Adder Technology, ChyronHego Streamline Sports-Venue Control-Room Operations

KVM extenders and matrixes are integrated with graphics product line

One year ago, ChyronHego acquired Sound and Video Creations’ Click Effects product portfolio in a continuing push to carve a place in the sports-venue market. To streamline the operation of its Click Effects products in the control room, ChyronHego relies on Adder Technology’s KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) extenders and KVM matrixes.

Adder Technology, which recently joined SVG as a corporate sponsor, is a leader in the IP-based KVM space. A few years ago, at NAB 2014, ChyronHego Technical Director Jeff Ball — then technical director of Sound and Video Creations — approached Adder about his company’s need for a reliable KVM solution.

“There was a need [for] real quality KVM equipment in the solution offerings that we were going into the market with. We worked with other vendors in the past and were just looking to see what other possibilities existed in the field,” says Ball. “Having that interaction at NAB and seeing those products [demonstrated] immediately got us interested. We connected and brought some units into our test facility, gave them a good once-over. It wasn’t long after that … we put those into place and said this was the solution for us — stable, reliable, did exactly what we needed it to do, and did it at a very attractive price point — to welcome to the market.”

Adder supplied Click Effects with a pair of AdderLink XD150 DVI KVM extenders for testing; Click Effects demonstrated the extenders at its booth during NAB 2016. Currently, ChyronHego is using Adder’s IP-based AdderLink Infinity solution and new AdderLink XD150FX for dedicated fiber deployments and continues to use the AdderLink XD150 DVI KVM extender at many sports stadiums.

“Adder has offices around the world, a global distribution network, and a 30+-year pedigree in developing and manufacturing KVM solutions,” says David Hall, Southern regional sales manager, Adder Technology. “Year on year, Adder has proven itself as the leading supplier of high-performance KVM for broadcasters and pro A/V, providing reliable and pixel-perfect extension, sharing, and matrix solutions that enable an IT infrastructure. These key features and the range of solutions available from Adder made it an easy choice for ChyronHego.”

With the Adder KVM extenders integrated into the ChyronHego/Click Effects product family (most notably, Click Effects PRIME graphics-authoring solution), sports-venue personnel can connect control-room workstations to a single server in the rack room. In addition, the streamlined workflow enables one control-room workstation to control multiple pieces of equipment in the rack room.

“Having a single workstation control all the devices in the rack room provides one cohesive output and point of control, which benefits the end user in multiple ways,” Ball explains. “It provides fewer points of failure, and it means that, come game day or come event time, less staff is required to execute the operation.”

The combined ChyronHego-Adder Technology solution is currently in place at a number of sports venues, from professional to universities and high schools. Among them are the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto, West Virginia University, and TCU.

“Adder is a known technology, a known market leader. A lot of other companies that are in the market really work hard to emulate what it is that Adder is doing,” notes Ball. “They’ve got a self-inspired drive for innovation while looking at the market needs and generating a really good line of complementary products that help ChyronHego, in turn, build a more comprehensive solution base for the end users that are in the stadium market.”