MANAGEMENT
April 2016
stand out
physical interface speeds, greater
quantities of image data, higher
dynamic range and higher frame
rates. Solutions to many of these
challenges are already being pre-
pared by Omnitek in anticipation
of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics,
where 8K television is expected to
become a reality.”
Omnitek says it is not only
known for its OTM and OTR
products but now also for its Ultra
4K Tool Box, which is ideal for
12G-SDI/4K test and measure-
ment. The company says that a
significant number of new equip-
ment being manufactured in
Asia-Pacific countries has been
developed and tested using this
equipment.
For another test and meas-
urement supplier, a feature that
attracts most customers is the
equipment’s cost-effectiveness,
says Paul Nicholls, Phabrix’s mar-
keting director/sales, APAC.
He tells APB: “Interestingly,
broadcasters are looking for a
cost-effective solution to test and
measure, and of our products, the
Rx rack-mount Rx2000, Rx1000
and Rx500 are catching their at-
tention.”
Nicholls say that quality con-
trol is very important to both
broadcasters and their customers
— whether they are the content
consumers or network adverti-
sers. Thus, Phabrix offers its new
Rx rack-mount series that sports
a combination of both video and
audio toolsets in one unit.
“Clearly, there are a lot of
different aspects of T&M that
broadcasters now have to monitor
and here the Rx’s ability to display
20 instruments simultaneously via
HDMI or SDI rasterised output
is important,” he says. “There is
flexible templating so that the
chief engineer can define the set of
instruments he wishes to view and
recall by preset, which is among
the new features of interest.”
Another new feature on the
Rx is the ability to frame-capture
a monitored signal, which can be
replayed instantly along with all as-
sociated instruments. “This makes
for a very powerful T&M feature.
Now standard with all Rx products
is closed caption monitoring with
multi-language support along with
loudness monitoring,” Nicholls
explains.
Ac c o r d i n g t o Ni c h o l l s ,
Phabrix’s expertise lies in its hand-
held range of products, which
supports various formats, from
analogue to SD-SDI, HD-SDI,
3G-SDI up to UHDTV1/4K and
UHDTV2/8K.
“Our main function in testing
for multi-screen is to check that
these formats are being delivered
correctly from source,” he explains.
“Anything from colour standard,
Quality control is very
important to both
broadcasters and their
customers — whether
they are the content
consumers or network
advertisers.
pixel ratio to gamut range can be
checked to make sure it is consist-
ent with the device it will eventu-
ally be seen on.”
Testing can also be set to au-
tomatic and a full report gener-
ated at any time as part of the QC
process. “Whether rack-mount
as a central resource or portable,
the Phabrix range can monitor
all signals through the broadcast
infrastructure,” Nicholls says.
In terms of customer sales,
Phabrix says its products have
been very successful this year in
several large regional broadcast
facilities in Asia. “The key has been
the combination of both video
and audio tools in a complete unit
that is very easy to use,” reveals
Nicholls.
“In one Asian country, the
main broadcaster has standard-
ised with more than 30 Rx’s in
use daily for quality control with
additional units to support ingest
and transmission environments.
What we are noticing is that Asian
broadcasters are very interested in
improving their services and good
T&M helps in this regard.”
The Phabrix products are said
to be useful in educating the inter-
nal support engineers, giving very
clear information and diagnostic
tools in fault finding throughout
the facility. “In China, we continue
to make significant sales into OB
van environments and broadcast
engineering resulting in many
prefecture sales throughout the
regional infrastructure support-
ing [broadcaster] CCTV,” Nicholls
concludes.
31
Pebble Beach Systems
provides JMC with
mission-critical playout
automation
Jordan Media City has selected a Marina automation system from Pebble Beach
Systems for installation at its Amman headquarters in Jordan.
Jordan Media City (JMC), a media
service provider based in Amman,
Jordan, has selected a Marina
automation system from Pebble
Beach Systems for installation at
its Amman headquarters.
As early as 2003, JMC deployed
a Neptune automation system
from Pebble Beach, which has
progressively expanded as JMC’s
operation grew. The decision to
implement a six-channel Marina
system represented the next step
in JMC’s success, and forms part of
the migration of all of JMC’s chan-
nels to HD while allowing JMC to
begin planning for an expansion
of its channel count over the com-
ing years.
Radi Alkhas, managing direc-
tor at JMC, explained: “Our years
of experience with Pebble Beach
Systems’ technology and their
responsive and knowledgeable
team of engineers gave us the con-
fidence to migrate to this platform
as we embark on the transition to
HD. We look forward to continuing
this excellent working relationship.”
The system to be deployed at
JMC’s Amman headquarters is a
six-channel HD, fully redundant
playout system with automatic
media management