Grass Valley system streamlines HD productions

Grass Valley this morning unvelied a new HD system and camera control unit that, together, are designed to help ease studio HD and remote-control based HD productions.

In the first of today s updates, Grass Valley unveiled Ignite HDC, the world s first all-in-one robotically controlled, HD broadcast camera system. Available in several different versions to meet a variety of budgets, the new camera systems provide the ideal solution for any broadcast application in which a compact, fully integrated, top-quality remote-control HD camera system is required. Grass Valley also announced the Ignite SDC robotic camera system for standard-definition production.

In a related announcement, Grass Valley announced that its SHOT Director multi-camera joystick controller supports the Ignite SDC and HDC robotic systems, allowing a single user to easily control up to 16 cameras. It provides the ability to manually control pan, tilt, focus, zoom, iris and other settings by way of joystick and rotary controls, as well as the ability to program and recall location and movement presets. It also includes a backlit LCD screen and a menu-driven system for programming and controlling all of the key parameters of the new Ignite SDC and HDC camera systems via IP protocol.

Grass Valley says the Ignite line is the first and most complete link between the control room and newsroom. The combined hardware and software environment, for example, lets stations produce and broadcast live newscasts and other programs with only one or two operators, freeing their resources to produce other stories. It also fulfills Grass Valley s commitment to developing products and systems that adhere to a single workflow, multi-distribution strategy.
Today s announcement, says Grass Valley, is part of Thomson s “Two Year Plan,” which includes an overall strategy to help its global media and entertainment customer base acquire, create, edit, and manipulate, aggregate, repurpose, and package their high-value content.

Pricing for the Ignite HDC robotic broadcast camera system starts at $44,995 ( 36,490). Pricing for the Ignite SDC robotic broadcast camera system starts at $35,495 ( 28,785). The SHOT Director is priced at $3,995 ( 3,240). All systems will be available in July, 2006.