Things that peaked my interest at IBC

I spent just a couple of days over at the RAI in Amsterdam. It was splendid to catch up with some old pals and Bryant Broadcast do an excellent night out. My main observation is that 3D/stereoscopic was no where near as prominent as it was last year and as the number of network delivery solutions increases the number of 'proper' transmitter companies seems to drop.

Newtek - updates to TriCaster, new model & control panel. The new 450 is very similar to the 850 but has only four HD inputs (against eight). The other things that I think are significant;

• 3Play - their "poor man's EVS" has been improved. Running on what looks like a Tricaster 850 chassis it now has eight inputs and can run two outputs simultaneously. For sports slow-mo it is an excellent quick turn-around solution at the fraction of the cost of EVS.
• VTR-style control for the DDRs in Tricaster; might suite some people.
• Tricaster Extreme upgrade - allows for eight ISO records (can be either cameras or other internal/external sources, at different rasters and codecs than the main record).
• They fixed the AUX audio in embedded HD-SDi I'd been moaning about!
• The network sources (iVGA feeds) can now carry audio as well.
  

VidCheck - file-based QC is getting good! In fact this one looks like it needs serious consideration! I have a demo license on the way and will report back. Along with being able to test all the usual codecs etc it does full ITU.1770 audio loudness AND has numerous correction facilities; Tektronix AND Eyeheight, you might say.

• Containers: MPEG-2 TS, MPEG-2 PS, MXF, MP4, MOV, ASF, AVI, LXF, GXF, FLV, F4V
• Formats: Web, SD, HD, D-Cinema and many custom formats
• Video: MPEG-2, IMX, XDCAM, D10, HDV, DV25, DVCPro50, DVCPro100/HD, AVC/H.264, VC-1, ProRes, DNxHD/VC-3, MJPEG
• Audio: MPEG, PCM, WAV, AAC, stereo, 5.1 / 7.1 Dolby, multiple different language tracks

The really significant thing is the price €5k with paid options (DolbyE, ProRes etc) in the hundreds rather than thousands of pound. It also seems to handle multi-core computers much better, a single instance scaling to 28 cores.

AutoQue - they make broadcast monitors, who would have thunk it? They seem to be pitching them very much against the JVC DT-V24 series at the bottom end (a grand cheaper) and the VuTrix at the edit suite/grade-1 end (again, a lot cheaper). I have demo stock coming so I will write a bit more when I've seen them.

Other things worthy of note - Tek now have all their 3D analysis tools in the WVR/WFM-8000 series 'scopes. I had a very informative half-hour with Lee Ballinger from Tektronix going over them.