PlayBox at NAB 2008
Las Vegas Convention Center, April 14-17 Stand SU11308
PlayBox Technology, now supporting over 4,700 SD and HD TV channels worldwide, is expanding the capabilities of its playout solutions at NAB2008. The new features provide more flexibility for playout, especially in live operation, more efficient workflows and interface enhancements as well as technical developments for new compression systems.
New at NAB2008:
AirBox 4
AirBox 4 servers bring a raft of new capabilities that enhance the widely used AirBox content playout software including:
• PlayBox H.264 support: PlayBox equipment can now work with AVC/H.264 compression. This is in line with the increasing use of the standard that offers up to twice the MPEG2 efficiency, both for standard and high definition broadcasts.
• PlayBox Mixed Playout: The new Mixed Playout Engine supports realtime transitions between clips of different compression formats. This simplifies operation by removing the need for content transcoding and compression domain unification. The result is the seamless replay of multiple compression formats from a list comprising clips coded in, for example, MPEG2, DV, AVC/H.264 and VC-1/WMV with perfect continuity between clips.
AirBox 4 also introduces features such as MXF support for MPEG2, DV and HDV, a live presentation control interface, unlimited metadata support for clips, commercial insertion tools, and more.
TitleBox Graphics
TitleBox offers more for graphics preparation, including accepting dynamic data, and preview capabilities.
• TitleBox Preparation: From now on off-air titling template preparation becomes convenient and cost-effective. TitleBox Preparation is a full-featured sibling of the on-air TitleBox product, targeted towards facilities that require extensive graphics design and WYSIWYG editing preview. It can either operate with desktop preview only or with broadcast-quality video output.
• TitleBox Dedicated Graphics Preview: A new line of TitleBox on-air graphics servers can now simultaneously support both graphics creation and replay on two separate outputs. This is enabled with the addition of a WYSIWYG editing preview which can continue while the same TitleBox’s playout is active. The result is a more efficient graphics workflow that allows preparing last-minute graphics.
• Dynamic Data Sources: TitleBox servers can now directly extract dynamically-changing data from databases through the ODBC standard. Also, any RSS feed can be used as a data source for any of the text objects on-screen. New data gets updated immediately after it has been changed.
Versatile Compliance Recording
CaptureBox
Compliance Recorder moves on to V2.0 bringing new features that extend use. Now the limits are off; there are no practical restrictions of format or bit rate so any broadcast can be recorded. The codec choice includes MPEG1, MPEG2, DV and the recently announced AVC/H.264. The inclusion of ASI/IP means that an ASI input can be re-broadcasted as an IP stream – allowing remote compliance monitoring. It also allows compliance recording of not only video and audio but also any accompanying data services (PIDs) associated with the channel.
PlayBox Digital Signage The new Standalone and the Light versions of PlayBox Digital Signage are on demonstration. This module-based software allows users complete control over the presentation of media for months ahead. As a consumer marketing tool this can deliver targeted messages at specific locations, such as point of sale, and times with content and information displayed on digital screens.