IBC 2026: Cobalt Digital Brings New Practical Solutions to Evolving Broadcast Workflows

Cobalt Digital (Stand 8.F90) continues to reinforce its commitment to delivering practical, reliable solutions by bringing a significantly enriched product portfolio to IBC2026. The company will conduct technology demonstrations and showcase enhancements that simplify signal processing, monitoring and IP integration as broadcast and professional AV facilities continue to adopt hybrid SDI/IP workflows while transitioning to software-defined production environments.

Visitors to the Cobalt stand will see the company's latest connectivity options and expanded IPMX functionality as well as new features incorporated across the company's award-winning platform aimed at making complex infrastructures easier to deploy, manage and operate.

New Fiber I/O for Dante openGear Cards

For the first time at IBC2026, Cobalt will show its family of 9935-AUD4-DANTE openGear advanced audio processors cards with optional fiber Inputs/Outputs to support Dante Audio Interface. By enabling direct fiber connectivity, Dante installation is simplified, longer-distance deployments are supported, and the need for external media conversion in fiber-based network infrastructures is eliminated. The 9935-AUD4-DANTE is a quad-channel with up to 12G DANTE/AES/MADI/embed and de-embed functions with frame sync capabilities. The card features two gigabit Ethernet ports, a 64 64 configuration, and a full audio router mixer.

Expanded IPMX Functionality with JXS TDC

Cobalt continues to expand its IPMX capabilities with support for JPEG XS Temporal Differential Coding (JXS TDC), enabling its portfolio of IPMX-certified products to seamlessly discover, establish and transport visually lossless, ultra-low latency JPEG XS media streams. The enhancement further strengthens IPMX environments, providing true plug-and-play deployment and enabling low-latency JPEG XS workflows while maintaining compatibility across mixed-vendor systems. JPEG-XS support is available for all Cobalt ST 2110/IPMX capable products, including SAPPHIRE and INDIGO lines, as well as the UltraBlue MV and the blueCORE processors.

Award-Winning COBALT blueCORE Platform - multi-function processing in 1RU

Also featured at IBC2026 will be Cobalt's blueCORE processing platform that has been awarded numerous industry awards for its innovative architecture and operational flexibility since its introduction at 2026 NAB Show. blueCORE delivers powerful, multi-function audio and video processing in a self-contained form factor enabling customers to adapt to changing production requirements while protecting long-term infrastructure investments.

blueCORE's compact footprint, ease of operation and low power requirements (less than 80W for the ST 2110 version) make it ideally suited for live production in trucks, OB-vans and other space constrained environments. Its self-contained form factor makes deployment fast and simple with or without a computer.

Capabilities include up/down/cross conversion, color correction, several flavors of HDR processing, audio routing and mixing, per-channel frame sync, frame rate conversion, audio embedding and de embedding, SCTE 104 insertion as well as logo insertion - and many more base features, delivering extensive functionality in a single, compact unit.

Support for both SDI inputs and outputs (copper and fiber), four channels of 3G processing or one channel up to 12G, along with access to ST 2110/IPMX inputs and outputs make blueCORE a must have' for infrastructures transitioning to IP.

COBALT UltraBlue MV-SW Multiviewer - IP and Hybrid

Visitors to the stand will also see the COBALT UltraBlue MV-SW flexible software-based multiviewer that now features IPMX support for transitioning to either ST 2110 or IPMX. UltraBlue MV-SW is availableas both a turnkey solution with four HDMI heads, and as a software package that runs on customer-supplied dedicated hardware. The multiviewer can receive compressed and baseband audio/video content over IP across a variety of protocols and formats with very flexible audio routing, bringing a multitude of options to suit every application. UltraBlue also supports SDI inputs and outputs with suitable capture cards.

COBALT ARIA Audio Line

Designed for today's increasingly complex production environments, the COBALT ARIA family provides a path forward for facilities migrating to IP-based operations. The series includes the only fully IPMX-compliant audio monitor on the market and features best-in-class sound monitoring and 16 SDI or 64 MADI channels in a compact rack-mount form-factor. Sound is produced by an efficient Class-D amplifier with DSP and specially selected speaker components. The easy-to-use and customizable touch display front panel is designed for simple and intuitive operation with eight individual volume controls for mixing, as well as a PIP view of the incoming video. Control can also be achieved through a web interface.

Compression Solutions

Cobalt will also demonstrate its growing COBALT PACIFIC compression line including the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-DEC upgradeable software defined broadcast decoder now available with an ST 2110/IPMX output option. The enhancement allows decoded content to be transported simultaneously over SDI and over ST 2110/IPMX. For ST 2110 operation, a built-in frame sync will emit a PTP-locked signal.

Additionally, Cobalt has added support for hybrid Satellite-Internet operations to the COBALT PACIFIC compression line, compliant with VSR TR-06-4 Part 7. A DVB-S/S2 factory-installed demodulator option enables decoding and pass-through of satellite signals on ASI and over IP. While in this mode, Ku and Ka satellite bands are used for bulk distribution, and the Internet is used to recover any lost packets.

Cobalt has always focused on solving operational challenges for broadcasters with practical solutions, says Suzana Brad

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/08/06/318557/...
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