NEW WINDSOR, N.Y.—PRG is a global leader in production technology, powering creativity across every corner of the live and entertainment industries. While our roots are on Broadway—and we remain deeply entrenched in theater—we now partner with the world’s biggest names in live events, concert tours, corporate experiences, television and film. Today, more than 80% of our work is in 4K or higher.

Clients come to us with an idea, and we turn it into reality. That might be the setup and rental of a couple of digital cinematography cameras for an episodic shoot, or it could be a massive production infrastructure. We’ve even delivered productions on a record-breaking scale—like season one of “Beast Games,” for which we provided more than 300 cameras.

Flyaway Systems for Scale
To support the nature of our business, we build flyaway systems that can interconnect to give us the scale we need. We include all of the video and audio processing, along with routers from Evertz or Ross Video in racks under 63 inches in height so they can fit on a plane.

We have to work within tight space constraints, but we also have to remember our ultimate goal of ensuring the highest possible quality all time. So, our systems include signal-measurement kits, and for that we rely entirely on Leader. Typically, our racks will include the LV5350 waveform monitor and the LT4670 sync generator.

That means we can easily provide complete timecode, video quality monitoring and measurement, right where the production needs it. Where there needs to be quick adjustment, users can have confidence in what they are seeing. Indeed, the Leader name is widely recognized as the one to choose for video test and measurement, so our clients feel confident knowing we use these instruments.

Our quality control starts before the kit gets to the venue. Our camera team, led by Kenny Kato, checks every camera before it goes out. Where necessary, we have built on the manufacturers’ video standards to develop our own PRG quality baselines to deliver the best possible quality and ensure consistency. A large production will have cameras in multiple formats from many manufacturers, and we ensure that they are matched as closely as is technically feasible. This reduces stress on-site and time in edit.

All the Data at a Glance
Our camera workshops use the Leader LV7600W rasterizer. This means the engineer can precisely see the measurements they want in the layout they want on a large monitor on a workbench. That includes SDI packet timing as well as waveform and vectors to ensure the perfect signal is being delivered. Being able to see all the information simultaneously is obviously a huge time-saver, and more convenient and cost-effective than buying multiple instruments from multiple vendors.

Where we are lining up high-quality cameras for episodic shoots, the LV7600W allows the engineer to fully evaluate the output against a CIE diagram. It helps me confirm whether we’re hitting Rec. 709 or BT2020. The ability to display precise code value, rather than just a waveform, speeds accuracy.

We first used Leader test and measurement equipment in 2015 when we provided the facilities for one of the world’s largest sporting events. It worked well for us, and we have seen no reason to change. Leader Instruments offer us quick and clear access to precision measurement in the form that works best for us and for our clients. They’ve proven to be reliable, efficient tools—and in our view, they’re some of the best products in the industry.

More information is available at https://leaderphabrix.com/.

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 12 to August 16. The stories are listed from the newest on Friday August 16, day by day back to our stories from Monday August 12.

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THATCHAM, U.K.—Test & Measurement solutions provider Leader Electronics of Europe, has announced that it will showcase both Leader and Phabrix instruments at this year’s IBC Show, which takes place at RAI Amsterdam from 13-16 September (Stand 10.C01). 

During the show, the company will be presenting a comprehensive range of its latest and most popular test & measurement (T&M) solutions that cater to every stage of the manufacturing and broadcast production chain – from in-house video technology development to broadcast QC, on-set live production and post-production.

Martin Mulligan, COO, Leader Electronics of Europe, commented that “The continuing increase in the number of broadcast environments employing both SDI and IP underlines the validity of our commitment to providing T&M solutions that are truly ‘hybrid-capable’. We expect many IBC visitors will be looking to review their T&M capabilities in 2024-25 as the pace of IP adoption intensifies, and we look forward to demonstrating why our technology can provide everything they need to support new and legacy workflows. Adding to this, we can’t wait to add another major product innovation into our line up; stay tuned for more details on its release in the run up to IBC 2024!”

Solutions relating to hybrid IP/SDI generation, monitoring and analysis include: 

• The Leader LT4670 1U full-rack width ‘True Hybrid’ SDI/IP synchronous test generator will be demonstrated at IBC. Its standard toolset includes Genlocked black burst signals, tri-level sync pulse generation, and dual PTP generation, a stay-in-sync function for use in the event of an error in the incoming genlock signal, slow-lock stabilization when returning to genlock from stay-in-sync, 48 kHz word-clock signal output synchronized to incoming video; plus synchronous control between devices (L-SYNC).
• Phabrix’s advanced QxL rasterizer will also be on show. QxL is fully 10G/25G IP enabled as standard, with support for generation and analysis of JT-NM TR 1001-1:2018, ST 2110-20 (video), up to four 2110-30 (PCM) and 2110-31 (AES3 transport) audio and a 2110-40 ANC media flow, all with 2022-7 Seamless IP Protection Switching (SIPS) and AMWA NMOS IS-04 discovery and IS-05 device connection management. 
• Alongside the QxL will be Phabrix’s renowned handheld instrument, Sx TAG. An ideal line checking tool for testing ST 2110 and ST 2022-6 streams, Sx TAG provides support for SMPTE ST 2110-20/30/40 encapsulation/decapsulation with ST 2059 PTP, SDP and NMOS as well as SMPTE ST 2022-6 encapsulation/ decapsulation.

Advanced generation, analysis and monitoring tools for broadcast QC and MCR solutions include:  

• Phabrix’s QxP portable waveform monitor offers 12G-SDI and 25G-IP monitoring in a fully portable, lightweight 3RU form factor. With its combined waveform monitor, generator and analyzer toolsets, and integral V-mount or Gold-mount battery plate, QxP is designed for all workflows whether SD, HD, UHD, EUHD, SDR, HDR, SDI or IP, conventional or remote production. 
• Phabrix’s Rx Series will also be demonstrated. Ideal for fast 2K/3G/HD/SD fault diagnosis, the Rx rasterizers offer up to 4 channel generation, analysis and monitoring, all displayed via an ultra-flexible display layout, offering up to 16 instruments on show simultaneously.

Flexible test & measurement for on-set, post and live production:

• Leader’s brand-new ZEN-W Series will be making its IBC Show debut, comprised of the ‘True Hybrid’ simultaneous IP & SDI, LV5600W waveform monitor and LV7600W rasterizer. Each incorporates a Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) interface, allowing secure remote control and monitoring from a web-connected desktop or laptop computer.
• Leader will also be demonstrating a host of brand-new updates for its complete ZEN Series of rasterizers and waveform monitors, including HDR/SDR/HDR conversion via 3D LUT file import, SDR Full Range Display and the addition of ARRI, RED and SONY camera tools to the Leader Cinezone real-time false color exposure display.

Instruments for 12G-SDI and product engineering environments include: 

• Renowned for ‘in-house’ product development and technology manufacturing environments, Phabrix’s advanced Qx and QxL rasterizers offer up to 12G-SDI and 25G IP analysis and monitoring. The Qx Series’ fast 12G/6G/3G/HD-SDI physical layer testing toolset instantly highlights SMPTE compliance issues. Its advanced SDI-STRESS option will also be demonstrated, suitable for stress testing SDI interfaces up to 12G.
• Phabrix’s SxE handheld instrument offers generation, analysis and monitoring toolsets with advanced Physical Layer Analysis, ideal for SMPTE compliance evaluation.

Solutions for live cloud production are also available. Using AWS Direct Connect, traditional Picture, Waveform and vectorscope analysis tools are available to productions utilizing the cloud. With support for CDI, NDI & SRT, along with the traditional Quality of Experience analysis tools, production and engineering staff can also analyze Quality of Service, with Ancillary Data, Flow Tables and Path delay analysis on either computer, tablet or smartphones.

More information is available at https://leaderphabrix.com/

Of all the new technologies offered to film and TV production in the last decade or two, HDR probably received the warmest immediate reception. While single-camera production has been an early adopter, the demands of producing legacy formats side by side—and in real time—has made HDR slower to grow into multicamera work.

Kevin Salvidge, Sales Engineering and Technical Marketing Manager at Leader/Phabrix referred to a recent EBU session on the subject, noting the complexities involved. “They are concerned that this is appearing too complicated, and that’s preventing HDR [from] becoming mainstream—the knowledge and the power is in the hands of a few people,” he said. “If you’ve got one of those people on your production, bingo, the world’s your oyster. If not, how do you do this?”

The answer, Salvidge goes on, will involve both new equipment and new techniques, but decisions made now are likely to be foundational. “We are currently defining the workflows for the next twenty years,” he said. “The workflows that now seem to be universally adopted are a single master production. The vision mixer is cutting UHD, wide color gamut HDR, so any sources that are not 4K, wide color gamut, high dynamic range are upconverted. That’s close to the workflow the BBC used for the coronation.”

Little Room for Error
As a supplier of test-and-measurement equipment, Phabrix might not ordinarily expect to be involved in that sort of signal processing. Salvidge describes a process of convergence: “The HDR supervisor is the only person who sees HDR Images, and is having to compare both of them. The camera will also output HDR and this is normally where a conversion product sits. And if you’ve got a production, let’s say the FIFA world cup final, with 42 cameras, that’s a lot of kit, a lot of potential to go wrong.”

With Leader and Phabrix now under the same umbrella, some efficiencies have been realized, Salvidge adds. “What we’ve done with the Leader product is the ability for a LUT to be loaded into the waveform monitor, so now you remove that conversion product,” Salvidge says. “You switch on the LUT and you can see the picture, waveform, vectorscope, and the CIE color chart, and the beauty of that is the same LUT is being applied on the output of the truck as well.”

That kind of technical consolidation helps everyone, though Salvidge tells us that the concerns of vision engineering for HDR has also provoked some changes in tools, too.

“The Leader and Phabrix products, in the old days, used to display one analysis tool, or a quad split with four of them,” Salvidge says. “If you’re doing HDR, you need the picture, the waveform, the vector, the CIE chart, and you may be monitoring other parameters as well. You need to have more than four tools.

“So now you’ve got this customizable layout, on both products, which allows you to save it for a particular operation you’re doing,” he added. “We have a lot of freelance people who walk around with their setup on a flash key.”

There will, however, always be considerations which are creative, and harder to characterize on a test-and-measurement display, as Salvidge points out. “They’ve changed the way they shoot. Originally they’d focus on, say, a skier. You have very skilled camera operators, three or 4 km away. They’ll pick up a stick man doing almost 100 kph and they’d have a fairly wide shot. The guys who did the HDR testing said 90% of the screen was white, but you now see them frame the shot so you get the forest in the side… it changed the way they thought about the production, how they framed the shot.”

‘We’re the Plumbers’
With HDR likely to coexist with conventional pictures for the foreseeable future, trucks will be producing two separate outputs—but production has long demanded different outputs for different distributors.

Ralph Bachofen, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Triveni says his company deals less with the picture content and more with the way it’s moved around.

“I’ll differentiate between quality of service and quality of experience,” Bachofen begins. “We’re focussing on the transport layer. We do monitor the experience, we look at black frames, but… we’re focussing on the signaling aspects of it. We’re the plumbers.”

Distribution to vastly different platforms can make things even more complicated, as Bachofen explains. “A lot of people do a number of streams or production environments for different formats. You have very country-specific encoding requirements. How do I hand off these requirements to my main broadcast? How do I hand it off to my channel partners? You see a lot of encoding going on, a lot of activity in this field.”

The move toward IP, Bachofen reflects, makes for a lot of rationalization, with entirely new features as well as new maintenance demands.

“Can you make a box that does all of it?” Bachofen muses. “The answer’s yes—our StreamScopes handle multiple simultaneous stream inputs. You don’t want a box per stream, you want a single box that does multiple ingest.

“We have a large engineering staff who work on these requirements, and it’s not just video,” he adds. “There’s the vast requirement you get for security patches on the OS. The minute you put a device on an intranet, their IT departments require you to have the latest and greatest security patches.”

That unity of purpose can stretch the definition of test and measurement to provide an overview of an entire operation, a market need Triveni addressed at the 2024 NAB Show with the launch of Station Manager.

“Say, at 3 a.m., you want to do some datacasting… you add this in the Station Manager and you want to push this down to individual devices,” Bachofen said. “We look at whether this is a valid configuration. We help the engineering staff in each station to ensure they have valid configurations of the whole broadcast chain.”

Customer Feedback
Interra Systems is another QA provider that focuses on monitoring the entire production chain as well. The range of issues that can arise are more numerous than ever, particularly when it comes to HDR.

“Working with UHD, HDR files involves managing multiple aspects, including resolution, wide color gamut, high dynamic range, and frame rates,” the company wrote in a recent blog. “Each of these factors can contribute to different quality issues. Potential problems could manifest as blurriness, digital ghosting, color banding, and tone mapping. These issues may arise from mishandling wide color gamut, HDR metadata, or improper frame rate adjustments. It is crucial to adopt tools to address these conditions and ensure a smooth transition between HD and UHD content.

Many media workflows involve up-converting 1080p HD content to 4K UHD and processing both standard dynamic range (SDR) and HDR outputs. However, mix-and-match scenarios introduce their own set of problems,” the company said. “Upscaling the resolution can introduce artifacts like blurriness, digital ghosting, etc. Likewise, frame rate up-conversion can lead to temporal artifacts for e.g., motion jerks. Upscaling the dynamic range and color can lead to color banding.

Most of these new features are already part of Interra’s BATON file QC solution, according to Interra.

“First and foremost, we have ensured that we have complete format support right from capture to delivery. This includes capture and distribution formats like TIFF, SonyRaw, DPX, ProRES, AVC, HEVC etc. On the QC side, we have already added support for Color Banding, Digital Ghosting, Aliasing, Motion Jerk, measurement of Light Levels for HDR and more. Feedback from the customers is key here.”

The technology for supplying that chain with HDR material, meanwhile, requires technology which is still growing in maturity. Charlie Dunn, senior vice president and general manager of Test & Measurement at Telestream, describes some new solutions to the vision engineering challenges of HDR.

As Dunn puts it, “a vectorscope in HDR space isn’t that useful. What’s more useful is a CIE chart [color space], but that’s a 1930s thing, and it’s not that great for determining if you're out of bounds. We’ve made a number of innovations—we’ve pitched a couple of papers at SMPTE, and we’re working on that toolset.”

Bringing the long-established competence of experienced people into such a new discipline requires some lateral thinking Dunn adds.

“People are so used to looking at a waveform and vectorscope to shade the camera. So, we’ve given them additional tools—one of them is a false color map. You can look at the greens on the pitch, the white lines, the reds of a jersey, so you can make sure they’re in bounds. If they’re not, they turn to a cyan or some unnatural color, so the operator can check the colors are right.”

The complexities of HDR have sometimes led to a degree of engineering conservatism, often with the result that color is limited to a range that’s actually somewhat less than could ideally be achieved.

“People are really interested in whether the CIE chart is going outside the P3 color space,” Dunn muses. “But that’s based on displays of 10 years ago. I have a feeling that’ll go by the wayside. I don’t see a lot of people doing that—I think it’s a problem they currently have and is not something they’ll constrain themselves to going forward.”

With that in mind, Dunn says, Telestream has sought advice from people who do this on a daily basis.

“Someone like Sky has some tremendous engineers, and we’ve worked really closely with them on adjusting our tools,” Dunn said. “They have a really long roadmap for us of things they’d like to see. They're looking at it from the point of view of how can I make things easy for the operator. That’s how false color came about, that’s how the luma-qualified CIE charts came about. I’d say on a scale of 1-10, we’re probably at a three. There’s a lot of ground for us to cover.”

The transition that’s in progress, Dunn says, is not quite like those which have come before.

“A lot of people are doing things in different ways. In the transition to UHD, nobody really had to do anything differently. Going to HDR, especially for people using test and measurement gear, I think over the next five years the best methodologies will find their way to the top. How people build their facilities, what they make remote, what they decide to put in the cloud, on the basis of having experience. We worry about the screen area which is ten inches across—we worry about how much information we can display in a small space!”

“But it’s good for us,” Dunn concludes. “It means they need more test equipment!”

THATCHAM, U.K.—Test and measurement company PHABRIX will exhibit its line of instruments, including the Qx, Rx and Sx Series at the 2024 NAB Show, April 13-17, in Las Vegas.

Together with its parent company Leader Electronics, PHABRIX will demo test and measurement solutions for all broadcast and media applications—whether on-set, studio production, post-production, broadcast QC or for in-house video technology manufacturing facilities, it said.

PHABRIX will highlight new features for its Qx Series of rasterizers and waveform monitors, including the Qx, QxL and QxP models. The series now supports detection and analysis of SMPTE Full Range video standards and can generate video standards in Full Range (FR), Full Protected (FP) Range and Narrow Range (NR) for SMPTE ST 2110 and either FR or NR for SMPTE ST 2022-6 and SDI. The updates also include the ability to verify color content regardless of the specific video format used, it said. 

Other new Rx and Sx Series developments to be featured include:

• The addition of Enhanced Gamut Monitoring to the Rx Series rasterizers for 2K/3G/HD/SD signal generation, analysis and monitoring.
• The Sx Series of handheld instruments, including the Sx TAG hybrid IP/SDI and analog generation, analysis and video/audio monitoring device.

“With broadcast and media companies delivering greater amounts of content, via more platforms and formats than ever before, it’s vital that they can rapidly analyze and diagnose faults in time-critical situations,” said PHABRIX CEO Martin Mulligan. “The PHABRIX range – led by the Qx, Rx and Sx Series – provides them with all of these capabilities, and as the latest software update demonstrates we always strive to be one step ahead in adding the new features our customers will require next.”

See PHABRIX at NAB Show booth C5521.

More information is available on the company’s website.

THATCHAM, U.K.—Phabrix will show new software features for its Qx and QxL rasterizers and the new portable QxP waveform monitor during IBC 2023, Sept. 15-18, at the RAI Amsterdam.

The company, which will be co-exhibiting with its parent company Leader Electronics, also will present its Sx Series of handheld instruments as well as its 2K/3G/HD/SD Rx rasterizers, the company said.

The QxP portable waveform monitor offers the same flexible architecture as the QxL rasterizer and support for 12G-SDI and 25GbE UHD IP workflows. The device offers an integrated 3U multi-touch 1920 x 1200 7-inch LCD screen with integral V-Mount or Gold-mount battery plates, it said.

The new QxP and existing QxL and Qx rasterizers offer the user configurability and advanced tools needed for full operational flexibility when transitioning to next-generation workflows, it said.

New features for the Qx Series include Full Range generation and analysis for comprehensive testing and evaluation as well as enhanced waveform analysis capabilities. The Qx Series takes advantage of the company’s patented DDR-based processing technology. It offers users the precision necessary for tasks like camera shading and image grading while maintaining operational flexibility, the company said.

The latest Rx Series features to be highlighted at IBC 2023 include a new 6-bar gamut toolset to highlight out-of-gamut areas in the picture window. The rasterize series offers gamut monitoring meter bars for the YCbCr and RGB color spaces for pixel-level monitoring at YCbCr and RGB levels at the same time, it said.

The company will also show its Sx Series of handheld instruments.

“Test-and-Measurement instruments are our customers’ lifelines when it comes to rapid fault diagnosis in time critical situations. It’s vital we continue to develop products that support all their formats and production approaches, especially as this industry continues to evolve so rapidly. IBC gives us a fantastic opportunity to discuss our customers’ needs and the latest challenges they are facing,” said Phabrix CEO Martin Mulligan.

See Phabrix at IBC Stand 10.C01.

More information is available on the company’s website.  

Over the years, the cost of good television equipment has bucked the general inflationary trend. For example, you can buy a camera and lens today that is far better than a camera and lens from 20 years ago, and today’s gear will cost just 50% or less of what the camera would have cost you in 2003.

When using that camera back in the day, you probably wanted to view its output on a waveform monitor to get the exposure right. Today’s camera is likely to have a waveform display capability built in that can be called up anytime to check the exposure. So today’s production equipment not only often costs less than ever, it does more than ever.

Of course, video networks are far more complex today, and this complexity means that test and measurement/quality control equipment today has to do much more at the network level than was needed for the simpler networks two decades ago. Much of today’s network-level test gear is evolving with new measurement and analysis techniques, as the video streaming environment gets more complicated and demanding over time.

“As delivery systems have become more complex, the demand for versatile and advanced digital monitoring and analysis solutions has increased,” said Anupama Anantharaman, vice president for product management at Interra Systems. “As a result, single-purpose monitoring gear has taken a backseat to more adaptable multifunctional tools. These tools leverage the power of new content creation and delivery standards—and computer networks—to provide comprehensive monitoring capabilities that cover various aspects of stream analysis and signal evaluation.”

The Impact of ST 2110
Signals that conform to the SMPTE ST 2110 standard have multiple components (video, audio and ancillary data) each transmitted as separate streams. An IP-based stream monitor can analyze, evaluate and route these streams and extract the metadata based on the user’s workflow, providing full flexibility.

“Software-based tools used on an IP network can efficiently extract and analyze this metadata, allowing broadcasters to monitor and verify critical information such as format, timing and identification,” Anantharaman said. “In the context of video, waveform monitors can sometimes fail to detect problems due to human error. However, by using IP-based probes, operators can automate the process of stream verification for today’s vast amount of content.”

Human error notwithstanding, standalone testing and QC devices still have value in many operations and workflows.

“Although the underlying infrastructure of how media is transported has changed, the overall tasks that need to be accomplished by operators and engineers are still fundamentally the same,” said Don Kianian, solutions marketing manager for Telestream. “The workload has increased and the need to manage these workflows efficiently is paramount. 

“Traditional, familiar waveform monitoring tools are still extremely useful to monitor and measure video and audio signals,” he added. “They may also be complemented by other software tools (such as quality control solutions) that can automatically QC content and alert users to media that does not meet spec.”

Telestream serves both OTT and broadcasters, and Kianian said the company is seeing a shift in how the two are evolving.

“We’re certainly seeing OTA adopting more and more OTT technologies and solutions [e.g., cloud workflows, remote collaboration, AI/ML] as part of a broadcaster/content provider’s overall strategy to reach broader audiences and go toe-to-toe with the increasing number of content providers in the market,” he said. “I expect this tug-of-war to continue well into this year and beyond.”

Upgrade to ATSC 3.0
Traditional broadcasters are in the early phases of a soft transition to the ATSC 3.0 standard, which is much more IP-friendly than the outgoing ATSC 1.0. What does this mean with respect to test and measurement equipment, and what lies ahead?

“As the transition to ATSC 3.0 heats up in the United States, we are seeing increased interest in test and measurement equipment,” said Ralph Bachofen, vice president of sales and marketing at Triveni Digital. “The transition to ATSC 3.0 is an opportunity for broadcasters to upgrade their T&M suite.

“With the latest T&M equipment, broadcasters can ensure outstanding-quality NextGen TV services, better understand the new standard, and simultaneously deliver ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 transmissions during the simulcast phase.”

Bachofen explained that single-purpose test gear is still in use, but it has an easily understood limiting factor.

“Single-purpose gear is still in use, especially in the RF realm,” he said. “The trend is to adopt multipurpose systems for service quality assurance and enterprise-wide monitoring. Single-purpose gear is much more expensive than having a solution from one vendor that can monitor multiple demarcation points at the same time.”

The sheer volume of production today means that more test, measurement and quality control gear than ever is needed. And yes, that means devices such as waveform monitors.

“The demands of operational television businesses are largely unchanged in that content has to meet in-house delivery standards as well as regulatory requirements,” said Prinyar Boon, product manager at Phabrix. “This remains the case regardless of how it’s been carried: file, streamed, broadcast, compressed, uncompressed, SDI, IP, MT2TS and so on.”

New Signal Types
Although production facilities need to measure and confirm the quality of signals, the relatively recent (and ongoing) industry transition from SDI to ST 2110 means new test gear is needed for the new signal types, according to Boon.

“To complicate the picture, many of these facilities will use both SDI- and IP-based systems,” Boon said. “We’ve been deeply involved for many years with the development of workflows for live HDR production, and measurement tools for ST 2110 systems using precision time protocol (PTP), while also retaining traditional SDI-based toolsets. 

“So yes, we’d agree very much that the era of standalone gear is over, and without doubt the long-term trend is to have operational and production tools evolve into on-prem and off-prem cloud-based systems.”

In the days when broadcast OTA was the only game in town, broadcasters could rely on knowing that the signal was properly received on a monitor TV in the studio. If the picture/sound were good on that TV, then all viewers were receiving a quality signal.

In the OTT world, it is much more difficult for a program provider to check what the user experience is—especially when dozens of network operators (Comcast, Verizon, Cox, etc.) actually take the signal from the program provider and deliver it to the customer. Ensuring a quality experience in this environment is complicated… but not impossible.

“Because of the user-centric technology in modern video streaming, measuring the quality of the video transmission sent out doesn’t necessarily offer insight into the quality of the video received by the customer,” said Mathieu Planche, CEO of Witbe. “Furthermore, true video service performance is now defined by many more elements than just the image quality alone. User-centric video services need to be tested with user-centric monitoring technology.”

Location, Location, Location
In other words, sensors from the test system must be placed as close to the user as possible to make sure the network delivers the expected quality to the customer.

“Checking that a FAST channel is available on Comcast NOW TV cannot be verified through simple packet loss,” Planche said. “It involves complex interactions between backend systems, cloud-to-cloud integration, device operating systems, content providers, ad providers and various DRM stacks. OTT providers need user-centric monitoring technology to understand the true quality delivered to their end-users.”

This is where artificial intelligence (AI) could play an important role in monitoring networks and responding to failures faster than a human can react. In the meantime, change and growth is constant in the program delivery process.

“As the weight shifts further to online content and live streaming, having a solid grip on the entire chain becomes more important,” said Rajesh Patel, vice president for sales & solutions EMEA at Mediaproxy. “With an ever-increasing scale of sources, using software-based tools and APIs to optimize monitoring workflows will help reduce overall cost and enhance quality-of-service. 

“Teaming up with partners with solutions that straddle multiple disciplines is something to look at as old equipment becomes obsolete,” he continued. “This also includes shifting the thinking towards what the cloud can offer to handle specific pressure points.”

Patel sees that there is still a need for hardware-specific test equipment, even as change is coming.

“Despite the ever-growing availability of software-based tools, traditional hardware-based monitoring equipment is certainly still relevant in today’s monitoring chain,” he said. “This is especially still true for ST 2022-2 as well as for the emerging SDI replacement, ST 2110.” 

THATCHAM, U.K.—The test and measurement solutions provider, PHABRIX, has announced that CEO Phillip Adams is retiring 18 years after he founded the company. 

Phillip’s CEO position will be taken by Martin Mulligan, who has been with PHABRIX for nearly 8 years, most recently in the role of senior vice president of sales and operations. 

In addition, the company reported that it has named a new chairman, Hiroshi Kajita, who most recently served as head of media solutions at Sony Europe.

“Retirement from a company you founded and have spent many years growing is always going to be a slightly bittersweet experience, but I feel that now is the right time as the company is in such a strong position around the world,” Adams said. “With versatile solutions able to cater to the full range of legacy and next-generation workflows, our test & measurement solutions are now an integral part of the infrastructure for so many broadcasters – which has always been my driving ambition for the company. It is therefore an opportune moment to pass on my role as CEO to Martin Mulligan, who has brought outstanding energy and direction to every facet of the business during the last 8 years, while Hiroshi Kajita brings a phenomenal level of experience in media technology to his role as Chairman. With a superb workforce in every area of the business, I really couldn’t be leaving the company in better hands.”

Adams’ retirement from PHABRIX is the latest milestone in what has been a hugely successful 40- year career in the professional broadcast industry, the company said. 

Having graduated from Manchester Polytechnic in 1986, where he studied Electric & Electronic Engineering with sponsorship from Granada Television, Adams began his first company – FPGA design skills provider Complete Logic Ltd – at the age of 28. In 1992, he became a founder and director of Oxtel Ltd, a manufacturer of logo inserters and channel-branding equipment. He continued to run the R&D department there until 2001, when the company was sold to Miranda Technologies (now part of Grass Valley), where he served as European Director of Technology until 2003.

After a short sabbatical, Adams established PHABRIX Ltd in 2005. A recipient of more than 20 awards for technological achievement, and with a workforce of over 40 people, PHABRIX is a renowned manufacturer of test & measurement equipment whose solutions continue to evolve in line with broadcast & media workflow trends. He leaves the company in the midst of another successful year, epitomized by high-profile presence at NAB 2023 and the forthcoming IBC 2023.

Succeeding Adams will be Martin Mulligan, who has served in senior roles in the broadcast technology industry for nearly 25 years following his graduation in Computation at Manchester University (UMIST), the company said. 

For the first 16 years, he was global sales director of production technology innovator Quantel, which purchased Snell Ltd in 2014 (later re-branded as Snell Advanced Media (SAM) and then purchased by Grass Valley). Since 2015, he has been an integral part of the PHABRIX global management operation, latterly as senior vice president of sales and operations. Providing a superb grounding for his new position as CEO, Mulligan’s responsibilities in his previous role included the management of PHABRIX’s Sales team, operational organization from supply-chain management by Purchasing, through product assembly and testing and on to customer support and HR requirements, including recruitment and retention.

The company’s new chairman, Hiroshi Kajita, who joins the company after a remarkable 38 years with Sony. 

After many years as corporate executive officer and member of the board for Sony Business Solutions Corporation – where he led various groundbreaking 4K, OB and IP developments for major broadcasters – Kajita spent the past four years as Sony’s head of media solutions, building on the success enjoyed by Sony Europe as a world leader in media & entertainment products, solutions and services.

THATCHAM, U.K.—Broadcast test & measurement tech provider Phabrix, has announced that EVS has purchased two of its 25G IP ST 2110 QxL rasterizers. EVS will use the rasterizers to analyze video generated by its products during quality control (QC) tests.

With a distinguished track-record in sports, news and entertainment, EVS’ solutions enable content creators to deliver live content to billions of viewers every day. The new rasterizers will help EVS ensure that its live production, media asset management and media infrastructure solutions offer both high quality and reliability, the companies said. 

Several factors contributed to EVS’ recent decision to update its video analysis inventory with a pair of QxL rasterizers from Phabrix, including: the need to analyze both SDI and IP ST 2110 signal quality (the existing rasterizer was SDI-only); and the increased requirement for the analysis of HDR (High Dynamic Range).

The deal for the two rasterizers was arranged via Phabrix reseller and distribution partner Tevios. The QxLs are now in use at EVS’ quality control facilities and are being deployed to undertake a wide range of analytical tasks in QC.

“We are mostly using the QxLs with different test patterns to feed our servers and then analyze what’s going out from our playout,” explained EVS broadcast equipment software test supervisor Benjamin Coulée. “They are also being employed to generate audio frequencies. Primarily we are using analyzer waveforms and vectorscope, although with the recent purchase of an HDR license we are also analyzing HDR using the CIE Chart. We’ve found the units to be extremely capable for analyzing both SDI and ST 2110 signal quality, and measuring delay as determined by the ST 2022-7 standard.”

“EVS remains a watchword for live video quality around the world, so naturally we are delighted that they have chosen to invest in two of our acclaimed QxL rasterizers,” added Phillip Adams, CEO, Phabrix. “With the need to accommodate more formats and workflows seamlessly, the need for a flexible UHD-25G rasterizer that can address the requirements of broadcast media IP networks, as well as SDI, is evident to see. That’s why the QxL has been in constant demand since we launched it in April 2020, and it’s great to know that EVS is now using the product during its vital QC processes.”

THATCHAM, U.K.—NEP Group have purchased more than 30 Rx 2000 rasterizers from test and measurement expert PHABRIX for broadcast of NFL games.

The advanced analyzer/generator units, to be supplied in three batches, the Rx 2000 rasterizers will be used to text signals from broadcast trucks and other on-site systems at football stadiums, the company said.

The rasterizers support four channels of 2K/3G/HD/SD-SDI video and audio analysis and monitoring. They also can provide signal generation. Up to 16 devices can be analyzed and eye and jitter tested at the same time via an external display. Monitoring of the instruments and video can be done using dual built-in screens and audio speakers, it said.

The need to verify and validate signals while covering games motivated NEP to acquire the units. The mobile facilities provider also will use the Rx 2000s for quick signal generation and testing from central points in the operational systems as well as to provide accurate feedback to engineers and operations personnel on site, it said.

"Systems utilized by the league for game day operations are critical and support officiating, injury, coaching and other aspects, and therefore must be fully operational on the day,” said Scott Nardelli, senior vice president of integrated solutions at NEP U.S. Broadcast Services. “Having the appropriate test equipment on-site at each of the locations is imperative to achieving that goal of 100% uptime and no disruption of game operations. We were already familiar with the capabilities of PHABRIX equipment and are confident that the rasterizers will be beneficial to our production for the broadcasts.”

THATCHAM. U.K.—Cobalt Digital has purchased four PHABRIX QxL rasterizers, adding to its existing array of technology from the test and measurement innovator.

The newly acquired QxLs will support advanced SMPTE ST 2110 product development and testing as part of Cobalt Digital’s newly expanded production capacity, PHABRIX said.

With all of the JT-NM-tested features of its Qx forerunner, the QxL addresses the needs of professional broadcast media IP networks in a compact form factor. The QxL supports both generation and analysis of JT-NM TR-1001-1:2020, ST 2110-20 (video), up to four 2110-30 (PCM) or 2110-31 (AES transport) audio and a 2110-40 ANC media flow, all with 2022-7 Seamless IP Protection Switching (SIPS) together with AMWA NMOS IS-04 discovery and IS-05 device connection management, the company said.

“The new rasterizers have been purchased in direct response to the expansion of our operations, which includes additional offices and increased production requirements,” said Ryan Wallenberg, vice president of engineering at Cobalt Digital.

“PHABRIX equipment has been a part of our product development and testing processes for many years, and we have always found their products to be versatile, reliable and consistent," he continued. "The remote access capabilities along with APIs, deep analysis features and built-in generators have been especially invaluable to our engineers through the development of successive products. So, it was a logical choice for us to turn to them again for this expansion, with the QxL emerging as the ideal choice thanks to its significant flexibility and intuitive toolset.”

More information about PHABRIX and Cobalt Digital is available on their respective websites. 

FORT LEE, N.J.—Leader Instruments Corporation has announced that it will demonstrate Leader and Phabrix products during the April 2023 NAB Show in a combined product display. 

The products on display at Central Hall booth C4920 in the Las Vegas Convention Center will focus on simultaneous and hybrid approaches to SDI and IP test and measurement. These technologies are designed to offer the versatility broadcasters need as they transit from SDI to IP, HD to UHD, SDR to HDR, onsite and cloud-connected virtual remote production, and volumetric production, the company said. 

Leader offers a complete IP solution ranging from the LT4610 and LT4611 PTP generators plus the award-winning ZEN Series LV5600 true hybrid IP/SDI waveform monitor and its LV7600 equivalent rasterizer to the LVB440 IP traffic analyzer. The LV5600 provides the same monitoring and measurement resources irrespective of whether the video signal is IP or SDI. That includes the ability to display and compare IP and SDI video sources simultaneously. They also give engineering staff the tools they need to monitor and analyze IP network activity, the company reported. 

The company explained that a key strength of many Leader and Phabrix products is their ability to operate on location under battery power as well as 110V/240V AC mains. The Leader LV5350 and LV5300A battery-operable waveform monitors will be demonstrated alongside the PHABRIX Sx TAG, QxL and QxP.

Leader's LV5600 is a mains-powered SDI/IP waveform monitor in a half-rack width 3U desktop chassis with a touchscreen front panel display. It provides all the facilities needed to monitor UHD/HD/SD SDI as well as video-over-IP signals seamlessly in a hybrid operating environment. Engineering-related features include test pattern generation, eye pattern display, closed-caption monitoring, CIE color chart, HDR measurement, focus assist, adjustable screen layout, tally interface, 4K/UHD operation, 25 gigabit/s IP input and 12G-SDI interfaces. SMPTE 2022-6, 2022-7 and 2110 protocols are all supported. The LV5600 also incorporates Leader's intuitive CINEZONE real-time false color exposure and CINELITE (built-in light meter) tools which are familiar to many content production staff.

During the show, Phabrix has also announced that it will be showcasing the Phabrix QxP.

The Phabrix QxP inherits the toolset and flexible architecture of the QxL rasterizer but in a 3U form factor with an integral high-contrast 1920 x 1200 7-inch multi-touch LCD screen and a V-Mount or G-Mount battery plate. It is ideal for workflows involving portable HD, UHD, SDR, HDR, SDI and IP, as well as conventional and remote productions. For real-time IP production, the QxP provides support for generation and analysis of HD/3G/UHD/EUHD 2110 payloads on generic SFP28/25GbE interfaces. The flexible architecture of the QxP offers in-field, engineering grade data view and ANC packet inspection tools together with optional upgrades for SDI-UHD/4K, 2110-UHD/4K 48-60p RGB (EUHD), PCAP, Dolby E decode, HDR, and AV test signal generation. A factory-fitted hardware option provides RTE™ 'Real-Time Eye' and jitter SDI analysis with the further option of a highly advanced SDI-STRESS toolset, the company said. 

THATCHAM, U.K.—Test and measurement specialist PHABRIX will feature the new QxP next-gen waveform monitor at the 2023 NAB Show, April 15-19, in Las Vegas.

With a flexible architecture, the QxP offers an integral 3U multi-touch LCD screen with V-Mount or G-mount battery plates for portability, the company said.

Designed for HD, UHD, SDR, HDR, SDI and IP workflows—whether remote or conventional, the unit combines waveform monitoring, generation and analysis toolsets to meet the requirements of hybrid production environments, it said.

The QxP offers a high-resolution image processing pipeline with support for deep color sources up to 12-bits, delivering all of the fine detail needed for camera shading or image grading.

Users can access a choice of overlay, stacked and parade display modes with the option of multi-colored, highlighted, green or monochrome traces. Nits scales and operation user-controlled nits markers are provided for SDR, HLG, PQ, S-Log3 and SR-live HDR formats. Rec 709 and Rec 2020 colorimetry is supported over the wide-range of YCbCr:422, RGB:444, SDI and SMPTE ST 2110 SD/HD/2K/UHD/4K/EUHD formats, it said.

For real-time IP production, the QxP provides support for generation and analysis of HD/3G/UHD/EUHD ST 2110 payloads on generic SFP28/25GbE interfaces. The unit's flexible architecture offers in-field engineering-grade data view and ANC packet inspection tools together with optional upgrades for SDI-UHD/4K, ST 2110-UHD/4K 48-60p RGB (EUHD), PCAP, Dolby E Decode, HDR and AV test signal generation. A factory-fitted hardware option provides RTE, Real Time Eye, and jitter SDI analysis with the option of a highly advanced SDI-STRESS toolset, the company said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

See PHABRIX in 2023 NAB booth C4920.

GRASS VALLEY, Calif.—Part of AJA Video Systems’ success over the years can be attributed to our strong engineering ethic and attention to detail. We like to work closely with our customers to solve challenges that naturally occur in complex video environments. For us, PHABRIX Qx and QxL test and measurement equipment is a vital part of that process and we currently run 11 of their devices—seven in engineering and four for automated testing in manufacturing.

We probably work with 300-400 different video signal formats, a number that continues to grow as our customers innovate their workflows. To this end, having access to the broad range of signals that PHABRIX covers is extremely useful.

TESTING FOR SUCCESS

When I joined AJA seven years ago, one of the first things that stood out was the sheer amount of testing gear within the company. We’re a company that was founded—and is still run—by an engineer, and he appreciates allocating resources to the equipment budget for test gear. That's critical for development engineering to be successful.

PHABRIX is part of our testing kit and our involvement with PHABRIX Qx came about around 2018, when we also started to focus on 12G-SDI.

Although IP momentum is steadily building, 12G-SDI is popular among many in the broadcast industry, as it solves some of the most pressing challenges they face today. PHABRIX Qx has proven an enabler in validating and testing our complete line of 12G-SDI products, helping us to ensure they’re field-ready

We originally selected the Qx for its comprehensive toolset and 12G-SDI coverage—an offering considered to be well ahead of its competitors at the time. It has been an integral part of our setup ever since, and each department uses the technology in a unique way.

In engineering, it may be used for specific validation tests or to troubleshoot, while manufacturing testing uses it in a more automated way by writing a test script to drive the Qx to perform repetitive testing.

We largely use the Qx’s single link 12G-SDI and quad-link 3G-SDI interfaces. Beyond that, we’ve come to rely on the responsiveness of the PHABRIX team to help sort out any challenges we encounter. Given the scope of our products and the markets we serve—from television broadcasters to Hollywood content producers, ProAV, healthcare, and beyond—you can imagine those challenges are rather wide-ranging.

SUPPORTING MANY SIGNALS

If we were just developing products for television, we'd primarily test YCbCr 10-bit 50/59 fps signals, but since our products end up in so many different applications, we need to support a broad range of signals, raster sizes, frame rates, and color spaces. The Qx has been very helpful in those circumstances.

And while 12G-SDI has been a critical part of our success in recent years, we have also developed a number of well-regarded products in the evolving IP space. As a result, the last unit that we purchased from PHABRIX was an IP-enabled QxL.

The QxL is assisting us on the IP pathway, but the demand for 12G-SDI remains strong, and we will continue to grow our product portfolio to align with industry needs. In this respect, I’m sure we’re not too far off from another QxL investment. 

For more information visit www.phabrix.com.  

NEWBURY, U.K.—  The National Broadcasting Services of Thailand (NBT) has purchased 12 of the Phabrix SxE handheld instruments for test and measurement as part of a new HD production studio.

The SxE devices replace NBT’s legacy SD test and measurement equipment. They deliver HD video and audio generation, analysis and monitoring with advanced physical layer analysis, Phabrix reported. 

NBT is operated by The Government Public Relations Department (PRD), a division of the Thai Government and is the national public television station, 

“We are highly impressed with the functionality, portability and value for money the Phabrix SxE instruments offer,” explained Kachan Kannika, director of the Engineering Support and Development Bureau at the National Broadcasting Services of Thailand in a statement. “The units are intuitive and logical for our team to just pick up and use – no training required!”

SxE offers an extensive video toolset, with support for SMPTE compliance testing of over 350 different formats. An extensive array of video and audio instruments includes a signal generator with moving test patterns, a high-performance waveform, and ANC/VANC inspector.

The SxE also provides 16 channel audio generation and metering with support for Dolby E, Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital metadata and bitstream analysis.

 Newbury, UK—Phabrix has released a V4.3 software update for its Qx and QxL hybrid IP/SDI rasterizers that adds a multitude of new supported formats including RGB SDI and ST 2110 IP standards support as well as a unique and comprehensive 2110 IP Generation Toolset.

Phabrix CEO Phillip Adams noted that “this new software is the first in an intense six-month release roadmap. With a new powerful ST 2110 IP generation toolset, and a huge quantity of new SDI and IP standards supported, the Qx Series offers our customers a future-proof technology investment to stay ahead of the rapidly changing IP environment.”

The Qx Series is available in two platforms, the Qx and QxL, both with a common look and feel, providing an accessible user interface and intuitive toolsets for full operational flexibility and easy migration from an SDI to an IP centric operation, the company reported. 

The flexible architecture of both the Qx and QxL offers in-field license upgrades for SDI-UHD/4K, HDR as well as engineering grade data view and ANC packet inspection tools.

A factory fitted hardware option provides RTE real time SDI eye and jitter analysis with the further option of a highly advanced SDI-STRESS toolset. 

The Series’ comprehensive feature set supports HD/3G/6G/12G-SDI, 10G/25G IP interfaces, and HD/UHD, IP SMPTE 2022-6, SMPTE 2110-10/20/30/31/40 with ST 2022-7 and AMWA NMOS.

For more information see: www.phabrix.com/

NEWBURY, U.K.—Test and measurement instrument specialist Phabrix announced it has begun shipping its new QxL 25G IP rasterizer.

Unveiled in April, the QxL is a flexible, compact UHD-25G rasterizer created to address the needs of professional broadcast media IP networks.

The QxL offers all of the JT-NM (Joint Taskforce on Networked Media) Tested Program features of the Qx with a common look and feel across both platforms. Out of the box, the new 10G/25G IP-enabled rasterizer supports JT-NM TR 1001-1:2018, SMPTE ST 2110-20 (video), 2110-30 (PCM audio), 2110-31 (AES transport) and 2110-40 (ANC media) flows all with SMPTE ST 2022-7 Seamless IP Protection Switching (SIPS), and independent PTP slaves on both media ports for fully redundant media network operation, the company said.

The toolset also supports DHCP on all IP ports, unicast DNS-SD, AMWA NMOS IS-04 discovery and registration, IS-05 connection management as well as system resource and network topology discovery using Link Layer Discovery protocol (LLDP).

IP media interfaces are provided as standard, and SDI media interfaces with optional SDI Eye and jitter measurement are available as a factory-fitted option. The QxL GUI provides up to 16 user-configurable windows with pre-sets for rapid visualization of different traffic and workflow configurations, it said. 

With the same accessible user interface as the Qx, there are minimal re-training costs for existing Qx users. The complexities of ST 2110 and NMOS operation are also presented to the user in an intuitive and accessible manner, the company said.

The QxL provides a suite of operator-level IP flow health and PTP monitoring features with warnings and alarms. For detailed analysis and debug, the new IP-MEAS toolset provides advanced engineering-grade information, including four SMPTE ST 2022-7 Packet Interval Time (PIT) displays, media port network statistics, real-time measurements of Flow-to-PTP relationships and latency, as well as real-time measurement of SMPTE ST 2110-21 Cinst and Vrx.

More information is available on the company’s website. 

THATCHAM, U.K.—Phabrix recently announced that a pair of its products, the Qx rasterizer and the handheld Sx TAG, have passed a pair of JT-NM self-tests, meeting the criteria for SMPTE ST 2110 and AWMA NMOS TR-1001-1.

Designed by the Joint Task Force on Networked Media, the tests provide insight into how vendor equipment aligns with IP-based standards. 

The Qx ST 2110 core IP feature that was tested provides ST 2110 confidence status monitoring and was designed for HD IP ST 2110/2022-7 AMWA NMOS and ST 2022-6 environments. The core ST 2110 toolset supports simultaneous decapsulation of one video, two audio and one ANC data flow. It is able to support SMPTE’s ST 2059 (PTP), ST 2110-20 (uncompressed video). -30 (PCM digital audio), -31 (AES transparent transports) and -40 (ANC data) protocols. ST 2022-7 seamless protection (SIPS) is provided for all four flows over two media network interfaces using industry standard 10Gbps SFPs.

The Sx TAG, meanwhile, tested the encapsulation and decapsulation of ST 2110-20/30/31/40 with IP to SDI gateway, ST 2059 PTP, AMWA NMOS and ST 2022-6. The system has hybrid operation that is supported with a built-in synchronizer that allows asynchronous SDI sources to be locked to PTP for ST 2110 encapsulation.

“We’re delighted with the recent JT-NM self-tested results,” said Phillip Adams, CEO of Phabrix. “Phabrix is committed to complying with the growing list of standards our industry is facing, with the JT-NM program offering a trusted reference source for our customers.”

These tests of Phabrix products took place during the JT-NM Spring 2020 self-test and are published in the JT-NM Spring 2020 Self-Test Catalogs.

For more information, visit www.phabrix.com. 

NEW YORK—Phabrix will demonstrate its range of hybrid IP/SDI, 4K/UHD and HDR/WCG instruments at the NAB Show New York, held Oct. 16–17.

PHABRIX will show the latest ST 2110 developments to its flagship Qx Series, offering hybrid IP/SDI test and measurement tools. The Qx family (Qx 10G IP and QxL 25G IP) offers ST 2110 (-20, -30, -31, -40), two-port ST 2059 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and ST 2022-7 seamless protection. The company says it provides simultaneous monitoring of one video, two audio and one ANC data flow in up to 16 active and scalable windows. The two audio flows each support up to 10 channels at 1ms and up to 80 channels at 125us packet time with either PCM or AES3 Transport. The core feature set also includes operator status information for PTP, 2022-7 reconstruction and the timing relationship of flows to PTP.

The new Qx ST 2110 advanced engineering IP measurement features include the measurement of ST 2110-21 network compatibility and virtual receiver buffer models, advanced PTP to Flow timing and latency measurements, as well as Inter-Packet Arrival Times for all flows that contribute to the ST 2022-7 seamless reconstruction.

The new TR-1001-1 toolset available on the Qx rasterizer provides support for AMWA NMOS IS-04 Discovery and Registration and IS-05 Connection Management with DHCP, DNS Service Discovery, LLDP, SDP and PTP System Resource.

The company will join its authorized distributor AVBB on booth N929.

THATCHAM, England—At the recent JT-NM Testing Interop in Wuppertal, Germany, Phabrix’s Qx rasterizer and Sx TAG products were successfully tested and met the criteria for the AMWA NMOS TR-1001-1 and SMPTE ST 2110 standards for IP-based equipment.

The Qx ST 2110 core IP featured was proved to provide ST 2110 confidence status monitoring, while the Sx TAG was verified to offer support for modern IP broadcast systems with JT-NM encapsulation and decapsulation of ST 2110-20/30/40 with IP to SDI gateway, ST 2059 PTP and ST 2022-6.

“Phabrix is committed to complying with the growing list of standards our industry is facing, with the JT-NM program offering a trusted reference source for our customers,” said Phillip Adams, Phabrix CEO.

Phabrix will display both the Qx rasterizer and Sx Tag system at IBC 2019.

THATCHAM, England—Phabrix has concluded nine months of HDR technology trials with U.K. pay TV service BT Sport, the company announced today.

For the tests, Phabrix provided its Qx rasterizers and technical expertise as BT Sport developed its live production workflow for the launch of BT Sport Ultimate, a new consumer offering that will deliver HDR, UHD and Dolby Atmos immersive sound. The BT Sport app for mobile devices will also provide HDR.

The Phabrix Qx rasterizers were deployed throughout the BT Sport production chain in more than 20 live trials. Those included tests at the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final in Madrid, the European Rugby Heineken and Challenge Cup finals in Newcastle, England, and the FA Cup Final, the company said.

BT Sport used the Qx Rasterizer to monitor and analyze SDR and HDR color gamut. Phabrix worked with BT Sport on identifying settings for SDR-to-HDR conversions and tone mappers in production trucks and networks.

The Qx rasterizer is a test and measurement instrument designed for HD/3G/6G/12G-SDI and IP ST 2110/2022-7/2022-6 environments. It offers tools for rapid fault diagnosis, compliance monitoring and product development, it said.

“HDR is an extremely important development for live sports broadcasting and in line with our innovation ethos brings our audience closer to the heart of sport than ever before: the ultimate viewing experience,” said Andy Beale, chief engineer at BT Sport. “Phabrix’s Qx rasterizer presents all the necessary HDR information we require in a clear, consistent display.”

Beale and Phabrix product manager Prinyar Boon will present a Production Masterclass at IBC 2019 entitled, “Delivering Live Football and Rugby in HDR.”

More information is available on the IBC website.

YOKOHAMA, Japan—Leader Electronics Corporation has announced the acquisition of test and measurement manufacturer Phabrix.

Financial details of the deal have not been revealed.

Phabrix employs a team of R&D, sales, manufacturing, support and administration personnel, operating from its headquarters in Thatcham, England. The acquisition will see both companies continue with existing product lines and development plans, joining forces to expand sales presence worldwide.

Phillip Adams, managing director, Phabrix, said: “Phabrix is delighted to join the growing Leader team. Both companies have much to gain from each other; both putting design and engineering expertise at the heart of development. With our combined talent and complementary product lines, together with a greater geographical reach, it’s going to be a very exciting future for staff, customers and our global distribution partners.”

Kozo Nagao, CEO of Leader Electronics Corporation added, “With our rapidly evolving industry, it’s important to future-proof our product development capabilities. Uniting Phabrix and Leader’s talented development teams provides the increased momentum required to address the changing landscape of customer needs. Phabrix brings to Leader extensive IP, HDR and UHD knowledge and a highly competitive portfolio of handheld and rack-mounted instruments. We look forward to learning from one another as we look to maximize our growth and our global presence in the competitive Test and Measurement industry.”

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Rapid acceptance of IP video is driving many changes to traditional test and measurement equipment. There will always be the need for familiar quality control devices like waveform monitors and vectorscopes, but studios and content creators today also need the ability to examine the data they generate — and that data is increasingly distributed at blindingly fast speeds.

Couple that with the LCD/LED and microprocessor revolutions, and a lot of today’s test gear looks nothing like what was used 20 or 30 years ago. As dedicated video distribution facilities (think SDI) are replaced by IP networks, test gear manufacturers are sprinting to keep up with the new measurement realities — often coming up with innovations in the size, capabilities and performance of the latest test and measurement products.

“The test requirements for SDI systems are relatively well known and documented,” said Ian Valentine, business director for the video product line for Beaverton, Ore.-based Tektronix. “However, as the industry transitions to IP-based technologies, a whole series of new measurements is required to understand what is happening on the network during the transmission of packets containing video, audio and metadata. This includes packet loss, packet jitter, RTP sequence errors, and packet timestamp delay factors to mention a few.”

IP VIDEO TRANSPORT STANDARD

The recently developed SMPTE 2110 standard for IP transmission of professional video, audio and data is a big reason why there is a need for IP test gear in a television environment.

“There are a whole series of measurements around the timing of video, audio and data against PTP [precision time protocol] to keep the network synchronized,” Valentine said. “Timing is particularly important when dealing with the SMPTE 2110 standard where the video, audio and data essence is all sent in separate streams. Being able to test the integrity of the separate data paths is essential to ensuring that transmission reliability is maintained.”

With 12G-SDI and the latest high-speed Ethernet networks, even the most mundane basics have to be reconsidered. Take, for example, the BNC connector.

“As the industry transitions to IP-based technologies, a whole series of new measurements is required.” —Ian Valentine, Tektronix

“The BNC connector that the industry has used for more than 50 years is a spring-loaded bayonet — and using the real-time eye capabilities of the Phabrix Qx, you can see that this technology is right on the limit simply by touching and waggling the BNC connector and cable,” said Prinyar Boon, product manager for U.K.-based Phabrix. “Around 10mV signal amplitude variation is typically observed per connection. Return loss requires serious consideration and the extremely high rise and fall times specified can result in significant eye degradation with small changes in geometry. The good news is that correctly designed interfaces are very robust and reliable, and will operate at all SDI rates from SD through to 12G.”

‘DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL’

BNC connectors are just the tip of the iceberg.

“At a very high level, going from 3G-SDI to 12G-SDI is the same, only faster — but the devil is in the detail,” Boon said. “However, the bandwidth change from 3 GHz to 12 GHz, or more typically 1.5 GHz to 12 GHz, means that 12G-SDI is much harder to implement. Components, printed circuit board material, stack buildup and physical layout all have to be remodeled, reselected and re-optimized. Even the bond wiring within an IC [integrated circuit] now has a significant impact on performance, and the latest generation of ICs are looking to use flip-chip technology to overcome this.”

Once the signal leaves the broadcaster’s facility and heads toward the viewer, IP distribution networks outside the studio are different in many ways from those inside.

“The main idea is to take a holistic view to analyzing the end-to-end content delivery chain, looking at the whole picture to determine the ‘cause-and-effect’ of any issues rather than simply isolated parameters here or there,” said Ted Korte, chief operating officer for Melbourne, Fla.-based Qligent. “Each method of content distribution — from ATSC 3.0 broadcasts to OTT delivery — has its own vital metrics, but it’s important to evaluate everything ranging from low-level quality-of-service metrics [which are very signal-specific] to humanly-perceivable QoE metrics.”

One popular way of television distribution has long been the cable TV industry, which has adopted hybrid-fiber/coax technology to deliver both traditional cable TV channels and broadband service. The standard for interleaving cable TV and bidirectional data on the same network is called DOCSIS (data-over-cable service interface specification), which is now up to DOCSIS 3.1 Full-Duplex.

[Read: NAB Show Product Review — Signal Processing & Analysis]

With cable networks supporting bandwidth from 0 Hz to 1.2 GHz, it is a tough job to test and validate their performance. Rohde & Schwarz is one company that has a test set that can be used to test and maintain performance on DOCSIS cable networks, going up to 1.8 GHz for downstream signals to the home.

WHAT’S IN THE FUTURE?

There is a lot going on with technology in the television industry, so what looks to be one of the trends for test and measurement gear in the next couple of years?

“From [our] perspective, ATSC 3.0 will gain momentum over that timeframe,” said Ralph Bachofen, vice president for sales and marketing at Princeton, N.J.-based Triveni Digital. “This, of course, will include HDR and other advanced technologies and protocols as part of the migration. This makes it critical using a flexible test and measurement solution that can adapt based on market changes and advanced applications.”

On the production side, it’s clear that 4K is the target standard for production and its associated test devices.

“We see a demand for UHD/4K 3G- and 12G-SDI based systems,” Boon said. “With the 2018 Winter Olympics, Royal Wedding and 2018 World Cup all being shot and now distributed live in UHD HDR, there is clear proof that the technology is viable. Simultaneously shooting live productions in both conventional standard dynamic range [ITU-R BT.709] and HDR [ITU-R BT.2100] with wide color gamut poses its own set of challenges. This is particularly true with a mix of SDR/709 and HDR/2100 sources, be they cameras, replay systems or graphics devices.”

Every part of the production chain will need to be monitored to maintain the pristine quality to which viewers have become accustomed.

“Successful production of HDR/WCG content requires the right tools and new measurement techniques,” Valentine said. “Camera setup, for example, is more crucial than in the past given the risk of creating issues (e.g., noise in dark areas) that can’t be fixed in post-production. New techniques are also required to monitor the various camera log formats and conversion to PQ (perceptual quantizer) or HLG (hybrid-log gamma). HDR/WCG content production is the future.”

This is just a quick look at the corner of the industry dedicated to test and measurement, but it demonstrates how new standards bring new methods to examine and maintain the quality of those standards.

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BRACKNELL, U.K.—NEP U.K. has rolled out Venus and Ceres, the latest in its fleet of OB trucks that are SMPTE-2110 compliant, joining NEP’s worldwide family of IP-based vehicles in Australia and the U.S. [Updated, May 15]

“We needed to replace two of our older vehicles, which gave us the perfect opportunity to invest in our first future-resistant IP capable trucks,” said Rob Newton, engineering and technical director, NEP UK. The vehicles, Venus and Ceres, will be used to televise sports and other events, NEP U.K. said.

A major benefit of the IP infrastructure is a significant reduction in cabling. Far less fiber optic cable is used than the miles of coaxial cable that otherwise would have been needed, says NEP U.K.

The ST 2110 infrastructure in both trucks is identical. Each is built on Grass Valley (formerly SAM) IQ UCP 25GbE Gateway cards that provide two-way links between IP-based equipment and existing broadband technology needed to accommodate clients using SDI feeds. The trucks can deliver dual level UHD and HD-SDI simultaneously.

[Read: What SMPTE-2110 Means For Broadcasters]

Test and measurement gear includes the Phabrix HDR and IP-enabled test and measurement solution with three Qx 12G signal generation, analysis and monitoring solutions and four Rx2000 with each providing up to four channels of 2K/3G/HD/SD-SDI video and audio analysis and monitoring.

For switching the trucks are relying on the Grass Valley Kayenne Video Production Center and Kahuna video switcher. They also include Calrec sound desks, Telex Talkback system, Arista 7504 IP switches and Axon Cerebrum control systems.

To meet the cooling requirements of the new trucks, NEP U.K. has designed the trucks with greater A.C. capacity, and all equipment can be cooled separately in operational areas.

Venus recently completed its first job, and both trucks will be supporting several major live events over the summer.

BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND—Prin Boon will be taking over the role of product manager for Phabrix, per a company press release. Boon will be responsible for Phabrix’s full portfolio of test and measurement systems, as well as oversee market analysis and assessment of customer requirements; product positioning and roadmap development; and strengthening of technology partnerships.

Boon comes to Phabrix after most recently holding the position of director and systems architect at Dolby Europe Limited. He also worked at Dolby Laboratories as the director of engineering and support for broadcast systems and e-media.

Phabrix is manufacturer of test and measurement equipment for fault diagnosis, compliance monitoring and product development.

LAS VEGAS—Phabrix has shown its hand at the 2017 NAB Show with three new hybrid IP, 4K/UHD and HDR test and measurement systems: the Qx 12G, Qx IP and Sx TAG units.

The Qx 12G is a rack-mounted system that performs signal generation, analysis and monitoring across SMPTE 2022-6 IP and HD, 3G, 6G and 12G-SDI formats. Advanced IP and HDR tools are available, as well as 12G-SDI eye analysis with Real-Time Eye technology. The system is expected to add software upgrades for additional support of IP and HDR standards later in 2017.

An entry-level sister product to the the Qx 12G, the Qx IP is an alternative for hybrid IP, 3G-SDI and HDR generation, analysis and monitoring and provides all the HDR and IP features of the Qx 12G for 3G-SDI and IP applications.

Phabrix has also released its handheld hybrid IP, 3G-SDI and analog test and measurement system, the Sx TAG. This portable model supports SMPTE 2022-6 IP and features Dolby E, Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus bitstream generation and analysis, as well as video status logging and remote operation over Ethernet.

Copyright NAB 2017 

TORONTO—Phabrix is the latest company to become a part of the ASPEN Community, a coalition who are working on the ASPEN Framework for building IP facilities.

Adaptive Sample Picture ENcapsulation is an open format that aims to meet real-world requirements of an IP-centric facility while leveraging MPEG2-TS standards. ASPEN provides a framework for transporting separated video, audio and metadata as independent IP multicast streams. The ASPEN Community, founded at IBC 2015, promotes the benefit of the ASPEN Framework through the integration and interoperability of the open format.

Phabrix joins a host of other companies as part of the ASPEN Community, including AJA, Broadcast Pix, ChyronHego, EditShare, Evertz, For-A, Hitachi, Leader Electronics, Matrox, NBC Sports Group, NEP, Neutrik, Ross Video, Sony, Time Warner Cable SportsNet, and Vizrt.