Entertainment Technology News

Eyeheight, one of the leading manufacturers of broadcast-quality modular infrastructure for the television production and post-production market, reports a buoyant and successful IBC2009. Held in Amsterdam September 11-15, the show attracted over 45,000 attendees from all over the world.

"With eight new additions to our product range at this event, IBC2009 was a very important show for us," comments Eyeheight sales director Martin Moore. "Our strategy of promoting an easy and investment-friendly expansion path from SD through multi-definition to full HD origination and post-production has proved to be exactly what the broadcast and independent sectors require. Our latest multi-definition solutions cost no more than SD and, being 3G-capable, also provide a high level of future-proofing. We saw visitors from Europe, Asia, Australasia and the Americas. These tended to be more senior and therefore more focused people than in previous years which was itself an advantage. Some good orders have been won from European and Middle East broadcasters plus promising sales leads from the USA. Our US distributor, John Terrey, worked with us throughout the show. We replaced the one-off distributor meeting held at previous IBCs with a series of one-to-one meetings and this proved much more successful for everybody. And we have finally gone green enough to migrate almost entirely from paper and CDs. Everything you could ask of Eyeheight apart from the hardware itself is downloadable from our website."

The eight additions to Eyeheight's range are summarised below. Additional details will be release shortly as each product goes into production.

NEW: CW-2M font crawler (available now)
The CW-2M is an HD/SD logo and ticker generator with integral keyer. It allows animated and static graphics plus a line of sideways-crawling text such as breaking news to be added to any part of a television image. Fully compatible with 1080i/1080p/720p high-definition or 575i/480i standard-definition environments, the CW-2M includes a dual-channel logo inserter which can be used to impose a background image or strap over live video.

NEW: Compact single-card products
The LE-2nM, LE-2nS and LE-2nU are fully-featured single-card legalisers housed in a compact and accessibly-priced half-rack-width 1 U chassis with external mains power supply unit. Models SA-2nM, SA-2nS and SA-2nU are safe-area generators and the AR-2nM and AR-2nS are aspect ratio converters. In each of these model names, the 2nS suffix denotes standard definition, 2nM denotes multi-definition and 2nU denotes ultra-definition (1080p dual-link). 2nM versions auto-detect whether incoming video is SDI or HD-SDI and switches into the appropriate format. Full 10 bit processing is used throughout. Each product is designed to be operated via Eyeheight softPanel computer control software via USB connection to a standard RJ45 Ethernet socket on the rear of the chassis.

NEW: LE-2U legaliser dual-link legaliser
Eyeheight's LE-2U is a dual-link legaliser with composite, RGB and YUV and YUV colour space correction. The LE-2U legalises the incoming signal in user-selected colour space (RGB or YUV component, PAL or NTSC composite, or RGB-and-composite combined). The unit auto detects whether the incoming video is SDI, HD-SDI or dual-link and switches into the appropriate format.

NEW: LI-2DM dual-channel multi-definition animating logo-inserter
Eyeheight's LI-2DM is a multi-rate dual logo-inserter with each channel completely independent (separate inputs and outputs), enabling mixed-rate operation. Each logo inserter has two independent layers allowing two logos to be superimposed at any one time. Logos can also be animated. Storage capacity is approximately one HD full frame of storage or five SD full frames of storage for each inserter.

NEW: 'playoutHD' presentation switcher
Offering an efficient upgrade path from 525/625-line to 1080i operation in broadcast transmission centres, 'playoutHD' is structured as a modular A/B switcher with four-group 16-channel audio facilities, supported by a wide range of modular options including keyer and bug/crawler inserter. Standard features of playoutHD include automation control, manual control and/or emergency control. 'playoutHD' is supplied complete with Eyeheight's Playout Application Suite software for general set-up, operational monitoring and detailed diagnostics.

NEW: SA-2U 4:4:4 dual-link graticule/safe-area and blanking generator (available now)
Shown in prototype at IBC2008, the SA-2U is a 4:4:4 dual-link capable graticule/safe-area and blanking generator. It is designed for SD, HD-SDI, multi-definition (single-link) and 2K dual-link post-production applications. It generates safe-action graticules, safe-title and centre markers (short and full screen) for all common TV and film formats. The SA-2U is capable of handling 2048 x 1080 ('2k') and 1920 x 1080 SMPTE 274M HD signals as well as 4:3 up to 16:9 SD and includes operational blanking control.

NEW: TC-2M multi-definition timecode system
The TC-2M is a multi-definition timecode reader and generator which reads LTC, VITC & ATC and will generate VITC & ATC. As a reader each timecode type can be burnt into an SD or HD picture or viewed on the LCD display of the Eyeheight Flexi-Panel, FP-9. In generator mode, the timecode can be preset to free-run or be jammed to any of the three read timecode format conversation, e.g. from LTC to VITC or ATC. All user bits and ancillary data can also be optionally displayed.

NEW: UD-2 up/down converter (available now)
The UD-2 is a high quality up/down converter with three-field temporal processing and 3:2-pulldown frame-rate conversion. Like all Eyeheight multi-definition products, it is compatible with the 18 video standards currently in use across 525/625 SD as well as 720p, 1080p and 1080i HD. The UD-2 incorporates HD/SD input auto-sensing and is fully transparent to embedded audio. User-adjustable delay compensation is provided on all 16 audio channels to offset the video processing time.

A globally-active innovator in broadcast-quality video and audio engineering, Eyeheight designs and manufactures a wide range of SDI/HD-SDI equipment for use in programme-origination, quality assurance, post-production, master-control and associated areas. These include aspect-ratio converters, colour correctors, embedded-audio shufflers, keyers, legalisers, logo inserters, master control switchers, monitoring interfaces, safe-area generators and vision mixers. Eyeheight products centre on a modular platform with Ethernet control and monitoring for easy connection to other devices and to external automation.

About Eyeheight: www.eyeheight.com