NAB 2017: Pronology Adds Support for NewTek NDI IP Workflows, Partners With Bluefish444 on 4K Video
Pronology (booth SL11807), a media asset management and tapeless workflow solutions developer, has announced support for software-driven IP workflows using NewTek’s NDI technology. In addition, Pronology’s mRes standalone multi-resolution encoder is now shipping exclusively with Bluefish444’s Epoch | 4K Supernova S+ I/O video card. Pronology will showcase its latest IP updates to its mRes encoder at the 2017 NAB Show. Bluefish444 will be located at booth SL10021.
Pronology Adds Software-Driven IP Workflows with NewTek NDI
Pronology will integrate NDI into its mRes encoder, to be recognizable as a source by other NDI-enabled applications and devices connected to a standard Ethernet local area network.
Pronology’s mRes multi-resolution encoder
Pronology’s mRes encoder converts information from one format to another, for the purposes of standardization, speed or compressions. NewTek NDI is now being integrated into mRes, providing Pronology and its customers with an entry point into supporting IP technology. The NewTek NDI SDK is royalty free for any company looking to establish IP workflows within their organization or in commercial products and applications they deliver.
“In terms of moving forward and further growth, Pronology recognizes that there is a need within its customers to be IP-compatible,” says Jonathan Aroesty, president of Pronology. “We expect that NDI will be well-adopted in the industry on a wider scale and feel that NewTek is the right technology leader to collaborate with on this important new area of potential growth.”
NewTek NDI live production workflow
Introduced at last year’s 2016 NAB Show in Las Vegas, mRes is Pronology’s first standalone encoder. It seamlessly records multiple tiers of video per SDI or IP input channel without missing a frame of action. mRes allows for the creation of a high-resolution media file, an edit proxy and a live web-streamable proxy, all while offering users flexibility and ease of use at a low-cost point.
“Software-driven IP workflows are quickly becoming ubiquitous in video production to accommodate the high bandwidth of video encoding and transportation,” says Michael Kornet, EVP of Business Development for NewTek. “NDI-enabled products, like mRes, exponentially increase the video sources available for live production, creating efficiencies and opportunities for customers that did not previously exist. NDI is the most widely adopted IP technology on the market, epitomized by the millions of customers with access to it today.”
The unique, uncompressed recording architecture of Pronology’s mRes allows it to instantly deliver to the various departments throughout a production pipeline—which all require different codecs, wrappers and resolutions—a full range of file formats without any loss of quality or signal degradation.
Pronology mRes Captures Uncompressed 4K Video With BlueFish444 Technology
In addition, Pronology’s mRes standalone multi-resolution encoder is now shipping exclusively with Bluefish444’s Epoch | 4K Supernova S+ I/O video card. Pronology partnered with Bluefish444 to develop a capture workflow that ensures that multiple channels of video are encoded with the utmost reliability and quality without ever missing a frame.
Bluefish444’s Epoch | 4K Supernova S+ video card
For productions that require different codecs, wrappers and resolutions, mRes, Pronology’s first standalone encoder, seamlessly records multiple channels of video per SDI or IP input channel prior to compression and wrapping, without missing a frame of action: a high-resolution media file, an edit proxy and a live web-streamable proxy can all be recorded simultaneously.
“The Bluefish444 Epoch is the best video capture card on the market,” says Aroesty. “We’ve worked with other manufacturers’ cards in the past and the Epoch is by far the most robust. In terms of development support for mRes, we have had tremendous product support from the team at Bluefish444. The company has been able to rapidly respond and improve enhancements to the card at our request. We’re looking forward to working with them as we begin evaluating some of the new products that they will introduce at this year’s NAB.”
The Epoch | 4K Supernova S+ can capture and playout video resolutions and frame rates commonly used in production at the highest quality. Epoch | 4K Supernova S+ provides flexibility and performance, with four industry standard BNC video connectors that each allows 3G/2K/HD/SD SDI input or output, a fifth BNC for SDI monitoring and a dedicated sixth genlock BNC. With built-in bidirectional connectivity, developers using the Bluefish444 SDK, like Pronology with mRes, can choose whether they want the BNCs to be input, output, 4K, 2K, HD or SD. In 2K/HD/SD video modes, each BNC connector can be any frame rate frequency of their choosing.
“The mRes encoder maximizes the multi-card and multi-channel features of our hardware and SDK,” says Craige Mott, managing director of Bluefish444. “Pronology has developed a great product in mRes and combined with our Epoch board, we deliver a robust and easily integrated solution for production workflows.”
The mRes standalone encoder integrates with the leading NLE systems from Avid, Apple and Adobe, allowing production teams to acquire content in many different codecs, including DNxHD, ProRes, XDCam and AVC-Intra, with various wrappers at most frame rates. mRes also works seamlessly with most storage systems, including Avid ISIS and Small Tree.
Pronology’s mRes has been used at the OSCARS, the Critics’ Choice Awards, FOX’s Grease: Live! and the MTV Movie Awards.