LAS VEGAS
To perfect the process of day-to-day engineering work as well as improve the viewer experience in the home, Miranda Technologies will come to NAB to showcase new technology solutions and highlight a handful of existing products.
Miranda will also show technologies that take advantage of one of the big buzzwords at the NAB Show—3D stereoscopic technologies—which includes the company's Kaleido-X multiviewers and Imagestore 750 3D branding solutions.
Kaleido Modular multiviewer "[The industry has] already started to see an increase in demand for 3D play-out," said Jean-Claude Krelic, sales specialist for Infrastructure Products for the Montreal-based company, alluding to the burst of interest from ESPN, Comcast, Discovery Channel and the like.
AUDIO
To address issues of audio improvements in the home, Miranda will show several monitoring technologies, including a new lip-sync monitoring feature within the iControl monitoring system that uses Densite signal processors and probing cards. This so-called "signal fingerprint" comparison technology allows broadcasters to detect when the synchronization between audio and video has been interrupted.
When it comes to loudness issues, the company will demo its Automatic Loudness Control (ALC) solutions, designed to prevent excessive jumps in loudness levels when going during program and channel transitions. To accomplish that, Miranda will be showcasing technologies that include ALC with Linear Acoustic AEROMAX processing, ALC with Junger Audio Level Magic processing from and ALC with wide-band audio processing.
"The technology allows broadcasters, cable and satellite operators to have constant levels of loudness and control," Krelic said. "This helps solve the problem that arises when there are loudness differences between different programs and channels, and solves the problem in real time."
SIGNAL PROCESSING
New solutions this year include new Imagestore-Modular master control and branding cards. Designed for 3Gbps, HD and SD specialty channel master control and branding, the card boasts five layers of keying, CG, EAS and temperature insertion, and offers up to 10 channels in 3RU.
Miranda will also showcase the Kaleido-Modular, a space- and energy-efficient multiviewer offering up to 20 multiviewer outputs per 3RU frame. Consuming less than 300 Watts in total, each Kaleido-Modular card provides eight 3Gbps, HD or SD video inputs with stereoscopic 3D support, as well as two multiviewer outputs. Users can install up to 10 multiviewer modules in a single 3RU frame, weighing 19 pounds total.
Designed in part for outside broadcast trucks, each Kaleido-Modular multiviewer module can be configured to provide either dual quad-split outputs, or as a single multiviewer output displaying up to eight pictures.
Among its Nvision control systems, Miranda will highlight the Nvision 9000 control system, which is enhanced with new re-legendable panels. Miranda will also bring its Nvision 8500 routers to NAB, showcasing a new version that offers integrated audio processing, including de-embedding, shuffling, break-away and re-embedding capabilities. New hybrid switching technology within the routers means that each frame in the Nvision router family is able to de-embed, route and re-embed up to 16 channels of mono audio per video input. Audio processing control is managed via the Nvision control panel.
The company will also show the Nvision Compact CQX, a switcher designed for master control back-up/bypass and simple master control applications. This 16x8 router offers two outputs and six auxiliary outputs, and supports 16 channels of embedded audio.
Other new solutions include Densité signal processing modules, including the AMX-3981, a 3 Gbps/HD audio and metadata embedder that embeds up to eight AES signals. The card processes up to 32 channels of audio, and features Dolby metadata insertion and extraction. The card offers linear timecode embedding into SD or HD, as well as down-mixing, proc amp, channel shuffling and mixing with ALC, loudness metering and lip-sync detection. Other new Densité systems include the EAP-3901, a 3Gbps/HD/SD embedded audio processor module. The card processes up to 32 channels of audio, and offers downmixing, proc amp, channel shuffling and mixing with ALC.
