How many times have you had to reach for the volume button because someone overly compressed a commercial or failed to properly ride gain on a program? With the Evertz Intelligain, variations in loudness between programs and commercials or between channels, are over. more…

Value is key to gaining customers says company

At a press breakfast Tuesday morning, Avid officials at times sounded contrite about the company’s previous behavior. Even so, to a person, they were always enthusiastic about the company’s future plans.

Our key is to “pay attention to customers”, said Kirk Arnold, Executive VP Customer Operations. Kirk has been busy reorganizing, rebranding and, in general, helping refocus the company on products and customers. The company is coming together with a one core theme, “Avid is Back. We’re a different company now”, said Arnold. more…

Sony booth (C11001), yes that’s in the CENTRAL hall, is busy with attendees wanting to try out the company’s new line of HD studio cameras. Two of those receiving high attention are the new HSC-300 and HXC-100 cameras use Triax cable, making them highly compatible with current cable installations. more…

It was shoulder-to-shoulder in the Grass Valley booth today as attendees excitedly viewed the demonstrations on the latest Grass video production switcher. Kayenne is a new family of production switchers that integrates the most powerful features of Grass Valley’s popular Kalypso and Kayak models while adding adds new advances that enable high-end creativity as well as streamline production HD workflow. Ray Baldock, Grass Valley’s CTO described the crowd’s response to the new switcher as “unbelievably great”. more…

For engineers venturing into the ATSC-M/H arena, one of the first pieces of needed test equipment will be a multiplex signal generator. Sencore (N2530 and SU4412) is showing The ATX2000 ATSC-M/H Multiplex Signal Generator, which is specifically developed to perform tests on America’s M/H standard. The ATX2000 provides a variable broadcast simulation test environment and can be tailored to specific situations using a comprehensive set of parameter and multiplexing function controls. more…

Recently merged Snell & Wilcox and Pro-Bel have contracted their company names to simply Snell. The decision follows extensive market research that identified excellent customer recognition and regard for both brands. The research concluded that the name Snell was particularly strong and would best reflect the values of the new company.

A previous story incorrectly stated that Snell & Wilcox had purchased Pro-Bell.

Sony have released an HDCAM-SR camcorder, the SRW-9000. This will be a winner for steadicam shots, where the F23/35 have limitations due to their size and weight. This is the first Sony camcorder that permits 10-bit acquisition in HD.

Over at Panasonic, good news for those who find P2 cards too expensive. They have released an economy line, the E-series in 16, 32 and 64GB. The 64GB card will sell for $998.

Harmonic announced that they are integrating Google’s Content ID into the Rhozet Carbon Coder. When content is transcoded to a distribution format the Content ID can be generated on the fly (typically at 10X realtime). The ID is submitted to Google with usage tags. If that content is uploaded to YouTube, when it is processed to the web format, a fingerprint is generated and checked against their database. Unauthorized content is then automatically blocked. This is an easy way to control piracy from YouTube, and can be built right into a post workflow.

As stations add sub-channels after the digital transition, providing EAS to many outputs becomes expensive with discrete channel systems. Many Public stations cover a state, and may want to target one area with an EAS alert. Trilithic released at the show a way to insert EAS into an ASI transport stream. An announcement can be inserted into chosen program streams, with optional graphics insertion for snipes and logs. The system uses RGB Networks BNP for the transport stream processing.

This morning I met with Jim Frantzreb, Avid senior market segment manager for broadcast. “We’re back at NAB and exhibiting on the show floor,” he said. “We’re happy to be here, and the show’s been great for us so far.”

Frantzreb said that the company is back with a new focus. Historically, Avid has been a family of separate businesses – Avid, Digidesign, M-Audio, Pinnacle Systems and Sibelius – that served audio and video customers independently of one another. Recognizing that Avid is stronger as a whole than as separate parts, “We realized we had to come together as one company,” Frantzreb said. more…

This afternoon, I met with Shawn Maynard, Florical vice president and general manager. Before joining Florical, Maynard was the director of operations for NBC Universal’s Television Stations Division. This experience, according to Maynard, is what makes the company unique. “I run this company from a broadcaster point of view, not a vendor point of view,” he said. “This is how Florical is different from other automation companies.”

This year at the show, Florical has introduced four optional modules for its S.M.A.R.T. Central product, which is a smart client-based gateway into the company’s television broadcast automation system. It is designed to reduce redundant tasks, make systems accessible over a closed network to improve workflow while maintaining a secure system and automatically e-mail critical reports to key personnel to improve communication and response times. more…

I just got done meeting with Ken Christensen, marketing manager for Sencore, who talked to me about where he sees the company going. In January, The Riverside Company acquired Sencore, and John Suranyi was named Sencore’s new CEO. Christenson said now the company is looking forward to expanding, through acquisitions and by moving into the global market.

“We’re well-positioned to expand our footprint globally,” Christensen said. “We’re definitely trying to expand into other countries.” more…