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[Monday at NAB]
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Harris Promotes Integration, Interoperability
Mobile DTV, Digital Signage to Highlight Video Products
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by Tom Butts,
~ April 14, 2008
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TV TECHNOLOGY
At the NAB Show this year, Harris Broadcast is expanding on its ONE initiative to demonstrate integration among its own product lines as well as interoperability for third party applications.
When it launched its ONE marketing campaign two years ago, the Melbourne-Fla.-based company had just wrapped up several years of acquisitions including the likes of Encoda, Inscriber, Videotek and Leitch. Integrating the various platforms and applications into comprehensive production and distribution solutions was the ultimate goal of the company and the results of its efforts will be on full display at the Harris booth this year.
“Harris is a compilation of at least 50 different businesses acquired or sprung up organically over the past 20 years,” said Tim Thorsteinson, president of Harris Broadcast Communications. “Everyone had different IT systems, different accounting systems, different languages, so we worked hard to make it one integrated business. So this ONE initiative has been as much an internal initiative as an external initiative in marketing.”
TORONTO TEST LAB
Even a company as large as Harris understands the importance of playing together with other applications, so to that end, the company has established a $2.5 million interoperability lab in Toronto. The facility, which will be headed up by former Corus Enter-tainment executive Reagen Mitchell, houses 43 racks of equipment from every major product line within Harris Broadcast, including server, automation, master control and transmission equipment.
“We can replicate the customer’s environments so we can validate that it will all work together,” said Harris Broadcast Vice President for Strategic Marketing and Technology Brian Cabaceiras.
Harris’ introduction of its Nexio AMP server platform last fall was a clear demonstration of its commitment to an integrated production environment. This convention will mark Nexio AMP’s U.S. debut and the company said it has delivered more than 100 Nexio AMP systems since it began shipping recently to customers in Japan, Germany, Canada and two major U.S. TV networks.
Another new integrated platform is NewsForce, which will also be introduced at the show. Described as an “interoperability compilation” of Harris servers, nonlinear editors and character generators with Apple’s Final Cut Pro, NewsForce is targeting a range of customers, from small-market stations transitioning to hi-def news to sports applications.
“We optimized [these applications] for Final Cut Pro,” Cabaceiras said. “We believe that we do Final Cut Pro better than anybody.”
Four versions of NewsForce editors are available: NewsForce ES, a high-resolution news editor; NewsForce Desktop, a proxy editor that operates on standard desktop PCs; NewsForce XNG, a software-based laptop editor for the field and newsroom; and Velocity NX, a full-featured promotions/craft-style editor.
Graphically speaking, Harris will introduce Inscriber G7, its most advanced HD/SD 3D graphics and animation system for live-to air environments. An optional MOS version allows journalists to create customized, template-based graphics from within any newsroom computer system, such as ENPS and iNEWS, and automatically insert them into their newsroom rundown.
AT A GLANCE
Multiviewers are becoming increasingly common in today’s master control environment and represent another trend towards integration and interoperability. To that end, Harris will show a number of multiviewer systems, including several from Zandar Technologies, which the company acquired in November 2007.
The Harris Centrio multiviewer will be demonstrated as a standalone platform or as part of a system solution integrated with the Harris Platinum router. In addition, the Zandar Predator II multiviewer for control and monitoring environments, Zandar QS100 HD Quad “multiviewer in a card” and Zandar FusionPro series multiviewers for mission-critical environments will be shown, as well as new advanced control options including the Z-Configurator user interface and the new Z-Controller software.
On the test and measurement front, the company will introduce the Harris Videotek OPT-3GB input module for its existing TVM and VTM product range, which allows broadcasters and cable operators the ability to monitor very high-bandwidth 1080p signals in a 3 Gbps distribution environment. Also new is the Harris Videotek AVM-717-3GB, a compact T&M solution for broadcasters and cable operators; as well as three new versions of its Videotek STAR range of handheld T&M products.
Two emerging and potentially lucrative applications will also be front and center at the show for Harris. Introduced at NAB2007, the company’s MPH mobile DTV standard — jointly developed with LG Electronics — is currently being field tested by the ATSC. Although broadcasters will have to wait until May to find out the results of these tests, Harris will introduce at the show, a new exciter designed to deliver these signals. The frequency-agile exciter transmits all ATSC signals including MPH and is compatible with all Harris ATSC transmitters, as well as most other competitors’ DTV transmitters. It incorporates the latest version of Harris’ RTAC (real-time correction) technology that the company first introduced in its Apex digital exciters.
MPH will play an important part of another emerging business that Harris will be focusing on at the NAB Show this year: digital signage. In addition to using its digital signage applications to promote its own booth, Harris is also introducing a product line addressing this new business.
Harris executives described the company’s evolution in the digital signage market as a gradual buildup, starting with a simple Inscriber graphics component and adding its traffic, scheduling and billing as well as control and monitoring solutions. The company is so enthused about the market potential that it has created an advanced advertising initiative to determine ways to enhance its position.
“Digital signage is everywhere,” Cabaceiras said, adding that until now, ways to monetize the market with solutions for selling, scheduling, validating and billing digital signage services have been missing. With Harris’ experience in automation and traffic and billing, not to mention its MPH mobile DTV standard that focuses on sending data to mobile devices and vehicles, it’s no wonder the company is increasing its emphasis on this emerging market.
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