Tek at NAB 2013
April 9, 2013, National Association of Broadcasters, Las Vegas—We talked with Ian Valentine from Tektronix about their latest releases. Tek has been around the broadcast industry for a long time, so their announcements tend to be important technology statements.
The evolving industry standards for interfaces and file formats need tool for checking infrastructure. At the same time, the advent of file-based formats is calling for less intrusive monitoring processes t minimize disruptions. The basic tools for evaluating H.264 don’t really exist for production use.
The focus of the company is to help their customers save money, improve efficiency, and reduce costs through better test and measurement equipment. With improved flows and equipment, they can protect investments in any technology and covering all IP and analog through file-based formats.
Although many companies are making statements about the ability to handle 4k workflows, Tek has been working with 4k for a while. They helped enable the first 4k broadcasts in Japan by providing the test equipment for monitoring the various waveforms and data formats for the Olympics broadcasts.
Highlights include the latest advances in rasterizers optimized for color grading, file-based video quality control and video network monitoring. The new WFM and WVR5250 offer HDMI-HDCP inputs that enable broadcasters and video service providers (VSP) to directly monitor the quality of the video and audio output of High Definition Multimedia Interface – High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDMI-HDCP) inputs.
The PQA600A enables video equipment manufacturers and service providers to perform picture quality analysis to verify video quality performance with an HDMI-HDCP interface.
Tektronix has developed a High Availability architecture into its Cerify Quality Control & Correction software solution. This new architecture enables the Cerify solution to operate 24×365 – ensuring continual readiness of QC services in the workflow even in the event of hardware failures. In addition, Tektronix has teamed with Dolby to incorporate the audio loudness correction technology of Dolby DP600 into Cerify, which reduces workflow time and complexity within the workflow and lowers VSPs’ CapEx costs. With this new functionality, Cerify can ensure audio content compliance to regulatory standards such as the U.S. CALM Act’s stipulated A/85 standards or the EBU R128 audio loudness standards by automatically correcting and remultiplexing the audio in the original file. Tektronix has developed Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) and Microsoft HTTP Smooth Streaming (HSS) test support within Cerify for Over The Top Video (OTT) delivery services with Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) streaming technologies.
Sentry can comprehensively perform advanced quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) monitoring on 3Gpbs of programming flowing through service providers’ 10Gigabit networks. A key addition to the Sentry family is the new Sentry Edge II, with post QAM RF monitoring performance that extends monitoring to all QAM access points. Sentry Edge II detects RF modulation and Transport Stream errors at the hub, headend or wherever QAM is used. MER measurements up to 41dB allow providers to detect signal quality degradation sooner, so they can take action before this issue impacts the subscriber viewing experience. Sentry Edge II offers two high-density models — 4 or 8 tuners — both designed to minimize rack space and power costs.
The SPG8000 Master Sync/Master Clock Reference Generator is a reference generator that combines sync pulse generator (SPG) and master clock reference generator capabilities. The fully-featured SPG8000 comes standard with individually timeable black burst (with VITC support) and HDTV tri-level sync outputs, linear time code (LTC) outputs and network time protocol (NTP) server support. The SPG8000 incorporates several key features, including a genlock mode that minimizes disruption to devices synchronized to the SPG8000 reference signals and hot-swappable redundant power supplies, remote monitoring and a Web-based interface.
