Grass Valley Improves 3Gbps Routers; To Celebrate 50th Birthday at NAB

By Ken Kerschbaumer

Grass Valley will be in a good mood at NAB as it celebrates its 50th anniversary as a broadcast equipment manufacturer and looks to begin another 50 years serving the industry with new products like a 3G router, a new replay controller, and much more (the official birthday is April 7, 1959). And any uncertainty over the company’s future, as Thomson looks to sell off its broadcast related product lines, isn’t getting in the way.

“The core business of Grass Valley has been live production and Thomson preserved the value of our brand,” says Ray Baldock, Grass Valley, CTO. “And during the past 50 years we’ve maintained that value during multiple transfers, whether it was being part of Tektronix or the sale to Thomson. We continue to sustain the value of the brand and deliver on our promise.”

Among the new offerings that excites Baldock this year is bringing 3 Gbps routing support to the Trinix routing platform and GeckoFlex modular products. The new Trinix NXT router will support 3Gbps and has an asymetrical 512×1024 frame, an important feature for sports broadcasters and service providers eyeing 1080p or 3D production. “It can also support distances of 120 meters and can even reach 140 meters,” says Baldock of one of the limitations of 3Gbps routing: the length signals can be distributed. Current Trinix routers are also upgradable to 3Gbps.

Also new is the Grass Valley K2 Dyno replay controller, coupled with the new K2 Summit production server. Both are designed to help sports producers and other professionals capture live events in crystal-clear HD resolutions and instantly play them out at variable speeds for critical analysis during fast-paced events.

A new version of Grass Valley Ignite software (v5.3) will be also demonstrated with new features and functionality for single-operator, multi-camera productions. Ignite HD system will be shown in tandem with the Grass Valley MediaFUSE Content Re-purposing and Multi-distribution System.

Those involved in editing operations will be interested in new versions of Grass Valley’s Aurora (6.5) and EDIUS (5.1) HD editing software packages. Both have new integration with the Grass Valley K2 media servers and improved workflow for Final Cut Pro users. This includes unique integration with the K2 server at the file level with QoS.