NAB. Sony has announced five major additions to its industry-leading range of 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) production equipment for live content and production. These new products add to solutions that have already earned an unprecedented reputation and are used in 4K and HDR workflows at high-end events, ranging from live music, theater and sporting events to major blockbusters and historical TV series from around the world.
New additions to the range include a new 8x high-speed 4K system camera, the HDC-4800, three new mixers, the XVS-6000, XVS-7000 and XVS-8000, and a new client monitor, the PVM-X550.
New enhancements have also been made to the feature set of the HDC-4300 camera system, unveiled at NAB last year, as the world's first camera to use 2/3" 4K image sensors, hdr-compatible and fully compatible with a wide variety of existing products and production workflows. Sony will showcase these new 4K HDR solutions at its booth at NAB 2016.
The company also introduced the latest solutions that further enhance its fully interoperable IP Live production system with Network Media Interface. The new suite of solutions has been developed to help networks take full advantage of IP technology, enabling them to meet the growing demand for live 4K content, while addressing the costs and scalability issues associated with traditional SDI live production workflows.
The expanded offering now includes:
• HDC-4800: The world's first camera system with integrated 4K 8x/HD 16x Ultra Super Motion.
• BPU-4800: A baseband processor unit with playback server capability that can record up to 4 hours of 4K content at ultra high speed, allowing operations to be performed much more easily and quickly for playbacks.
• BPU-4500: a baseband processing unit that allows the routing of 4K signals, which support long-distance transmission over an IP network, using standard single-mode or SMPTE fiber cables.
• HDCU-4300: A combined camera control unit (CCU)/baseband processor unit (BPU) for the HDC-4300 that optimizes the space required in a mobile unit environment.
• PWS-4500: A multiport A/V server capable of handling 4K 4x/HD 8x signals with the XAVC 10-bit codec for high-quality recording and playback, including in high dynamic range (HDR).
• XVS-8000, XVS-7000 and XVS-6000: Multi-format mixers that support IP I/O and hybrid SDI with powerful 4K and HDR operations, incorporating MVS operating features.
In addition, Sony is showcasing IP interoperability through its ongoing collaboration between Sony's IP Live production system and Evertz's Software Defined Video Networking (SDVN) solution.
Network Media Interface, a key technology of Sony's IP Live production system, packages, transmits and cleans switches, HD and Ultra HD (4K) video, audio and metadata in real time across standard network infrastructures. With reference to SMPTE RDD34, Sony's IP technologies use a low-latency video codec (LLVC) that provides the compression needed for 60p Ultra HD (4K) transmission over a network bandwidth of 10 Gbps.
Another advance from this collaboration is Aspen-based interoperability. Aspen allows videos, audios, and metadata to be converted into individual IP multicast streams. Sony has been a member of the Aspen community since last September, at IBC 2015.
And at NAB 2016, Sony is showcasing the working prototypes that Generate and Receive Aspen Streams for interoperability with other Aspen products at the Aspen Community Stand. The company announced that it plans to develop its production cameras and mixers for interoperability in the Aspen workflow.
