Cobalt on the Road
The last few weeks, and in fact the next few weeks, will see a whirlwind of events for the Cobalt team. Just as we were beginning to recover from an outrageously busy IBC last month in Amsterdam, we found ourselves at the 2023 WBA Broadcasters Clinic in Wisconsin (October 10 – 11), the SMPTE Media Technology Summit (October 17-18), and Broadcast India (October 8-10). And now we’re about to head out on the road again to SVG’s TranSPORT in New York (October 24) where Ciro will be part of the panel titled ‘Plotting Your Transport Roadmap for the Future: CDI, JPEG XS, RIST, RTMP, SRT, Zixi, BitFire, and Beyond’ at 2pm. We then head to NAB New York, which starts next week (October 24 – 26), and Broadcast Mexico (October 26 – 27). In November we’ll be at SVG Europe’s France Summit in Paris (November 9), AfricaCom (November 14 – 16), Inter BEE 2023 in Japan (November 15), SVG Europe’s FutureSPORT (November 23) in London, and rounding off the year on December 11, we’ll be back in New York for the SVG Summit. Phew!
It seems incredible that we’re already approaching the end of October. We’ve had an extremely successful 2023 so far, launching numerous new products to assist broadcasters and media companies with realistic, scalable and cost-effective solutions that address today’s facilities but anticipate tomorrow’s challenges as they grow with our customers’ changing needs. We’re delighted that our latest products have been recognized by the industry for their innovation, value and operability. TVB Europe and TV Technology both presented us with their Best of Show Awards for our WAVE RTR-64×64 12G-SDI Router and our PACIFIC ULL-DEC Ultra-Low Latency 4K Decoder, and just last week, we were honored with a TV Technology 2023 Product Innovation Award for our WAVE Remote Control Panel Series. The WAVE series of control panels, which we demonstrated in Amsterdam last month, offer unprecedented flexibility, ease of use and integration.
During IBC, we were delighted to take part in video interviews with publications including KitPlus, InBroadcastand SVG Europe. Suzana and Ciro highlighted our new openGear® products, specifically the award-winning PACIFIC ULL 4K Decoder, the newest member of our compression family. It supports MPEG-2, AVC (H.264) and HEVC (H.265), with resolution up to 4K, and a full complement of audio decoding capabilities. The PACIFIC 9992-DEC-4K-HEVC is an industry standard openGear card that provides an ideal platform for transitioning to state-of-the-art decoding capabilities. To learn more about video compression, read this FEED article written by Ciro in the publication’s Autumn 2023 issue.
During the video interviews, Suzana and Ciro also discussed our new WAVE routers - the WAVE RTR-32x32 12G SDI/ASI/MADI router, which is a 32x32 Crosspoint solution and the WAVE RTR-64x64 SDI router, a midsize 64x64 Crosspoint solution. Both are packaged within a compact 4U (7 inch) tall frame that is a thin 3.75-inch-deep chassis. Our new WAVE Control Panels include the CP-84L unit, which features 84 back-lit LCD dot matrix display buttons and the CP-78, which features 78 back-lit buttons.
The WAVE series of control panels offer unprecedented flexibility, ease of use and integration. Located on the rear of the unit is an Ethernet port with PoE++ capability for power and IP based communication. Built in SW-P-08 protocol comes as standard as well two optically isolated General Purpose Outputs and two Inputs. 18 more GP Inputs and 18 GP Outputs can be added with the +GPI Option. Dual DC power inputs provide for redundant operation.
Suzana took the opportunity to introduce our UltraBlue IP-MV IP multiviewers, a series that grows with the customer’s needs. UltraBlue IP-MV is being offered as both a software package and a cloud instance with a WebRTC output. These software-based multiviewers can handle a variety of compressed and uncompressed IP inputs and an arbitrary number of outputs (including individual rotation to portrait), with very flexible audio routing, and an intuitive web interface. UltraBlue also offers support for a comprehensive set of protocols (UDP, RTP, RTSP, RTMP, RIST, SRT).
Suzana and Ciro also showcased our SafeLink Gateway, which protects live video and audio data over unsecured networks, thereby eliminating video hits or glitches. By using a low latency protocol, Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST), SafeLink provides reliable video transport even in live production environments that may experience network delay. The software is lightweight and can live on most computers or on Cobalt’s openGear OG-PC-x86 platform. Control is achieved with DashBoard, a free application that handles control and monitoring for all openGear broadcast products. Extensive link quality statistics are provided for fine-tuning.
Prior to IBC, we did a full webinar where we really drilled down on the technical capabilities of these products and solutions. You can watch that here.
If you’re headed to any of the events listed we’ll see you there! If not, we’ll see you at NAB 2024 next April in Las Vegas…