NAB Perspectives: Tektronix’s Valentine Addresses File-Based Workflows

In the Las Vegas Convention Center’s North Hall, the focus of the NAB Show was on the cloud and file-based storage and distribution systems. For Tektronix, a market leader in broadcast-video test, monitoring, and analysis solutions, the task is simple: make its products as portable and cost-effective as possible.

Business Director Ian Valentine shows off Tektronix's new portable WFM2200 waveform monitor.

“For a lot of customers, if it doesn’t make money or it doesn’t save money, we have a problem,” says Ian Valentine, business director, video test product line. “What we are starting to see is that that is coming out in two forms. First, the distribution and delivery of content is becoming more and more important; second is the management of that content internally and cost reduction of moving from tape to file and the efficiency of that.”

Keeping pace with the evolution of the file-based environment, Tektronix was showing version 7.4 of its Cerify platform, which provides quality control of file-based video and audio. The new version offers a series of enhancements, including significant speed improvements that enable Cerify to test content at many times faster than real time. A growing list of supported codecs/wrappers enable Cerify to start processing files as they are being ingested. Staying with emerging new mezzanine standards, Cerify now supports testing of DNxHD and JPEG2000 mezzanine formats. The addition of teletext and DVB subtitling strengthens the existing 608/708 caption support.

According to Valentine, show attendees from the mobile-production-truck industry were very interested in the portable WFM2200 waveform monitor, the latest addition to the company’s line of waveform monitors and rasterizers. Making its debut at the NAB Show, it has a combination of features and the portability that enable those working in a truck compound to keep an eye on their progress on the go.

Broadcasters and video-content producers are no longer monitoring only basic SD-SDI video and analog audio and need to diagnose multiformat video, multichannel/multiformat audio, and complex ANC data supporting today’s modern broadcast systems. The WFM2200 incorporates the performance of Tektronix’s advanced waveform monitors in a portable unit. In addition, it is customizable via software, enabling customers to add capabilities to the base model to better suit their needs, rather than pay for a fully configured unit with unneeded capabilities.