When Imagine Communications announced last fall that it was acquiring Pixel Power from Rohde & Schwarz, the company said its main goal was to “broaden Imagine’s live production ecosystem and playout offerings via integration of Pixel Power’s software-defined, deploy-anywhere platforms.” This week, Imagine President Steve Reynolds updated TV Tech on how the integration is progressing.

Of particular importance to Imagine is Pixel’s playout and multiviewer solutions, two parts of the production workflow chain Reynolds thinks are key to expanding the company’s presence in these markets.

“Imagine has been in the playout business pretty much since the playout and automation business started all the way back to when we were Harris, and it's always been a really important segment for us,” he said. “We like to be in those mission-critical operational systems, the things that our customers depend on day in and day out in order to run their business.

“Those are the kind of products that Imagine has really focused on as we made the transition from a hardware centric company—which is what Harris really was—towards the software centric company that we are today,” Reynolds added.

The Power of a Combined Solution
The acquisition of Pixel Power, Reynolds says, will not only help strengthen its current playout solutions portfolio—which include ADC, Versio and in more recent years, the Aviator orchestration platform—but also expand its geographic footprint, Reynolds said.

“Pixel Power—which is a company that we have competed with for years—has built a really great solution for the European public broadcaster space, where they had a lot of success,” Reynolds said. “With customers like TV2 in Norway, SVT in Sweden, the work that they've done with the German public broadcasters, the work that they've done with TV5MONDE in France, they had a really great customer base around those public broadcasters.”

The two main products Pixel had built its success on in this market, according to Reynolds, were the company’s Gallium automated multiplatform content management solution and StreamMaster platform for realtime graphics and control. Combining automation plus a media server “really formed a nice bundle for anybody that's in that kind of public broadcast space,” Reynolds said.

“Pixel had done a good job of winning market share with those [national broadcast] customers, so the reason we wanted to acquire Gallium and StreamMaster was really aimed at that market segment,” he added. “We saw the success that they had in that segment, and as we continue to move forward with investments in Gallium and StreamMaster, it's going to be focused, at least initially, in Europe, to continue to build on that customer base.”

Reynolds said the combination of the two created a powerful and sophisticated graphics solution for Pixel Power, which was beating Imagine when it came to bidding for business with European broadcasters.

“Imagine was bidding on a lot of those same projects, and Pixel Power was winning,” Reynolds said, “And one of the things that we consistently heard is that the graphics package that is in StreamMaster is a top-tier integrated graphics package that a lot of those national broadcasters were leveraging because it had the capabilities that they needed not only to be able to do the 2D graphics—which Imagine already had—but they had some more advanced capabilities to be able to handle some 3D and to be able to handle a lot of the kind of the more advanced and more sophisticated on-air look that that those broadcasters were looking for.

“They had a sophisticated graphics package that was integrated into a playout system that met all of the criteria—it supports all the formats, it supports all of the different resolutions, it supports all the ingest workloads that those guys need,” he added. “So it had it checked all the boxes on kind of the basic set of competitive features. But it also added in that higher power graphics.”

Scaling Up
The second product Imagine was keenly interested in was multiviewers, specifically Pixel’s Prismon platform, which is designed to scale up to support hundreds of channels. This large-scale type of monitoring platform was high on Imagine’s shopping list, according to Reynolds.

"Imagine has always been in the multiviewer business, but we had a different focus—we were more on the production multiviewer side of things,” Reynolds said. “[Imagine’s] SNP was intended to be a production multiviewer, very low latency, very high quality, but not large scale.”

Integrating Prismon into Imagine’s multiviewer product line gives Imagine the ability to build facility-scale, multiviewers, especially in production facilities, turnaround facilities including satellite and cable operators, or in large scale, playout operations where there's dozens or even hundreds of channels being played out of the same facility, Reynolds said.

“So we now have multiviewer offerings for large scale and for smaller scale, low latency, and that would be in OB vans, production galleries, or control rooms at a sporting venue, where the number of feeds that you're dealing with is 10, 20 or maybe 30.”

Reynolds said Prismon helps Imagine respond to more market demands for integrated solutions. “What we realized was we really need to have a product in our portfolio that lets us create that fully bundled solution, because increasingly, that's what the market wants to buy,” he said. “It's the same thing as with the playout solution, right? The market wants an integrated solution, they don't want to have to build, or have to be their own systems integrator. They want to buy something that is integrated. And so Prismon filled that gap for us.”

The timescales for building new media production facilities has been declining for years, according to Reynolds, another reason for increased interest in integrated solutions.

“The idea of having these multi-year facility builds… that's in the past,” Reynolds said. “And in many cases now, we're looking at time frames that are measured in months between the time somebody acquires rights and they want to be on air. And that's what's really driving the demand for these fully integrated solutions. Customers want to know that it's already been tested, it's already been integrated, and you can deploy it quickly, easily and within a set of budget constraints to get on air.”

The acquisition of Pixel Power was completed at the end of 2025 and Reynolds said not a lot will change in terms of what existing customers should expect, including keeping the product names.

“That's why we bought them, we like the products, we like the differentiation of those products, they fit well within our portfolio, and they give us something new to offer to the customers that want to buy that kind of solution,” Reynolds said.

NAB Show Plans
Imagine’s booth (N1328 in the North Hall of the LVCC) at the NAB Show, April 19-22 in Las Vegas, will reflect this expanded market focus, according to Reynolds. Among the highlights will be the company’s cloud-based XVR playout engine, which was introduced at the 2025 IBC Show.

Gallium StreamMaster will be demonstrated running on COTS and its expanded multiviewer portfolio will be highlighted, including advanced automation features such as intelligent monitoring, automated audio/video issue detection, and “penalty boxing,” which elevates problem signals for immediate operator attention.

"The other thing you're going to see is this kind of fully integrated solution of gateways—the ability to use the SNP as the gateway between the SDI and IP world, and to do format conversion with JPEG access and things like that, directly into ingest,” Reynolds said. “And we'll be using the new XVR engine, which is the Linux-based ingest engine with multiple playout systems. So you'll see StreamMaster, XVR, and Nexio all sitting side by side in a kind of a multiserver environment.”

DENVER and MUNICH—Imagine Communications today announced its plans to acquire Pixel Power Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz. Financial terms of the transaction were not made public.

The transaction “represents a strategic alignment for both companies, enabling Imagine to offer broadcast customers the most extensive portfolio of live production and playout solutions on the market while allowing Rohde and Schwarz to focus on its core operations in Test & Measurement, Technology Systems, and Networks & Cybersecurity,” Imagine said.

The acquisition is expected to close in 2025 and is subject to customary closing conditions.

Imagine and Pixel Power have a shared vision for the IP- and cloud-based future of broadcast and digital streaming markets, Imagine said.

“This strategic acquisition enables Imagine to immediately broaden its live production ecosystem and playout offerings via integration of Pixel Power’s software-defined, deploy-anywhere platforms — bringing together complementary approaches, technologies, and engineering expertise that will provide customers with deeper integration possibilities and a broader set of tools to meet every need,” the company said.

The addition of Pixel Power’s PRISMON multiviewer, which delivers powerful master control and cloud capabilities, will complement the ultra-low-latency production capabilities of Imagine’s popular SNP Multiviewer and enable Imagine to offer the most comprehensive portfolio of IP and IP-hybrid multiviewer solutions available on the market.

With a development team based in Cambridge, England, Pixel Power has a rich history in graphics and playout workflows and advanced multiviewer and monitoring systems. Imagine will maintain the Cambridge facility, combine Pixel Power’s existing support with Imagine’s care and services team, and support all current global customers and the installed base for Pixel Power’s PRISMON, Gallium, and StreamMaster platforms, Imagine said.

“We are proud of the achievements of Pixel Power, and we are confident that Imagine is the right home for their continued growth and expansion," said Thorsten Sauer, CEO of Pixel Power and VP Media Solutions of Rohde & Schwarz. “This move allows us to focus more deeply on our core operations and customer base while ensuring that we pass the reins to a new owner who cares deeply about our customer base and will take the business to the next level.”

"We’re excited to welcome the talented Pixel Power team to the Imagine family," said John Mailhot, Senior Vice President, Product Management at Imagine Communications. "This acquisition enhances our ability to deliver innovative, business-driving solutions for our customers, and we’re proud to continue building on the strong foundation established under Rohde & Schwarz."

“This alignment not only opens up exciting new opportunities to scale our innovation but also ensures customers benefit from more tailored solutions, improved support, and a stronger foundation for evolving workflows,” added James Gilbert, Deputy CEO of Pixel Power. “Our team is energized by the possibilities ahead and ready to help in shaping the next chapter of broadcast technology.”

MUNICH—Rohde & Schwarz today announced new functionality for its R&S Prismon multiviewers with the addition of Multiview Control Center (MCC).

With MCC a network of multiviewers can be controlled from a single point. MCC’s automation support enables instant reconfiguration of multiple displays, the company said.

Prismon, a software-defined multiviewer architecture, is designed for IP-based studio production and playout systems. It supports UHD streams for displays and for streams within mosaics.

Its scalable, distributed multiviewer functionality enables any-input-to-any-output connectivity through IP proxy networks. Prismon can share resources across a network, giving users the ability to view multiple Ultra HD inputs—beyond the decoding capacity of a single system, Rohde & Schwarz said.

The new MCC single-point control functionality also encompasses associated decoders and encoders, which together with its automation support makes it simple to change studios and control rooms when on-air personalities frequently change, such as in news and sports programming, it said.

MCC has already been deployed by a playout specialist in Europe, the company said.

“Prismon is already a popular choice for multiviewers in major installations, because of the flexibility and cost efficiency it brings,” said Andreas Loges, vice president Media Technologies at Rohde & Schwarz. “Following conversations with our users, it became clear that they sought the ability to use that flexibility to allow facilities to be reconfigured quickly, accurately and easily. MCC is a direct result of those discussions.” 

Available as an option for Prismon, MCC is subject to a separate license. Version 1.0 of MCC was released in April. Version 1.1 is expected this month.

More information is available by sending an email request to the company.

THE CUSTOMER

Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF) is a Swiss broadcasting company, created in 2011 through the merger of radio broadcaster, Schweizer Radio DRS, and television broadcaster, Schweizer Fernsehen. Immediately, this new business unit of Swiss national broadcaster, SSG SSR, became the largest electronic media house in German-speaking Switzerland. About 2,150 employees work for SRF in four main studios in Basel, Bern and Zürich.

tpc Switzerland ag is responsible for all production systems and technologies throughout television, radio and multimedia operations at SRF. It is a subsidiary of SRG SSR and Switzerland's leading broadcast service provider, with expertise in planning, creating and managing audiovisual projects. In addition to its role with SRG SSR, tpc's 1,000 highly trained professionals serve external clients. Its own state-of-the-art studios, post-production and mobile resources provide the foundation for quality broadcast solutions that combine innovation with the best in technology. Where necessary, tpc works with external partners to provide clients with the optimum package of services they need.

NEW STATE-OF-THE-ART PRODUCTION CENTER FOR SRF

A revolutionary News and Sports Centre for SRF is the most ambitious project that SRF and tpc have embarked on for decades. The facility—located in the Leutschenbach district of Zürich—is being built specifically to leverage an IP workflow for significantly streamlined and simplified operational processes. Its cornerstones are digital first and mobile first with a tight focus on video and audio quality. The project sees a change away from program-oriented organization to a story and content-oriented focus. Within the new structure, journalists will be organized as expert teams and not on program structures.

A key strategic goal of the new building is to have a higher efficiency and flexibility in all directions. But it also means a big technical change. Through re-inventing workflows, tpc will bring together many production islands that grew over years into one big new technical concept.

File based and live workflows are growing together, national and regional operating teams work as one integrated unit. There exists just one audio/video/metadata backbone throughout the complete production process from ingest to playout based on full implementation of the SMPTE ST 2110 uncompressed IP standard.

tpc and SRF’s goal is for their workflow to become format agnostic, future proof and efficient. This brings a big change for the employees. There are new organizations, new working hours, new tools and systems and new workflows.

THE MULTIVIEWER CHALLENGE

From day one, tpc set out with the ambition of creating a new and radically different production solution. Included in this approach was its multiviewer system needs: from the earliest stages, tpc sought a fully virtualized multiviewer architecture.

“With a completely virtualized platform we get the flexibility that we always wanted from a multiviewer system,” explains Andreas Lattmann, chief technology officer, Planning & Projects at tpc. “Hardware agnostic, integrated in the network and capable to display whatever and wherever needed.”

Within tpc’s new facility, there exists a master switching room, central ingest, many studios and galleries with different multiviewer needs, as well as a new playout and post-production system. “Within this environment, the demands for multiviewing are very high and mission critical,” explains Lattmann. “Everybody in the building has different needs to see what’s going on and where. With Rohde & Schwarz’s PRISMON Multiviewer system we now have the chance to fulfill all these requirements and keep the flexibility to change whenever needed.

“With the inherent flexibility of a virtualized multiviewer system we can support the operational teams as well as the journalists by showing them the specific sources and destinations that are required for their work and nothing less or more. Dynamic setups and the sheer number of signals that can be handled by PRISMON helps us in supporting the efficiency of everyone.”

A SOFTWARE/IP-BASED SYSTEM SOLUTION

Within the news and sports production center, there is still hardware required, but not special-built-for-purpose. Instead tpc is using standard COTS servers to render the multiviewer signal and the servers are directly integrated within its ST 2110 backbone. With this implementation, tpc achieves the full flexibility that an IP environment enables.

The project required extensive planning, which saw tpc and Rohde & Schwarz working together closely. “Based on many tests and a proof of concept, we figured out that the crucial issues, such as picture quality, latency and functionality are fulfilled within a virtualized system such as PRISMON,” explains Lattmann.

The two companies continue to work together on the deployment of PRISMON Multiviewers, aiming to exploit all of the advantages the new virtualized system offers.

“Due to the fact that the product is still quite leading edge, there are enhancements and developments being integrated within PRISMON as an ongoing process. There are new functionalities and releases that enhance the use of the system,” Andreas Lattmann explains.

This is one of the primary benefits of a software-based, virtualizable platform, such that it can be updated as and when the deployment requires, features are developed or as new standards become available.

THIRD PARTY INTEGRATION BASED ON ST 2110
  
Within the new center, PRISMON Multiviewer is integrated alongside technology from Nevion. tpc is using Nevion’s VideoIPath as the orchestration solution for its real-time network. It is the system that enables signal management, bandwidth management, redundancy, address handling and much more. ST 2110-based, VideoIPath is the brain of the complete IP System and also for the multiviewing.

“ST 2110 is the future standard for live audio/video and ancillary data handling in a professional environment. It is an open standard and helps us in migrating to a full COTS-based, IT product-based infrastructure and fulfilling all of our real-time needs such as being predictable, stable, synchronised, scalable, format agnostic and future proof,” Lattmann states. “With this once in a lifetime chance to build a completely new infrastructure with a greenfield approach, it is important to build this with state of the art concepts. So, we committed very early to this standard, became [a] member of SMPTE including its standards group, AIMS and AMWA. Based on these decisions we needed partners that supported the same standards: Rohde & Schwarz is doing this with its PRISMON Multiviewer.”

So, how does IP-based operation enhance workflow efficiency within the new center? Thanks to tpc’s end-to-end approach as opposed to its previous island-based approach, all signals are available throughout the production infrastructure. With an overall monitoring system, tpc has enhanced the reaction time if there are any failures in the system. With the PRISMON Multiviewer system tpc can ensure that the signals are available in the expected quality at whatever point in the process.

THE RESULTS

Now that the PRISMON Multiviewer system is installed and operational, Lattmann is able to assess the results of the project.

“We are happy with the installation of the (PRISMON) application on COTS servers with the support of Rohde & Schwarz technicians,” he explained. “All open points are well addressed and professionally managed by Rohde & Schwarz.

“Since the application is installed on COTS Servers and a VM platform, we are able to expand or shrink the system’s dimensions based on our needs, quickly and easily. A central License-Management Facility allows us to adapt the system to any workplace that needs specific features. The measurement function within PRISMON Multiviewer helps us in a dramatic reduction of expensive measurement equipment for many workplaces.

“It is very helpful that PRISMON is based on standardized interfaces. This makes our goal (and perhaps that of any broadcaster) of integrating a best-of-breed solution based on third-party control systems easy,” Lattmann concludes.

Hannes Strobel is the vice president of Media Technologies at Rohde & Schwarz.