D.C. 

 For more information, please visit www.evertz.com.

MONTREAL—Grass Valley, Evertz, Xilinx and Primestream have joined the SRT Alliance, taking the number of members to more than 400, the alliance announced.

Originally developed by Haivision, SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) is a low-latency video streaming protocol. It makes possible remote and cloud-based high-performance video workflows, overcomes packet loss and adds security with sophisticated encryption, the alliance said.

“We’re excited to join the SRT Alliance to support SRT as a widely adopted industry standard,” said Neil Maycock, senior vice president Strategic Marketing & Playout at Grass Valley. “SRT is a perfect fit for our strategy at Grass Valley as we continue to innovate and focus on future-proofing our customers’ workflows as they transition from SDI to IP and adopt cloud-based solutions, where latency, security and connectivity are key.” 

Evertz is adding SRT to its “end-to-end” portfolio of broadcast production products, said Jatinder Barmi, company product manager of compression products, adding that the protocol enables “low latency video throughout the broadcaster’s workflow.”

Xilinx’ director, Business Development, Video Solutions, Sean Gardner said the company will collaborate with the alliance to provide solutions that “will reduce end-to-end latency, increase security and improve the overall QoE for consumers.”

Calling IP-based stream production workflows “the wave of the future,” Claudio Lisman, president and CEO of Primestream, said the ability to transport high-quality video with low latency in a secure and reliable way is “critical.”

“That’s why we are happy to be working with the SRT Alliance in its groundbreaking efforts to create an open-source video transport protocol and to introduce SRT solutions like Media IO,” he said.

More information is available on the SRT Alliance website.

The new CBS digital lifestyle channel Dabl is being hosted completely in the cloud with the use of Evertz Mediator-X and Overture Playout solutions deployed across multiple availability zones to provide geographic resilience, Evertz announced this week.

"We are excited to launch this new channel completely from the cloud," said Glenn Oakley executive vice president of Operations and Engineering at CBS.

CBS is using two cloud-based Mediator-X cores. One is used as a master Media Asset Management (MAM) system for linear and non-linear asset processing and delivery and for metadata. Natively integrated with AWS S3 storage, Mediator-X supports registration content import into the system, Evertz said.

The other Mediator-X is the centerpiece of the linear automation and playout system. Both have an HTML5-based user interface accessible from multiple locations via a standard web browser, the company said.

Deployed in the public cloud as well, the Overture Playout engine generates linear streams with support for complex graphics as well as audio and ancillary data processing. Evertz worked with CBS and Amazon to coordinate connectivity from the public cloud to existing on-premise infrastructure for control, monitoring and final distribution.

The company’s CloudBridge technology provides streaming from the cloud to on-premise facilities, and the Evertz VUE control surface integrates with Mediator-X and Overture in the cloud, giving master control operators control over the system.

The Evertz cloud playout solution “aligns perfectly” with CBS’s “long-term optimization vision of executing with cloud technology to further drive our innovation and competitiveness,” Oakley added.

More information is available on the Evertz website.

LAS VEGAS--Mobile TV Group is launching its newest outside broadcast truck equipped with an Evertz IP core.

Critical requirements of Mobile TV Group’s 45FLEX included dual feed, the ability to perform two simultaneous productions, super slow-motion capabilities, 4K/HDR upgradeability and enough scalability to accommodate the largest production events.

Evertz' Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solution was selected by Mobile TV Group because its advanced capabilities were the only industry solution available that could meet their aggressive schedule and demanding technical requirements according to Evertz. SDVN's advanced IP infrastructure enabled a more flexible and scalable production environment where truck resources could more efficiently be utilized enhancing their overall production capabilities.

45FLEX features 25G infrastructure and its IP routing core is an Evertz EXE-VSR16 25G high capacity IP switch. The fully non-blocking architecture of the EXE-VSR 25G switch enables the seamless interconnect of all IP systems on the truck, including the IP replay systems, IP production switcher, IP audio console and IP cameras. For interfacing baseband SDI systems into the IP core, 45FLEX utilizes Evertz' 570IPG-X19-25G gateways. The 570IPGs versatile bidirectional architecture, supporting both IP and SDI interfaces enables baseband systems to interface with the IP core. Monitoring requirements on 45FLEX are handled by Evertz' 3067VIP-HW-10G IP multiviewer. 45FLEX's infrastructure features advanced IP timing technology with an Evertz MSC5700 IP Network Grand Master Clock distributing ST 2059 Precision Timing Protocol throughout the truck.

Evertz' SDVN IP Technology features comprehensive support for industry standards and in order to facilitate interoperability between internal and external systems, this OB truck utilizes SMPTE ST 2110 and AES67 for the routing of video, audio and data.

The 45FLEX is also using Evertz' MAGNUM Orchestration platform to enable a single point of unified control and monitoring for all of the resources on 45FLEX. Along with MAGNUM, VUE, Evertz' Intelligent User Interface platform, is utilized to create customized user interfaces enabling highly efficient operational workflows. MAGNUM is utilized on several of Mobile TV Group's fleet of production trucks and was a major contributing factor for the selection of an Evertz SDVN solution for 45FLEX according to Evertz.

RASTATT, Germany—Following Evertz filing a lawsuit on seven instances of patent infringement against it, Lawo has come out with a statement “strongly denying” the accusations, saying that the allegedly infringed patents “are invalid.”

On Monday, March 18, Evertz filed its lawsuit against Lawo AG, Lawo Inc. and Lawo North America Corp in the Federal District Court for the District of Delaware. The lawsuits alleges infringement on Evertz’s IP-based video routing and switching technology.

Evertz had previously filed litigation against Lawo and former Evertz employees in the Superior Court of Ontario. However, Lawo asserts in its response that Evertz failed to state in its press release that the Canadian action was struck down by the court in February because “Evertz failed to articulate a material basis for its claim.”

“This press release is part of a global public relations campaign, which obviously goes beyond the mere protection of Evertz’s alleged rights in court,” reads Lawo’s statement.

“We will vigorously defend the lawsuits and will pursue all appropriate legal actions against Evertz,” said Claudia Nowak, CFO of Lawo in the statement. “Business will continue as usual and there should not be any impact on our customers while these matters are pending.”

NEW YORK—ESPN will launch production from its new Seaport District Studio in the Howard Hughes Corp. development at Pier 17 in Lower Manhattan April 1 with the debut of "NBA Countdown.”

The following day, it will begin producing its new morning program “Get Up” from the facility, and this summer the sports network plans to launch a show revolving around Bomani Jones and Pablo Torre from the new digs—all with the help of NEP, which is providing technical services and staffing for shows.

ESPN ‘CONTENT ENGINE’

While ambitious, that’s simply the initial lineup for Studio 1 at the Seaport District facility. There’s still Studio 2, which hasn’t yet been completed and a hybrid radio/social media/digital content studio that’s still in the works.

“We designed this space to be a content engine for ESPN in New York City,” says Chris Calcinari, vice president, ESPN and ABC Sports Remote Production Operations. “It’s a really unique location that provides a lot of iconic perspectives for our viewers.”

In October, ESPN announced the facility at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. The sports network is relying upon its REMI, or remote integration, model at the 21,000-square-foot space facility, which ties the new studios into control rooms at its Bristol, Conn., headquarters as well as those in Los Angeles, Charlotte, N.C., and Washington, D.C.

[Read: ESPN Sets Up Studio In Manhattan]

ESPN has deployed two redundant 40Gbps fiber optic links from AT&T for its nationwide hookup and RCN for the first-mile that accommodate 24 outbound and 32 inbound 1080p HD signals.

“In a traditional studio and control room environment, the studio and control room are 100 feet away from each other,” says Calcinari. “This is just a much longer cable run from the studio to the control room—2,300 miles to L.A. T.C. [technical control] and 100 miles to Bristol.”

Despite the distance, the functionality is identical to a traditional setup with the same communications and tally infrastructure that make it seem as if directors and camera operators are essentially right next to each other.

For a new facility in Manhattan where commercial real estate space is particularly costly, REMI (remote integration model) was a logical approach. “It’s a really innovative way of making TV that allows us to have a unique studio in Manhattan and a really small footprint in a really cost-effective manner,” he says.

[Read: Take Me Out To The Ballpark…NOT]

PRIME LOCATION

Locating in New York City was attractive because Manhattan offers the chance to have easy access to guests, says Calcinari. ESPN has already put that access to work from its new BureauCam area at the Seaport District Studios, when earlier this week Ronda Rousey began using the space to do TV hits in the morning.

The Lower Manhattan location also provides a unique visual motif for ESPN to play to the hilt. “The design [of Studio 1] is very authentically New York, and that was intentional,” says Mike Foss, supervising director, remote production operations at ESPN. ”There’s a lot of brick, a lot of steel-industrial in a Brooklyn-Manhattan loft style.”

Studio 1, a 3,900-square-foot space with several set and standup locations, offers a spectacular view from large windows overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and East River. To mitigate intense sunlight or reflections from the river, ESPN has installed a mechanized neutral density system, according to Foss.

If the outdoor light still proves to be too bright or if the weather outside is overcast, the windows can be covered with five large LED panels arranged side-by-side. The system is mechanized and can be rolled out and ready to use in three minutes, adds Foss.

“The Studio 1 space is very flexible so it can have very unique looks,” says Calcinari. “When ‘NBA Countdown’ is in that space, it will have its own desk as will ‘Get Up!’ when it’s in that space.”

Studio 1 also has an interview area designed to look like a living room and a “bullpen area” where talent can stand in front of large LED screens to make presentations using touchscreen technology, says Calcinari.

At the moment, Studio 1 is set up with seven cameras: four hard, a Steadicam, a jib and a robotically operated PTZ camera mounted to the wall in the living room area. However, the studio is capable of up to 10 cameras, says Calcinari.

To light the studio, ESPN is using a plan developed by Ferri Lighting Design that relies on 512 LED fixtures.

FUTURE PROOF FOR IP AND 4K

As with the rest of the Seaport District facility, Studio 1 is 1080p-based; however, the facility is prepared for a future 4K conversion if the network goes in that direction, he says.

Baseband video is routed with an Evertz core routing switcher, which can be upgraded to IP when the ESPN facilities around the country that control productions from New York make their transition to IP, says Chris Strong, senior remote operations specialist. “Needless to say, we are totally IP-based in the audio realm.”

The audio and communications infrastructure at the Seaport District Studios benefits from the four years of experience ESPN has gained since first deploying its REMI model, says Henry Rousseau, senior operations manager at the sports network.

For example, one lesson learned is the need to embed the microphone chain into the video source before sending the signal to an ESPN remote control location, says Rousseau.

Another is the use of an Alteros wireless mic system operating in the unlicensed 6.5GHz band. The system supports 24 channels of wireless RF mics and can have up to 32 individual antennas. At the moment, 12 antennas are “strategically placed” throughout Studio 1, and 10 of the mics will be used there, he says.

Intercom communications are handled with a wireless Clear-Com Freespeak system working in 1.9GHz range, and antennas have been positioned to allow production staff to walk between the studios with their beltpacks. IFB is done with a Shure system operation in the 400MHz range.

“But you never put all of your eggs in one basket with RF, so we have to have some hard backups,” Rousseau said. “We are utilizing Studio Technologies IFBs and beltpacks using Dante.”

Communications is a key to the success of the REMI model, adds Calcinari. “When you are that far away from the control room, you need to make sure the production guys feel as comfortable as they would in any other facility.”

The Seaport District production space isn’t limited to the confines on the indoor studios. ESPN plans to use the 100,000-square-foot roof of the building to take shows outside on warm days and bring in a studio audience, says Calcinari.

The roof, which offers views of the Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty, Freedom Tower (1WTC) and the Empire State Building, is equipped with multiple fiber-optic camera drops with power as are multiple locations around the Seaport Building and throughout the historic cobblestone Fulton Market area, Calcinari adds.

“We feel really good about the way this is set up here from an innovative workflow perspective,” he said. “Our goal has been to make this ESPN’s content machine in Manhattan.”

SILVER SPRING, MD.—Discovery Communications has wrapped up its transition to playout from Amazon Web Service’s public cloud based on technology from Evertz Microsystems, the network and Evertz announced this week.

The playout system, based on technology from Evertz, including Mediator-X, Overture-RT LIVE and Render-X, can be used to play to air pre-recorded as well as live programming.

Discovery Communications, which counts the Discovery Channel, TLC and ID among its brands, first used the new solution for a total of 40 hours of live coverage of the Barrett-Jackson auto auction from Las Vegas Oct. 19 and again on Oct. 21 on Velocity, said Dan Turow, vice president of File Based Solutions at Evertz, during a telephone interview.

“Evertz’ cloud-based playout solution has transformed Discovery Communications’ playout operations and has given us the scalability, flexibility and agility to address continuously evolving business and technical challenges,” Brinton Miller, senior vice president of Technology Strategy & Architecture at Discovery, said in a press announcement.

The playout setup also uses Evertz Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solutions using IPX Switch Fabrics, Network Address Translators (NAT) and encoding/decoding products.Video is moved to and from the cloud with mezzanine level compression as a transport stream, said Turow.

Amazon Web Services hosts the Evertz cloud-based playout solution natively. Six data centers, distributed across two geographic areas –one in northern Virginia and the other in Ireland-- host Mediator-X, Overture-RT LIVE and Render-X. Mediator-X provides Media Asset Management (MAM) functionality, serves as a workflow engine and provides playout automation. It prioritizes and automates file transfers to and from Amazon S3 storage.

Secondary events, such as logo and graphics insertion, SCTE metadata messaging, audio loudness correction, Nielsen watermarking and Dolby D encoding, are the domain of Evertz’ Overturn-RT LIVE, the company’s software modular playout engine. Discovery can scale its operations and recover playout instances using automated orchestration methods.

For more information on Discovery's move to the cloud, check out this recent webinar: Project On-Ramp: Migrating Discovery's Media Supply Chain to the Cloud.

BURLINGTON, ONTARIO—As Blue Ant Media launched its new Love Nature 4K linear TV channel in Canada, it relied on Evertz to provide UHD support.

Love Nature 4K TV uses Evertz’s advanced Mediator and OvertureRT Live technologies. Mediator provides a fully automated workflow, including content preparation, media asset management and playout automation. The OvertureRT Live 4K integrated playout engines under Mediator control.

The Love Nature 4K channel, which is now available, features the same channel line-up as the pre-existing HD channel.

BURLINGTON, ONTARIO—Evertz will use IBC 2017 to show its commitment to IP technologies with demonstrations of its Software Defined Video Networking range of IP equipment at the IP Showcase. The IP Showcase’s goal is to show how IP technology can be used by broadcasters right now and to promote a unified industry approach to IP that encourages vendor interoperability through industry standards.

The Showcase will feature IP technology with interoperability based on SMPTE ST 2110 and AMWA IS-04 and IS-05. The standards aim to streamline inter-vendor interoperability as broadcasters update their facilities with new IP infrastructures. The demonstrations simulate real-world applications with workflows that emulate live production, contribution and playout signal flows.

For Evertz, it will display interoperability with the SMPTE ST 2110 standard with its IP media gateways (570IPG-X19-10G and 7890MG), IP mutliviewers (3067VIP10G-3G-HW), IP-based Grand Master Clock and Video Master Sync Generator (5700MSC-IP), the DreamCatcher IP-based live production suite and OvertureRT LIVE IP integrated playout system. Evertz’ SDVN orchestration and control platform Magnum will also be shown supporting AMWA IS-04 and IS-05 for registration, discovery and connection management of network devices.

Evertz will be located at booths 1.D31 and 1.F29 during IBC 2017, which runs from Sept. 15-19 in Amsterdam.

BURLINGTON, ONTARIO—As the industry continues to make strides toward IP, Evertz and Panasonic have announced an effort to test SMPTE ST 2110 interoperability among its products.

The two companies are collaborating to demonstrate support of the upcoming SMPTE ST 2110 set of standards for transporting video, audio and metadata over IP, including AMWA IS-04 support for registration and discovery of network devices. To do so, Evertz is showcasing the interoperability of its timing systems and multiviewers with Panasonic’s SMPTE ST 2110 enabled camera systems.

“Vendor interoperability around a single unifying standard, SMPTE ST 2110, will be a critical requirement for media companies as they transition to IP infrastructures,” said Mo Goyal, director of product marketing at Evertz. “Continuing interoperability testing of SMPTE ST 2110 will ensure a smooth and glitch-free industry transition to IP-based workflows.”

LAS VEGAS—Evertz arrives at NAB Show making sure to address a range of key industry topics, but with a particular emphasis on IP and cloud service products.

Mo Goyal, director of product marketing, addresses the Evertz press conference.

The IP workflows Evertz has on display at the show feature its Software Defined Video Network, including its new 25 GbE range of products, evEDGE FPGA accelerated compute blades and the 5700MSC-IP IP-based grand master clock and video master sync generator.

For the cloud, Evertz offers its inSITE big data analytics engine for real-time centralized operational intelligence with support for cloud-based systems, such as Amazon Web Services. The data collected through the system provides more alert information for broadcasters on the video chain. Other cloud products include the Overture RT Live VM playout system and Mediator-X MAM platform.

In addition, Evertz is showcasing updates to its DreamCatcher playout system that boost live editing and content management; quad-link 3G-SDI, 12G-SDI and IP UHD/HDR products; its 570ITXE on-ramp IP gateway; the 3482TXE-HEVC software-defined accelerated platform; XPRF14 128×128 RF router; the ezBlade-5210-HW compute blade; and evRemote and 3606FR media gateways.

On the business side, Evertz has announced product deals with Turner and the Weather Channel, as well as for Dome Productions and SBS mobile production trucks.

Copyright NAB 2017