Grass Valley responds to industry challenges with IP solutions and 4K workflows

The Glass Valley IP concept is intended to be applied across its entire range, from the camera lens (glass) to the display (glass), allowing customers to realize the true potential of IP, minimizing costs on unnecessary SDI-IP converters.

Marco López, president Grass Valley, opened his speech at the press conference on the occasion of this IBC 2015 by stating that the broadcast industry is facing “a perfect storm marked by a very strong dollar, clients delaying their investments, a new trend in the price of oil, more disruptive technology, generalization of austerity programs and a drop in advertising investment.” Given this panorama, López believes that it will be possible to overcome the storm "with solid finances, listening to customers, consolidating manufacturing processes, with technological innovation, providing integrated solutions and relocating resources."

In this new environment, López has highlighted the strong commitment of the Belden group, owner of Grass Valley, to R&D since it invests 68 million dollars compared to 57 million for its immediate competitor.

For his part, Mark Hilton, vice president for infrastructure solutions, has reviewed how changes have been accelerating in the sector at an increasingly dizzying pace over the last eight decades. “We need fourteen years to migrate to HD and perhaps now we only need four to widely adopt Ultra High Definition,” he stated.

Grass Valley understands that the new IP environments, due to their great agility and flexibility, will play a key role in all these changes.

Broadcast data center

The industry is moving toward a “broadcast data center” environment, so Grass Valley has its eye on “Glass-to-Glass” IP solutions first introduced earlier this year.

A new range of IP solutions debut at this IBC, along with other solutions in the areas of capture, editing, playout and infrastructure.

At the Grass Valley stand we can see their new proposals for Glass-to-Glass live IP production. The Glass Valley IP concept is intended to be applied across its entire range, from the camera lens (glass) to the display (glass), allowing customers to realize the true potential of IP, minimizing costs on unnecessary SDI-IP converters. A key part of Grass Valley's Glass-to-Glass offering is the GC Convergent, a powerful new SDN system that controls both off-the-shelf (COTS) IT mixers and SDI arrays. With unified control common in broadcast, GV Convergent allows migration from SDI to IP at a scale and pace suitable for each company.

GV Node

Making its debut at IBC is GV Node, the first real-time IP processing platform, offering multi-purpose video and audio processing and precise vertical mixers, thus demonstrating the flexibility and suitability of IP to the world of live productions.

To demonstrate the impact of IP in production, Grass Valley is showing its new 4K one-wire based on the new TICO 4:1 lossless visual compression standard with IP connection for K-Frame mixers, processing a 4K/UHD source from the LDX 86 XCU series base station, all through a single, lightweight cable.

IP also appears in Grass Valley's broadcast solutions, with the new iTX 2.8, now available, demonstrating its new and redesigned broadcast engine that now stands out for having a compressed IP I/Os and a new built-in Softel subtitling.

In terms of 4K/UHD live production, Grass Valley's proposal begins with the LDX86 Universe 4K76X HD camera in conjunction with the K2 Dyno Universe replay system. Broadcasters can now have a solution that supports HD, 4K or 6X without having to change work processes or exceed budget.

Also debuting at IBC is Extended Dynamic Range (XDR), an option with improved software for all 86 LDX series cameras that work with single-speed formats (HD/3G/4K) taking advantage of the incredible dynamic range offered by the Xensium-FT CMOS imager for improved 4K/UHD content.

GV Node offers multi-purpose video and audio processing, precise vertical switching and IP aggregation, and is the next critical step in the growth of Grass Valley's Glass-to-Glass IP solution for broadcasters, allowing them to use previously unknown IP flexibility in more applications in their workflows. GV Node allows broadcasters to combine many of the benefits of a data center model with the specific requirements of a live broadcast production environment.

This unique IP processing node is designed to serve as the primary switching source for live productions. In early applications, customers will be able to choose to operate GV Node in conjunction with off-the-shelf IP switchers to provide paths with deterministic switchers, which are perfect for supporting direct-to-air and secondary live feed applications. Historically, COTS IP ports have not been able to provide precise vertical switching like traditional SDI routers. This is especially relevant for live applications, where signals are sent directly to broadcast, and where routers have traditionally been used as a backup to the production switch. Precise switching in the vertical range is also needed when a router is used to connect secondary live power supplies.

The GV Node distributed platform topology is designed for uplinks with COTS IP aggregation mixers, using a “spine-leaf” architecture typical of modern IT infrastructures. This topology represents a much more modular and flexible approach than traditional and centralized routing systems, which have motivated the purchase of larger and more expensive chassis than was necessary, to allow future expansions. This type of distributed topology allows for a true broadcast-centric data center model.

GV Node proporciona múltiples funciones de procesamiento de señal y monitorización y así como de-embedding/embedding y monitorización de audio IP y SDI I/O, así como MADI I/O. El multiviewer integrado, altamente modulable, utiliza tecnología kaleido, probada por la industria, para obtener la máxima calidad de imagen y flexibilidad de diseño. GV Node ha sido diseñado para estar “Listo para el Futuro” en relación con los cambiantes formatos y estándares de señal de la industria, y actualmente soporta tanto SMPTE 2022-6 (HD) video-sobre-IP como 4K de único empleando compresión TICO.

Un único cable para 4K

Grass Valley desvela en IBC una gama de productos proporcionan soporte a la trasmisión 4K con un solo cable
En vez de utilizar cuatro cables 3G para llevar una señal HD o 4K, la solución de Grass Valley es utilizar el galardonado TICO 4:1, compresor sin perdida visual, desarrollado por Intopix para llevar una señal de alta calidad a través de un único cable.

Como parte clave de la solución IP Glass-toGlass de Grass Valley, la conexión de un solo cable 4K permite la transmisión de señal 4K utilizando las conexiones estándar 10 GigE, que evita la utilización de las engorrosas y propensas a error, señales 4quad (4x1080p) y a la vez ofrece la flexibilidad y potencia de las infraestructuras IP. Y lo que es aún mas importante, Grass Valley ofrece tanto conexión IP 4K de un solo cable como conexión tradicional tipo SDI en sus productos, facilitando a los usuarios la creación de procesos de trabajo híbridos IP/SDI hasta que estén totalmente preparados para comprometerse con IP en el futuro.