Recognizing that the current market for professional video equipment in Europe continues to be “soft,” Tim Thorsteinson, vice president, products at Thomson, said that digital HD acquisition and production products and digital newsroom systems are showing signs of growth in the U.S.
In light of this, at the upcoming IBC2003 convention in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (in September), the company plans to show several lower-cost versions of exiting multi-format product. This “digital affordability initiative,” as officials at Thomson Broadcast and Media Solutions call it, highlights a range of new lower-cost products that are targeted at small- and medium-market broadcasters.
KayakDD is 3RU in height; provides eight total keyers, machine control and networking capabilities and a touch-screen color display; features a minimum of 24 inputs, 10 fixed M/E outputs and 10 timed auxiliary busses.
These new introductions--Thomson said there are six new Grass Valley products to be shown--includes the LDK 300 digital camera, a 2M/E version of the KayakDD production switcher, the Acappella small format (16x4) router line, the Prelude embedded router control, key additions to the Gecko and Kameleon modular products lines, and the Newton modular control system.
Thomson’s new Grass Valley LDK 300 digital camera employs 12-bit processing with two new digital DSPs housed in a rugged, lightweight camera body. This flexible design supports Triax adaptors, DVCPRO50 recording formats and the new Grass Valley Digital Wireless Triax Camera System and the Grass Valley C2IP Ethernet-based camera control system. In addition, a variety of imagers are available with DPM and FT as well as ultra-low smear IT and ITW CCDs.
The DPM and ITW sensors can switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios at the push of a button and the LDK 300 is also available with either one manual filter wheel or two remote controllable filters wheels.
Leveraging the same high-quality engineering and many of the features of the Grass Valley Zodiak and XtenDD digital video switchers lines the new 2M/E KayakDD switcher is an expanded version of the 1M/E system announced at NAB2003. However, this version provides more inputs, additional keyers, more built-in DVE capability and a programmable clean-feed system for multi-client productions.
KayakDD is 3RU in height, provides eight total keyers, machine control and networking capabilities and a touch-screen color display. It also features a minimum of 24 inputs, 10 fixed M/E outputs and 10 timed auxiliary busses. The switcher also supports optional RGB color correction and a RAM Recorder for clip and still storage. The switcher is available in both PAL and NTSC.
With the Acappella family, users can pair one of the new matrices with an optional control panel to quickly create a flexible system .
The Grass Valley Acappella offers a new 16x4 matrix, and supports SD, HD and analog video as well as AES digital and analog audio in a single-format and variety of dual-format configurations. Other key Acappella line features include synchronous glitch-free switching, looping reference, a serial interface and support for Grass Valley Net Central SNMP-based remote monitoring system.
The Acappella family supports a variety of control solutions, including the new software-based Grass Valley Prelude embedded control system. Prelude is based on the Grass Valley Encore facility control system and can be upgraded to a full-feature Encore control system at any time.
Also within signal processing, Thomson is introducing the Grass Valley Newton control system that enables fast, multi-knob, Ethernet-based access to Grass Valley modular products, according to the company. Using Newton, all Grass Valley modular products can be grouped by function regardless of their physical locations.
The LDK 500 digital camera features 3-layered remote controllable filters including an array of digital filters such as customizable soft-focus filters, gradient filters and a sepia filter.
At IBC Thomson will also show the new Grass Valley LDK 500 two-piece digital camera. It’s the first 14-bit SD camera, according to the company, featuring a new digital architecture. The LDK 500 allows users to add optional software plug-in features, such as a multi-matrix color corrector that allows a user to adjust a signal color in a frame without affecting the other colors.
Thomson’s Nextream division has expanded its ViBE line of MPEG compression and distribution products to now include the new Thomson 3G-video compression chip that provides a 20 percent performance improvement over the existing generation of encoders and multiplexers. This includes such sophisticated capabilities as dual-pass encoding, advanced signal pre-processing and statistical multiplexing.
For more information visit www.thomsongrassvalley.com.
