Snell & Wilcox at IBC2007

At IBC2007, Snell & Wilcox will showcase groundbreaking products that empower broadcasters in launching HD services and leveraging media across the range of distribution platforms available in the rapidly evolving broadcast market. These sophisticated technologies give broadcasters and content owners the tools they need to provide consumers with the highest possible picture quality, whether that media is viewed on a large-screen HDTV monitor, compact phone, or handheld player. With Snell & Wilcox's advanced solutions for broadcast playout, live production, and mastering and repurposing applications, media owners can deliver high-quality content to any platform, anywhere, in the appropriate form factor and format.

Also exhibiting in the Mobile Zone, Snell & Wilcox will highlight products that dramatically enhance the quality of mobile TV services, while at the same time saving mobile operators money through bandwidth reduction and increased operational efficiency. The company will demonstrate how it leverages its multiple-award-winning image processing, conversion, and compression technologies into the mobile TV space with new system solutions that meet the growing need for high-quality video services.

Select New Products at IBC2007
Protus Ph.C: Video Image Conditioning System for Mobile TV and Web TV Protus Ph.C is a new video image conditioning system that allows providers of mobile TV services to dramatically increase picture quality and/or reduce bandwidth requirements for delivering content to wireless, IPTV, and Internet delivery platforms.

Compatible with virtually any video compression encoder and all compression formats, Protus Ph.C incorporates three Emmy® Award-winning technologies from Snell & Wilcox to enable video content to be compressed more efficiently — resulting in double-digit percentage bandwidth savings for the operator. This bandwidth savings can be used to deliver higher-quality images (and fewer dropped and repeated frames) to consumers or to free up bandwidth for the delivery of extra video channels, resulting in higher revenue for the operator.

Protus Ph.C works by applying a series of sophisticated image conditioning tools to video content prior to its compression and distribution over mobile TV, IPTV, and Internet-based content delivery networks (CDNs). Derived from high-end broadcast and digital cinema applications, these tools include powerful noise reduction and motion-compensated deinterlacing and scaling, which converts video to the correct scanning format, picture size, aspect ratio, and frame rate required by mobile devices and computer screens.

In addition to providing improved picture quality, Protus Ph.C delivers other image quality benefits to viewers. For example, Protus Ph.C incorporates automated format conversion that eliminates the annoying black bars and blank spaces that occupy valuable real estate on the small screen display. In addition, Protus Ph.C vastly improves the display of low light scenes, often a problem on mobile screens, to ensure that mobile viewers receive optimal brightness levels on their display.

Alchemist Ph.C – IP: File-Based Standards Conversion Software for the iCR Platform In a move that will dramatically improve file-based international program exchange, Snell & Wilcox will introduce the Alchemist Ph.C – IP, a software-based version of the industry-leading Alchemist Ph.C standards conversion family. Running on the company's iCR platform, Alchemist Ph.C – IP delivers transparent bi-directional conversion of video, audio, and metadata between 50-Hz and 60-Hz television standards.

Until now, the precision and transparency of Alchemist Ph.C motion-compensated standards conversion has been available only in high-performance hardware systems. This meant that quality-conscious companies working in the file-based domain had to resort to decoding their file-based content to baseband if they wanted to ensure the highest-quality standards conversion. Alchemist Ph.C – IP eliminates the need to decode, process in a tape-based environment, and then re-ingest content, a time-consuming workflow that can be costly and vulnerable to error. This new solution from Snell & Wilcox addresses these issues and offers a radical improvement in quality over other software-based converters currently on the market.

Alchemist Ph.C – IP is a true plug-and-play system, requiring no user setup and providing simple drag-and-drop operation. It handles audio, video, and data seamlessly so that users can be confident in acquiring superior image quality in converted material. Because this new conversion platform is software-based, running on commodity hardware provided by Snell & Wilcox, it offers users a low cost of entry into high-end standards conversion, and a valuable tool for the shift toward IT-based operations.

Other Products at IBC2007
iCR: Automated Content Repurposing Workstation The award-winning iCR workstation enables video content to be repurposed quickly and efficiently for a wide variety of distribution platforms.

iCR's concurrent processing architecture enables operators to create multiple versions of a video program at the same time. This means that with iCR, users can create separate outputs that are optimized for different types of handsets and/or networks such as 2.5G, 3G, DAB-IP, and MediaFLO. iCR can even simultaneously create separate outputs that are optimized for IPTV and mobile TV, enabling operators to be significantly more efficient.

Integrating unique image conditioning, content mastering, quality control (QC), and content repurposing functionality, iCR delivers superior image quality while drastically reducing the time required to repurpose content output for mobile phones, portable media viewers, Internet/Web publishing, broadcast, and VOD.

iCR's parallel processing capabilities eliminate the need for the separate encoding and transcoding processing steps commonly required today. Instead, iCR performs these as part of a single workflow, allowing multiple simultaneous transcode processes to start as soon as the master encode process is under way. As a result, users can complete all their mastering and repurposing tasks in a fraction of the time required by other systems and, in turn, realize a much lower cost per deliverable.

Kahuna SD/HD Multiformat Production Switcher in a Smaller Form Factor The multiple-award-winning Kahuna production switcher is now available in a smaller 6-RU form factor that brings the full power of the Kahuna system to 1-M/E and 2-M/E applications. A number of new compact control panels are also available. As a result, broadcasters no longer need to choose between size and functionality when it comes to SD/HD production switchers.

Snell & Wilcox eliminates this trade-off by extending the power of Kahuna to small and medium-sized applications. Now users who require a 1-M/E or 2-M/E production switcher can enjoy all the power, flexibility, and functionality — including powerful IMPAKT 3-D DVE capabilities — that make Kahuna the switcher of choice for a smooth and controlled transition to HD.

The new additions to the Kahuna switcher family maintain the full power and functionality of the top-of-the-line system, including the ability to intermix SD and HD sources seamlessly within the same production. The new 6-RU Kahuna mainframe supports up to two full M/E banks and four tiles of IMPAKT 3-D DVE, and it can be used with a broad range of full-sized and compact Kahuna control panels. The system's networking capabilities enable users to assign M/Es and DVE power dynamically to individual panels, and the system can be easily upgraded to accommodate a facility's growth. The system also integrates easily with routing switchers, VTRs, media servers, slow-motion machines, and other external systems.

Alchemist Ph.C – HD Standards Converter
Snell & Wilcox has brought its world-class standards conversion technology into the HDTV domain to create a peerless motion compensated HD standards converter: the Alchemist Ph.C – HD. The product of extensive research into the exacting demands of HD frame-rate standards conversion, the new Alchemist Ph.C – HD yields converted images of unparalleled quality and clarity so that even the most dynamic inputs are delivered with stunning detail, free from artifacts and virtually indistinguishable from the original HD content.

The new Alchemist Ph.C – HD provides a complete standard and format conversion solution in a compact yet robust package. As well as offering HD frame-rate conversion for both 1080i and 720p standards, it also performs SD standards conversion between 50-Hz and 60-Hz material and HDTV upconversion, downconversion, and crossconversion. This gives users unsurpassed power and flexibility in leveraging content around the world — in virtually any standard or format — without compromising quality.

The system's architecture provides two outputs that can be used for transmission of program feeds in multiple standards or formats depending on the requirements of the customer. This dual-output capability provides enormous flexibility to users who must deliver content in multiple standards or formats. Virtually artifact-free, low in noise, and high in detail and fidelity, especially in fast-paced HD news, sports, and live events, the Alchemist Ph.C – HD maintains a sharp, clean look whatever the content or display.

Quasar Ph.C Motion Compensated HD Upconverter
The Snell & Wilcox Quasar Ph.C is the world's finest HDTV upconverter and the first to integrate motion estimation technology. Developed from the ground up to deliver the ultimate conversion to HD formats, Quasar Ph.C combines no fewer than three industry-leading, Emmy® Award-winning Snell & Wilcox technologies in a single compact 1-RU package. These include Ph.C motion estimation, DEFT 3:2 cadence correction, and Prefix compression pre-processing, in addition to FormatFusion HDTV conversion. This level of technology — and stunning HD quality — has never before been available at such an affordable price and in such a compact form factor.

Because it incorporates powerful Ph.C motion estimation technology, Quasar Ph.C delivers twice the resolution of other upconverters. Typical SD video content has an interlaced scanning structure, which means that each video frame is comprised of two fields, sampled at different points in time. Creation of a full-resolution image requires that these fields be deinterlaced accurately and correctly.

Quasar Ph.C uses Ph.C motion estimation to analyze incoming images and shift the pixels in each video field so that they line up perfectly, even for complex scenes featuring fast motion, fine graphics, or mixed film and video material. The use of motion estimation technology enables Quasar Ph.C to combine all the information in each video field seamlessly into a full-resolution frame, from which it produces its upconverted output.

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