To anchor its store of news released at NAB, Thomson announced several international partnerships that help bring the company from broadcasting to broader-casting. China Central Television has purchased 15 Infinity DMC 1000 HD digital media camcorders, which will be used by the Beijing department in the 1080i/50 HD or 720P formats as part of this summer’s coverage of the Olympic Games.

CCTV also invested in EDIUS nonlinear editors to cut content direct from the REV PRO drives. The latest version of the Infinity camcorder will be on display at Thomson’s booth throughout the show.

Also overseas, international sports broadcaster Eurosport is launching several new HD channels, all supported by a Thomson Grass Valley K2 storage area network. The project, worth more than $3 million, is the largest HD SAN ever installed by Thomson. The main HD channel will be on the air in time for the French Open Tennis Tournament on May 25.

Thomson is centering its booth demonstrations on the innovations that make the company uniquely qualified to support the new media ecosystem that demands any content, at any time, in any place.

As part of serving that ecosystem, Jacques Dunogue, senior executive vice president for Thomson, explained the company’s emphasis on moving from broadcasting to broader-casting, as users demand a totally seamless experience and boundaries between platforms continue to disappear. To that end, Thomson will demonstrate Staggercast and SVC encoding at its booth throughout the show.

Gary Donnan, vice president and head of corporate research, revealed eight new research developments that are not yet ready for the market. Most exciting are AVC transcoding and reframing, which will enhance the viewing experience of identical content on various sized-screens. Along with object highlighting for mobile, these technologies will enable sports fans to see the ball, puck or any other moving object on a small screen mobile device like never before.

New enhancements to the Kalypso and Kayak Thomson Grass Valley HD production switchers have also been announced. Both lines are on display at NAB featuring seamless up, down and cross-conversion for multi-format production and delivery, as well as new visual effects.