Gra Valley Is First to Offer 4K -Wire Capability for Cameras and Switchers

Grass Valley Is First to Offer 4K 1-Wire Capability for Cameras and Switchers posted: 27/09/2015

Lightweight, lossless TICO compression opens doors for streamlined workflows

Broadcasters around the world are focused on the exciting opportunities for enhanced content and efficiency offered by 4K and IP solutions, but are struggling to deal with the increased infrastructure required to handle the signals. At IBC 2015, Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, is unveiling a suite of products that provide support for 4K 1-wire transmission. Rather than requiring four 3G wires to carry an HD or 4K signal, the Grass Valley solutions use the award-winning TICO 4:1 visually lossless compression from intoPIX to carry a high-quality signal across a single wire.

A number of manufacturers are talking about compression solutions to simplify the transmission of high-end video and audio signals, but because TICO is extremely low latency and requires minimal hardware for processing, we believe it is the best fit for live production workflows. That's why we chose to implement TICO compression in our IP solutions first, said Mike Cronk, senior vice president of strategic marketing, Grass Valley. Also important to Grass Valley was intoPIX's work to submit TICO as an RDD to SMPTE. We are committed to a standards-based approach, and are happy to see industry adoption of TICO growing among other broadcast equipment suppliers.

As a key part of Grass Valley's Glass-to-Glass IP solution, 4K 1-wire connectivity allows the transmission of 4K signals using industry-standard 10 GigE connections, which avoids the need to use cumbersome and error-prone four quad signals (4 x 1080p), while also offering the flexibility and power of IP infrastructures. Importantly, Grass Valley offers both 4K 1-wire IP connections and traditional SDI connections on its products, making it easy for users to create hybrid IP/SDI workflows until they are ready to fully commit to IP at some time in the future.

The first two product families to provide seamless integration for 4K 1-wire with TICO compression are LDX 86 cameras and K-Frame switchers.

With the move to video-over-IP, there's a demand to integrate camera base stations into IP infrastructures, while also retaining SDI connectivity for use in hybrid IP/SDI environments. At IBC 2015, the XCU HD/4K IP camera base station for the LDX 86 series cameras will be available with TICO compression to provide 4K 1-wire transmission. This extra capability will be delivered via a free firmware upgrade to the existing XCU HD/4K IP base station, and will provide broadcasters with full 4K for live production with reduced cabling, faster and easier set-ups, as well as greater reliability. This makes 4K and HD a more practical proposition for live production, and will allow easy linking between the base station and a video-over-IP studio infrastructure. The base station also has traditional coax connectors for SDI plus audio, and communication and control interfaces to simplify migration, while the patented cradle design makes it easy to switch between baseband and IP infrastructures on the fly as needed.

Kayenne and Karrera K-Frame video production centers are modular, powerful and scalable, reducing the complexity of today's production workloads while providing the flexibility to meet future demands. With the addition of 4K 1-wire IP connectivity for K-Frame switchers at IBC 2015, Grass Valley is enabling production workflow in IP in either 4K/UHD or HD. The TICO 4K 1-wire implementation is ideal for production applications because it is visually lossless even after multiple codec passes, and it creates far less delay than other compression formats. The K-Frame video processing engine is ideally suited to transitional, hybrid IP/SDI environments, as it can handle IP and SDI video formats seamlessly.

4K 1-wire is a game-changer for our industry. It's all about giving customers choice and making the best technology available to help them provide the best service possible to their clients, noted Cronk. We know that broadcasters have legacy investments and we want to be sure the investments they make with us will integrate smoothly into their environments and grow with them. Open standards are a very important part of driving the industry forward for the benefit of all.

About Grass Valley

Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, keeps broadcasters, content owners and service providers Future-Ready as they navigate the changing landscape of television. With the most comprehensive collection of workflow solutions in the industry, Grass Valley delivers end-to-end television production and content distribution workflows, combined with expert consultation and insight that lead to sustainable success. Grass Valley, headquartered in Montreal, is part of St. Louis-based Belden Inc. Belden delivers a comprehensive product portfolio designed to meet the mission-critical network infrastructure needs of industrial, enterprise and broadcast markets. With innovative solutions targeted at reliable and secure transmission of rapidly growing amounts of data, audio and video needed for todays applications, Belden is at the center of the global transformation to a connected world.

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