With the growing interest in stereoscopic 3-D television, Grass Valley was quick to emphasize its expertise in video compression and content processing technologies at this year’s NAB. The company demonstrated products targeted at transport applications for both backhaul (contribution links) and delivery to the home.

(See Broadcast Engineering TV’s coverage of Grass Valley here.)

Speaking with Scott Murphy, he emphasized “[that] sports will be the likely driver for stereoscopic 3-D television.” These high-end applications create the need for high reliability and quality contribution links from the remote site back to the studio. more

FOR-A, a manufacturer of video and audio systems for the broadcast and professional video industries, introduced the LTR-100HS Video Archive Recorder at the 2010 NAB Show. The new recorder supports LTO-5 technology, the latest standard in long-term, high-capacity tape storage, to provide a simple and effective archive solution.

Check out Broadcast Engineering TV’s coverage of the LTR-100HS here.

more

Lori Hazen, Gepco marketing manager, gave me a brief run through of the company’s newest fiber-optic products. While fiber isn’t new to Gepco, these new solutions greatly complement the company’s line of optical cable products.

New additions to Gepco’s hybrid fiber distribution systems include HMD hybrid fiber modular distribution racks, HMS hybrid fiber fusion splice racks, HDR1 high-density distribution racks, HSB fusion splice boxes, HDB SMPTE field and studio boxes, HMP8-Bxx SMPTE 304M breakout racks, and HMP8 modular hybrid fiber and Triax panels. The focus of these introductions is to simplify and improve the cable installation process with a modular and expandable design configuration.

To round out the fiber platform, Gepco is also showing other fiber products including the Neutrik OpticalCon, the Amphenol TAC-4 and TAC-12, and the LEMO SMTPE 304M hybrid fiber camera cable assemblies. The company offers a full line of ST/SC/LC multimode and single-mode snakes as well as indoor permanent installation cables. You can view these and other Gepco products at C5643.

Belo, Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps, Fox, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television, ION Television, Media General, Meredith, NBC, Post-Newsweek Stations, and Raycom Media announced plans to form a joint venture to develop a new national mobile content service. Using existing broadcast spectrum, the service will allow member companies to provide content to mobile devices, including live and on-demand video, local and national news from print and electronic sources, and sports and entertainment programming. more

3-D is everywhere at NAB this year. Panasonic’s 3-D camera was being shown on the floor. It was outputting two HD-SDI signals to feed the monitors, and the picture looked great. Panasonic also was showing a compact 3-D production switcher to go with the camera.

I attended a session on broadcast media file exchange by Todd Roth. In it he talked about how to choose between the different file types as well as the good and bad about the various storage systems out there.

There was another session about how to make ATSC M/H work financialy and the shift in revenue flow in other media sectors. Did you know that the music biz actually made more money last year, it just didn’t go to the record companies. We could see a simular shift in broadcast TV, including mobile.

There is a new player in the 3-D space and it’s Sensio Technologies. Sensio develops and markets stereoscopic 3-D digital compression and display formatting technologies. Sensio 3D allows the high-quality distribution of 3-D content through conventional existing 2-D infrastructures and playback/monitor on any 3-D display device. The Sensio 3D format is compatible with existing DVD and Blu-ray players and game consoles. While Sensio is not exhibiting on the show floor, you’ll be hearing more from this solutions company as 3-D further enters our space. More information is available at www.sensio.tv.

I almost want to tell you where the yearly Miranda Technologies press conference will be held, just because company CTO Michel Proulx is so entertaining and educating. I learn more about technology and solutions at his press conferences than all the others combined. By the time the press conference was over, I better understood a range of 3-D terms: over/under, side-by-side, anaglyph, and interaxial adjustments and about a half-dozen other common 3-D labels and technology, but I digress.

As if to emphasize his company’s 3-D expertise, Proulx did a portion of his press conference using 3-D displays and 3-D Web screen captures from the Masters golf tournament. How’s that for nifty? more

At the Wohler press conference, company marketing director Carl Dempsey highlighted several new products for this show. Two deserve review here.

The first was the Wohler AMP2-16V, a 16-channel audio-video monitor. This SDI-centric audio mixer and router has a full range of tools for managing signal loudness, Dolby program streams, transmission chain audio insertion, and emergency troubleshooting. more

Yep, you read correctly, Dolby has just released a professional reference monitor. I got a peek at the display in the Dolby booth with David Yang, marketing guru. This once audio-only company is showing the PRM-4200 LCD monitor. The monitor accurately shows true and deep black levels with higher contrast across the entire color spectrum. It offers high luminance range and level. more

I stopped by for a brief visit with Cindy Zuelsdorf, Marketing Czar at Ensemble Designs yesterday. Two items caught my eye. The first was the BrightEye 72 converter that takes a 3 Gb/s, HD or SD SDI video signal and converts it to an HDMI signal that can drive most consumer monitors. The converter allows broadcasters to use off-the shelf monitors in high-end broadcast applications.

(Check out BE TV’s coverage of the BrightEye 72 here.)

“Everyone needs an affordable way to verify closed caption data for SD and HD signals,” said Cindy Zuelsdorf, Marketing Czar at Ensemble Designs. “Just about any HDMI monitor can now be used in a station or post house and do everything an engineer needs.” BrightEye 72 also that enables users to verify 608 or 708 closed-caption content. more