Harris NewsForce game for sports productions; new Inscriber G7 offers fast graphics

By Ken Kerschbaumer

NAB marks the rollout of the complete Harris NewsForce HD/SD newsroom and sports production product family as well as the launch of the Harris Inscriber G7 integrated broadcast graphics system. Tim Thorsteinson, Harris Broadcast Communications president, says the company expects revenues for 2007 to top out around $650 million, more than doubling the company’s revenues in 2004, prior to a spate of acquisitions that transformed the company into one that offers everything from signal management equipment to traffic and billing systems. And a new interoperability lab promises that customers can rest assured that a new Harris-based infrastructure works properly not only within the Harris product family but also with third-party products. “This allows integrators to more easily install systems and put them together,” says Thorsteinson.

Visitors to the Harris booth can see a sports production demonstration that emulates a live sporting event, showing how Harris solutions are ideal for meeting the "speed-to-air" workflow demands of real world sports broadcasting applications. Leveraging more than 10 years of experience covering major sporting events, Harris and Dixon Sports Computing have combined to offer the HiLite system, designed specifically for the sports broadcast industry.

Using the Dixon sports engine, which is specifically designed to log and manage metadata and perform systems control, and the Harris NEXIO AMP server, highlights are available to go to air almost instantly. Features include live, one-time logging of sports, with unlimited loggers and editors; immediate access to any play from any edit station; and compatibility with Harris Velocity™ editors and Apple Final Cut Pro.

Also demonstrated will be the Production Playout Center (PPC) server playout application from Broadcast Controls Inc., which is designed to handle a range of production control room environments and allow users to get material on-air in record time. The PPC has three core modules that fit into any type of production environment — Newsroom Script List, a scripted playout module; the Shot Selector module, specifically designed for live, unscripted playout; and the Quick Pick Fast Replay module, which is ideal for fast turnaround of multi-points within multiple media IDs — critical when there is no time for an edit suite.

For facilities racing to produce better graphics and optimize workflow, Harris also will be demonstrating the new Inscriber G7 integrated broadcast graphics system, which delivers 2D and 3D real-time graphics flawlessly in SD or HD over two channels. Featuring integrated clips, stills, DVE, and full AES audio support, the G7 also integrates RTXports for running third-party real-time applications, such as data streams from arena scoreboards, without needing a separate playout device.