Full-Year 2021 Utilization Metrics More Than Doubled Over 2020

SDVI, the leading platform provider for cloud-native media supply chains, today disclosed that its Rally media supply chain platform processed over 300 million jobs in 2021, representing a 102% increase in usage over 2020. Those jobs were performed on a total of 32.6 million hours of content as it passed through Rally-managed supply chains. Continuing the trajectory established in the first half of the year, the doubling in jobs processed by Rally illustrates the dramatic shift among media businesses toward cloud-based media supply chain infrastructure to drive efficiencies and increase business agility.

Hikes in costs and availability shortages for equipment is proving challenging globally. Unsurprisingly, the effects of which are visibly spilling over into the broadcast and live events sector. The implications of which show no signs of abating. While lack of material is the most cited reason, staff shortages, Covid-19 and Brexit implications are equally influencing supply and demand. Further compounded by an international chip shortage and increase in shipping costs. With much of the equipment used for the broadcast and live event production sector being heavily reliant on chip related assets, this is having a significant impact on supply.

When I was asked “what’s next for sports broadcast” just over a year ago, I concluded with a (somewhat) philosophical prediction for 2021: “The real advances will come from the human side of the workflow ― with bold choices by production teams leading to a new era of great sport stories.” Apparently, my musing struck a chord.

Grass Valley has signed a multi-year enterprise agreement with NEP Group, the leading technical production partner for premier producers of live productions and events. The agreement will strengthen NEP's strategic position as the worldwide leader in centralized (remote) production. For Grass Valley, the deal underscores its commitment to lead the digital transformation and be the partner of choice for its customers. The deal will see the two companies combine their knowledge, insight and offerings to support modern providers and creators of premium live content and will allow the two companies' R&D teams to work closer to bring critical innovations to market.
 

NBC Sports has selected Sony Electronics to provide cutting-edge broadcast and production equipment for its coverage of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, from Beijing, China, February 2–20. The announcement was made today by David Mazza, CTO, NBC Sports & Olympics, and John Studdert, Vice President, Media Solutions, Sony Electronics.
 

With the MFC series, the Multimedia Solutions (MMS) BU of the Prysmian Group offers extremely resistant, flame-retardant and flexible fibre optic cables for broadcasters and outside broadcasts (OB vans). Thanks to the patented BendBright-XS technology, the Draka cables, which are based on the SMPTE 2110 standard, have an extremely high resistance to bending. Successfully conducted bend tests, including an S-bend test with over 500,000 cycles, prove this. Depending on the requirements, the MFC cables are available with 4, 8 or 12 glass fibres in singlemode (SM) or multimode (MM). Specially manufactured for outdoor applications, the MFC series is suitable for applications in the broadcast sector, mining, military, industry, shipping, oil and gas extraction, wind farms as well as for FTTA, DAS and security applications.

Sometimes less is more: the new high-end extender product series Vision XS produced by German KVM manufacturer Guntermann & Drunck GmbH (G&D) comes with a small housing and big performance. Following the motto "smaller, more compact, more powerful", G&D developed a new compact multi-purpose KVM tool. The high-performance KVM-over-IP extender is now available with high performant video transmission for resolutions up to 4K60.

Media Mobil GmbH, specializing in the production and broadcast of sporting, cultural and entertainment events, has placed Lawo AoIP audio infrastructure at the heart of its new flagship OB van, dubbed “UHD1”.

Dream Chip today announces the release of its new AtomOne Mini Zoom camera, a ground-breaking miniature camera that now introduces Zoom functionality to an already impressive set of visual specifications. With dimensions of just 60x80mm and a weight of only 267g, the camera delivers crystal clear images, working on a rolling shutter basis with a 1/2.5” sensor, and allowing for resolution of up to 1080p60.

Programmatic marketing, online inventory, cloud-based real-time playout: As of January 1, 2022, Qvest and Trade4Sports have established a strategic partnership to create new marketing solutions in the sports and entertainment sector. The two companies are combining their specialist expertise in the field of technology-focused sports and entertainment marketing. As part of this collaboration, Qvest Group GmbH is acquiring a 33-percent stake in Trade4Sports GmbH.

Clear-Com is pleased to announce the promotion of John Ruest to Regional Sales Manager for the Nordics (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) and Central Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic).

Signiant Inc., a leading provider in intelligent file transfer software, is pleased to announce that its cloud-native software as a solution (SaaS) products, Media Shuttle and Signiant Jet, are now integrated with Media2Cloud from Amazon Web Services (AWS). With Media2Cloud, frame-level metadata is generated using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) from Amazon Rekognition, Amazon Transcribe, and Amazon Comprehend. Media2Cloud, application protocol interface, APIs make it easy to integrate this metadata into other systems. With this integration, customers can take advantage of Signiant’s SaaS products to transfer content directly into Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) with speed, reliability, and security and once the content is in the Amazon S3 bucket, Media2Cloud begins the content analysis and post-processing.
 

Ikegami reports a sustained level of innovation throughout 2021, its 75th anniversary year. Founded in 1946, the company initially produced electronic components before progressing into full scale equipment development and production. Ikegami milestones over the years have included one of the first transistorised TV cameras (1960), the TGK-6TC colour flying-spot film scanner (1967), the HL-33 electronic newsgathering camera (1972), the HL-55 3-CCD portable broadcast camera (1988), the Editcam tapeless digital camcorder (1995) and the world's first portable 8K camera, model SHK-810, co-developed with NHK (2015).

Blackmagic Design today announced that major horse racing meets at some of South Africa’s most prestigious venues are being broadcast live with a fleet of Blackmagic URSA Broadcast cameras.

AJA Video Systems today unveiled Desktop Software v16.2 for all KONA, Io, and T-TAP Pro products, in addition to AJA SDK v16.2 for Developer Partners. This feature-rich release introduces a wide range of workflow enhancements, including the latest macOS support; new OBS Studio compatibility; improved 12-bit, 444, RGB workflows for 4K/UltraHD; upgraded LUT functionality; new codec and special playback support in Control Room; and expanded multichannel audio. The release also underpins the launch of Io X3, the newest addition to AJA’s Io lineup of powerful Thunderbolt™ 3 connected mobile capture and output devices.