Grass Valley supposedly was (I only kept up online, and via my inbox),
it just delivered a number of 4K/IP trucks to Arena TV in the UK.
Arena Television Launches New 4K UHD Trucks with All-IP Infrastructure
from Grass Valley
Company invests in UHD and IP to meet changing demands of clients
MONTREAL, April 20, 2016 — Arena Television is one of the UK's leading
outside broadcast service providers, supporting a prestigious range of
sports and events clients with a fleet of more than 20 fully equipped OB
trucks plus the associated services of Arena Aviation. The family-owned
company, in business since 1989, is making the move to 4K UHD and
embracing developments in IP-based video production with its three new
trucks that will be rolling out over the next year. To realize this
vision, Arena turned to Grass Valley, a Belden Brand.
Arena is one of the first OB companies in Europe to embrace 4K UHD
production based on a ground-breaking IP infrastructure in a broadcast
truck. Grass Valley will supply the key product solutions in the three
planned trucks, OBX, OBY and OBZ. OBX is the first truck to be equipped
with this new technology. The second truck, OBY, is due later in 2016
and OBZ will follow in 2017. Arena is working closely with systems
integrator Videlio to design and outfit the trucks.
"This is a very significant investment. We believe that basing our
infrastructure on emerging technology will deliver the most powerful and
advanced OB trucks in the world, capable of providing the service and
flexibility customers will be expecting and demanding in the coming
years," said Richard Yeowart, group managing director of Arena. "For us,
the key to success in this project was partnering with a company that
provides a breadth of IP solutions and understands the need to maintain
the high level of production capabilities that our clients have come to
expect. Grass Valley was the right choice."
Arena has committed to purchasing the new LDX 86N Series native 4K
cameras with XF Fiber base stations. Other equipment powering the trucks
includes one Kayenne K-Frame Video Production Center switcher with 2
panels (panels and frames are cross-compatible for cost-effective
repurposing), two GV Convergent IP/SDI Router Control and Configuration
Systems with SDN license, iControl Customized End-to-End Facility
Monitoring, Densité 3+ FR4 Frames with IPG-3901 High Density SDI/IP
Gateways, and GV Node IP Processing and Edge Routing Platforms with
Kaleido KMX-4911 cards enabling expansion up to an 18x2 multiviewer.
The first of the new fleet, OBX is designed to support 32 camera
productions and utilize end-to-end IP connectivity. The design is based
around a Cisco IP switch, of which the core infrastructure is fiber,
running 10GigE and where enabled, 40GigE. The architecture provides the
ultimate production flexibility where existing baseband systems can
seamlessly integrate with the new IP-enabled workflows. In addition, OBX
is fully Future Ready, allowing adoption of greater network speeds as
they become available.
At launch, the IP workflow will utilize SPMTE ST 2022-6 and is designed
to take advantage of emerging video and audio IP standards such as VSF
TR03/04, which Grass Valley is fully supporting through the AIMS
initiative. Arena is running 4K UHD over 10GigE with Grass Valley's 4K
1-Wire solution that uses TICO compression. In addition to leveraging
open standards, OBX is also Future Ready with regard to formats, able to
accommodate emerging formats such as HDR. OBX will run UHD 2Si which
provides significant benefits in resilience and monitoring for client
confidence, and is able to integrate Quad-Link if required.
Latency and timing are critical in live productions and Grass Valley's
awareness of the end-to-end production requirements, careful system
design, adoption of technologies and targeted research and development
in products such as GV Node for low latency and vertically accurate
switching, contribute to this fleet of cutting-edge OB trucks and give
Arena clients the production facilities they demand today, with
flexibility to develop their productions in the future.
"Arena is a great example of a company that is looking to the future,
making decisions and investments that will position them well to deliver
content that stands above what is currently on the market," explained
Jan-Pieter van Welsem, vice president of sales and marketing, Grass
Valley. "A lot of thought and planning went into this move, and knowing
that our solutions are playing a key role is very gratifying."
###
Daniel Grimes schreef op 26-04-2016 8:24:
cooleman wrote:
"Imagine was pushing IP at least in my inbox;-).
"Cinegy with 8K/4K production/post/play-out with IP.
"Noticed various repors on mezzanine compression IP TICO.
"AJA Kona"
So it seems many were "touting" IP-video, but other than Evertz, who
had this model of a router with many different inputs, I didn't
actually see anything "demonstrating" the infrastructure.
(Ironically, if it has to go into a central router like a coax, what
is the advantage?)
For instance, Sony's adds claim IP is coming from their studio camera
CCU to their production switcher. But was it actually hooked up that
way at NAB and demonstrated? Umm...no. From what I saw, it was all
still hooked up in HD-SDI (they keep all the connections behind walls,
but sneek peaks are still attainable.)
In fact, every production switcher I went to only had coax attached.
I do admit that I didn't get to 100% of the booths, and almost no one
demonstrated the actual wire connections, just the interface, so there
might have been some demonstrations but I did not find them. There
might even have been some IP-video connections working in a booth I
visited, but I didn't see it.
I saw one portable waveform monitor with a real IP connector (fiber)
for video. Actually, it was an SFP so multiple modules could be used,
one of them being fiber. It did HDMI, too.
I did see lots of 4K/UHD/HDR production, playout, encoding, etc. And
naturally, passing files over IP is normal. I am talking about live
IP-video connections.
I breezed by Cinegy but did not see any IP connections. In fact, very
little of the hardware is actually showing these days anywhere. It is
now all about signage and graphics. Have you ever stared at a booth
and thought, "now what does this company actually do?" I see more and
more of these at NAB. I guess wires aren't very sexy any more. Of
course, with more and more being software-defined, there isn't much to
show!
Does AJA Kona have a live IP-video input on it? If so, I missed that.
But then, why would it need it? If truly IP, there would only be a
need for a network card. And perhaps that is why no one actually
demonstrates IP-video.
I was surprised how much 12G HD-SDI is now available on equipment.
But I guess that is what you need for 4K so I am not sure why I am
surprised.
I imagine Mark Schubin got much deeper than I did and saw live
IP-video in more places than I (nudge, nudge). It just didn't jump
out and grab me.
Dan