At NAB 2018, Rohde & Schwarz will showcase new products and system solutions that span many different application areas in the broadcast and electronic media processing market.
Gap Filler
Brand new at NAB 2018 is the R&S TLU9 GapFiller, a rebroadcasting product that makes it possible to extend the coverage of main transmitters (high-power and medium-power stations) in specific topologies that cause shadowing effects, such as steep valleys without the need for an additional fully equipped transmitter site.
Many current gap fillers are complex to configure. They only work well for specific reception scenarios and cannot handle changing echo characteristics. The R&S TLU9 GapFiller addresses all these limitations. It offers gap filler operators the optimum combination of top signal quality, best reliability and minimal operational costs. Furthermore, it is the first gap filler to feature R&S smartEC, a built-in intelligent echo cancellation mechanism for self-configuration and automatic adaptation to changing echo characteristics.
R&S smartEC takes the R&S TLU9 GapFiller to the level of performance and reputation of a low-power transmitter. It handles complex echo scenarios, significantly minimizes MER degradation, provides self-configuration capabilities and self-adapts to changing echo characteristics. Finally, it saves costs since an engineer does not have to regularly, manually reconfigure the echo cancellation parameters in the field.
Post Production
R&S CLIPSTER is the gold standard workstation for mastering and distributing feature films and episodic TV. R&S CLIPSTER provides a foundation for post production vendors to build services upon. Supporting up to 4K120p, from a wide array of professional media file formats or baseband SDI, R&S CLIPSTER can support various stages of post production with its built-in tools. R&S CLIPSTER can perform conforming, VTR Emulation, Non-linear editing, real-time video processing, advanced colour format transformations, and even guide operators towards a reliable delivery with output wizards to a myriad of professional formats.
Create Digital Cinema Packages, Interoperable Mastering Format Packages (IMF), AS11, and AS02 packages with quality, reliability and performance in R&S CLIPSTER. In addition to the creation of files, R&S CLIPSTER also provides rock solid video playback for QC, review and approval, or playout to tape via SDI, Displayport, and HDMI with 16 channels of embedded SDI audio or 16 channels of AES/EBU.
At NAB, Rohde & Schwarz is preview version 6.6 of R&S CLIPSTER, demonstrating a continuous stream of new software developments and hardware configurations which continue to offer efficiency enhancements to R&S CLIPSTER owners now and long into the future.
Ingest and Playout
With its open architecture, R&S VENICE is a playout and ingest platform that enables broadcasters to deliver content in the most appropriate manner by merging SDI and Video-over-IP technologies, empowering the user to migrate to IP-based production at a time and speed that best suits their situation, and provides a single platform covering live production, studio production and channel playout applications.
R&S VENICE provides a comfortable working environment and comprehensively covers all major formats and codecs. The system is easy to operate and, in an industry where time equals money, it's availabile production software ensure fast and convenient operation. R&S VENICE offers maximum interoperability with third party solutions by web-services and software oriented architecture. It seamlessly ingests and plays out resolutions ranging from SD to UHD whilst its advanced transform functionality allows transforming into all supported formats.
At NAB, Rohde & Schwarz will demonstrate how its new R&S VENICE platform is ideally suited to live and studio applications. At the same time, R&S VENICE is the ideal solution for Channel Playout applications. The server is scalable in terms of channels, capacity and bandwidth and offers 24/7 reliability with seamless failover mechanisms.
Encoding and Multiplexing
Another Rohde & Schwarz focus at NAB 2018 will be its R&S AVHE100 system solution for encoding and multiplexing. A compact, yet flexible and scalable transcoding, encoding and multiplexing solution, it offers best in class video quality for premium content distribution, including for today's most advanced video coding standard HEVC — for Over-The-Top (OTT) and broadcast applications. It also fully supports high dynamic range (HDR) video transmission.
The platform provides COTS-based encoding and multiplexing. Its IP-based system workflow provides advanced redundancy options. At NAB, Rohde & Schwarz will demonstrate how the video headend solution integrates seamlessly with the company’s R&S PRISMON monitoring solution to ensure efficient monitoring of all streams received and generated, thereby minimizing customer stress in multi-signal environments that are commonly found in today’s broadcast solutions.
Monitoring and Multi-Viewer
Another focus for Rohde & Schwarz at NAB 2018 is advanced content monitoring for broadcast and streaming media services featuring its award winning R&S PRISMON multi-viewer. As part of the AIMS NAB 2018 interoperability showcase, R&S PRISMON running interoperable implementations of the latest drafts for SMPTE 2110 and AMWA IS-04 in a live environment.
Rohde & Schwarz will demonstrate how R&S PRISMON is applicable to the broadest range of scenarios including Playout, Production, Contribution, Distribution and Cloud environments. Reporting is another key focus with combined data rates, stream types and resolution reporting, thereby reducing management complexity in modern media operations.
Contribution
Also at NAB, Rohde & Schwarz will showcase R&S RelayCaster for live contribution over public internet services. With R&S RelayCaster, reliability of contributing and distributing live content via unmanaged networks is significantly improved, as packet loss issues are efficiently resolved. R&S RelayCaster enables the replacement of expensive satellite links or contracts with CDN service providers. In contrast to these services, RelayCaster is not limited to certain regions or data centers. RelayCaster enables distribution of content across any distance, to any place that is reachable by Internet infrastructure. With optional encryption, data streams will be protected between all senders and receivers (AES).
Storage
At NAB, Rohde & Schwarz will highlight its IBM Spectrum Scale file system, which centers on the R&S SpycerBox multi-user shared storage system. Using the IBM Spectrum Scale file system solution with Rohde & Schwarz storage solutions ensures more efficient storage capacity utilization. Broadcasters, post production houses, corporate organizations and scientific institutes can now implement intelligent solutions for storing their media files based on their needs. The new file system software for R&S SpycerBox Cell and R&S SpycerBox Ultra TL simplifies the storage workflow and makes it more cost-effective.
Reliable storage solutions are essential for broadcasters and post production houses. Digital content is the media industry’s key asset. It must be securely and safely stored. At the same time, certain media files must be quickly and reliably accessible. As budgets shrink and cost pressure grows, efficient storage becomes key in every respect.
To meet these requirements, IBM Spectrum Scale is now available for the R&S SpycerBox product family. This file system enables users to more efficiently utilize different storage tiers based on their needs. Combining high-performance R&S SpycerBox Cell online storage and powerful R&S SpycerBox Ultra TL nearline storage with IBM Spectrum Scale provides the basis for a centralized, tiered storage solution.