Grass Valley Highlights Live Sport Production Solutions at IBC2023

MONTREAL—During the IBC2023, Grass Valley has been showing scalable, end-to-end UHD/4K, NativeIP and/or 3G HD workflow that particularly benefits those producing sporting events at venues, in the cloud, on OB trucks, over REMI IP and/or hybrid configurations, the company reported. 

“To catch every moment of game action, you need powerful, reliable gear designed for today’s  demanding live sports environment,” said Louis Hernandez, Jr, CEO for Grass Valley. “As the  industry transitions from SDI to IP, we at Grass Valley understand the needs of our high-value  sports customers, whether they’re producing live events from control rooms, OB trucks, REMI  remote IP configurations, and increasingly, live OTT streaming. We’re addressing industry  demand by delivering powerful, reliable advanced solutions with familiar control interfaces,  custom-tailored workflows, and the freedom to work from anywhere as an integrated creative  team.” 

At IBC, Grass Valley will demonstrate its ongoing support for traditional, hardware-based  facilities, including its new updated 4-stripe Kayenne production switcher control surface driving a full raster 4K 2160P K-Frame XP video processing engine. The industry’s standard, K-Frame XP’s versatility is evident in its video processing of both popular IP formats, SDI video sources, or a combination of both. 

It will also be showing Grass Valley’s cloud-based AMPP platform, which  complements on premise-based hardware. In AMPP, Grass Valley has created an easily scalable,  unified workflow that anyone on the sports production crew can access and use from any  connected device or location. 

For live sports, Grass Valley said that it has glass-to-contribution solutions tailored to the unique  production workflows and budgets of its diverse customer base. 

Starting with acquisition, Grass  Valley will debut the new LDX-C150 broadcast camera, which puts the functionality of its full size LDX-150 Native IP/UHD camera into a compact form factor. The C150 provides superior NativeIP and UHD HDR imaging, 3X  UHD and 6X 1080P/60 HDR speed modes, and ST2110 and JPEG-XS compression directly from the camera head. For backwards compatibility, the C150 also supports connectivity to the camera base station for system installations. It’s particularly ideal for SKYCAM, Steadicam, beauty shots, ultra slomo and unmanned applications, the company said. 

Another highlight at IBC is Grass Valley’s LiveTouch X replay system supporting 16+ sources, which can run on standard COTS servers in the truck, the control room, and in the cloud on AWS or any other cloud-based computing service. When running on AMPP,  it offers unparalleled reliability and pay-as-you-go SaaS elasticity, along with the flexibility for  replay operators to be anywhere in the connected world. 

Grass Valley’s vast product portfolio also encompasses the newly upgraded Framelight X media  asset management system, which now features a native MOS Clip List Player. This allows  playout to be driven by any MOS-compatible system, such as a newsroom computer system  (NRCS). As part of the AMPP cloud-based ecosystem, Framelight X further allows customers to  produce anywhere and distribute everywhere, making it well-suited to remote sports  production and collaboration. 

George Winslow

George Winslow is the senior content producer for TV Tech. He has written about the television, media and technology industries for nearly 30 years for such publications as Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and TV Tech. Over the years, he has edited a number of magazines, including Multichannel News International and World Screen, and moderated panels at such major industry events as NAB and MIP TV. He has published two books and dozens of encyclopedia articles on such subjects as the media, New York City history and economics.