Recent Work

Ascent’s highly secure and reliable approach to broadcast and IT convergence for Audio over IP transport recognized for NAB Product of the Year and Future’s Best of Show Award, Presented by Radio World

CINCINNATI, April 24, 2019 — GatesAir, a global leader in wireless, over-the-air content delivery solutions for radio and TV broadcasters, departed Las Vegas last week with two prestigious industry awards for Intraplex Ascent, the industry’s first scalable, multichannel Audio over IP transport solution to address the convergence of broadcast operations with IT infrastructure. GatesAir took both awards for which Intraplex Ascent was under consideration: NAB Product of the Year and Future’s Best of Show Award, Presented by Radio World.

Intraplex Ascent offers a direct connection to traditional digital and analog audio interfaces, and is compliant with both the AES67 standard and today’s leading AoIP networking solutions. Ascent is available in two form factors: a 1RU server, with configurable options for physical and AES67 channels; and a software-only solution that operates in a virtualized container. The software-defined innovation is GatesAir’sfirst Intraplex system to live on a COTS x86 server, and provides broadcasters with a highly scalable, redundant and cloud-based transport platform for multichannel contribution and distribution.

Intraplex Ascent adds further value by allowing users to manage many Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) streams on a centralized platform– an industry-first in Audio over IP networking for broadcasters. To further strengthen stream robustness and reliability, Ascent integratesDynamic Stream Splicing (DSS), an Intraplex technology that diversifies SRT data across redundant networks.

The NAB 2019 Product of the Year is an independently judged awards program by the NAB recognizing product innovation in 16 categories. The first official awards that recognize innovative new products at NAB Show, the program recognizes the most significant and promising new products and technologies showcased by Exhibitors at the 2019 NAB Show in Las Vegas.

“Nominees like GatesAir are revolutionizing the way people experience media and entertainment,” said NAB Executive Vice President of Conventions and Business Operations Chris Brown. “The 2019 NAB Show Product of the Year Awards highlight the best of what’s new at the premier launchpad for breakthroughs at the intersection of media, entertainment and technology.”

Future’s Best of Show Awards are evaluated by a panel of engineers and industry experts. They are selected based on innovation, feature set, cost efficiency and performance in serving the industry and particularly the target readership of each specific publication. Future’s Radio World publication is the definitive source for information on radio technology, radio industry news, management techniques, application-oriented engineering and new product information.

“The Future Best of Show Awards at NAB are in their sixth year,” said Paul McLane, Future managing director, content for media technology titles. “The program focuses attention on superb innovations in technology as seen around the million-square-foot exhibit floor of the industry’s top trade show. The list of 2019 winners and nominees shows where media technology businesses are headed.”

“As an early innovator of Audio over IP codecs and networking solutions for broadcasters, GatesAir is taking the next logical step for our customers with direct integration into the IT infrastructure,” said Bruce Swail, CEO, GatesAir. “We are exceptionally proud to be recognized by these industry-leading experts for our innovation, which we view as a significant first step in bringing the broadcast and IT worlds closer together for the benefit of our global customer base.”

About GatesAir   

GatesAir, Inc., a portfolio company of The Gores Group, provides complete solutions for over-the-air radio and television broadcasting, leveraging wireless spectrum to maximize performance for multichannel, mission-critical services. Powering over-the-air networks worldwide with unparalleled reliability for nearly 100 years, GatesAir’s turnkey solutions enable broadcasters to create, transport and transmit radio and TV content.  With customers in more than 185 countries, the company leads the industry in innovation and design breakthroughs, improving efficiency and reducing total cost of ownership with all products designed and assembled in the USA. Visit www.gatesair.com for more information, Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gatesair, and follow us on Twitter at @GatesAir.

About The Gores Group

The Gores Group, founded in 1987 by Alec Gores, is a global investment firm focused on acquiring controlling interests in mature and growing businesses which can benefit from the firm’s operating experience and flexible capital base. The firm combines the operational expertise and detailed due diligence capabilities of a strategic buyer with the seasoned M&A team of a traditional financial buyer. Over its 30-year history, The Gores Group has become a leading investor having demonstrated a reliable track record of creating value in its portfolio companies alongside management. Headquartered in Los Angeles, The Gores Group maintains offices in Boulder, CO, and London. For more information, please visit http://www.gores.com.

Online retailer ProFlixSales guides mobile production specialist to the right problem-solving fiber-optic solution for long-distance media transport

Hauppauge, NY, April 24, 2019 — MultiDyne Fiber Optic Solutions’ global reputation for problem-solving has taken on new meaning for the team at Videoworks, a full-service, California-based mobile production and rental house specializing in mid-sized events. The company selected MultiDyne SMPTE HUT camera transceivers to pair with its Sony fiber camerasystems following performance and service challenges with its initial choice.

The switch to MultiDyne immediately solved those problems at a much lower cost, while overall optimizing performance and return on investment for long-distance fiber-topic transport. ProFlixSales, an Atlanta-based online equipment retailer specializing in video production, recommended MultiDyne after Videoworks reported ongoing signal problems with the previous solution.

“We had consistent error and warning lights on their Sony HDC1500R cameras and companion camera control units, which correlated to the transceivers in the fiber-optic infrastructure,” said Mike Porter, owner, Videoworks. “While the transceivers were technically working, the error and warning lights nonetheless were a distraction and caused alarm during live productions. There is typically a different camera operator and shader for each project.”

The vendor’s service department also required that Videoworks replace circuit boards to fix the problem. While reluctant to do so, Videoworks engineers replaced the boards, yet the problems persisted.

“We were confident that we could find a solution for our customer and Multidyne’s SMPTE HUT fit the bill perfectly,” said Shimon Hirschhorn, vice president of sales and marketing for ProFlixSales. “Not only did MultiDyne bring peace of mind by simply delivering working transceivers; they also saved our customer $260 per device. This is a huge benefit to a smaller mobile production company like Videoworks with a limited equipment budget. They intend to order additional transceiversin the near future.”

Hirschhorn points to the Pasadena Pops Summer Concert Series and the Long Beach Pops as examples of the efficiencies that MultiDyne’s SMPTE HUT transceivers have delivered for live productions. Videoworks recently transitioned from very expensive SMPTE fiber cable to far more cost-efficient tactical cables. The Pasadena project required the Videoworks team to pull wire and fiber cables underground, with two front of house cameras outfitted with SMPTE HUT devices to move video and data to the truck. Videoworks also uses SMPTE HUT devices to transport intercom and video content for the venue screens over single-fiber connections to the Videoworks truck for the Long Beach Pops project.

Porter notes that the streamlined architecture and maintenance of the SMPTE HUT for these and other projects saves Videoworks “a ton of money on fiber cable.” The SMPTE HUT also simplifies adaptation to different kinds of cameras when needed, with clear labeling that enables configuration changes in less than 10 seconds.

“The fiber-optic infrastructure is the heart of the camera system for companies like use, and solutions from companies like MultiDyne need to solve problems rather than cause them,” said Porter. “We are sometimes moving media over distances of 3500 feet while maintaining signal integrity, and reducing labor by being able to plug the SMPTE HUT devices directly into the camera HDCU or I/O panel at the truck without additional integration requirements.

“There are no more blinking red lights causing alarm,” added Hirschhorn. “Everyone can concentrate on making video images look great for their live productions.”

About MultiDyne

With over 40 years of experience serving the Broadcasters and video production communities worldwide, MultiDyne Fiber Optic Systems leads the industry in developing pioneering signal conversion and fiber-optic-based transport systems for the broadcast, cable, satellite, production, digital cinema, pro A/V, corporate, retail, surveillance, teleconferencing, judicial arraignment, transportation, government, military, and healthcare markets.

About ProFlixSales

For over 12 years ProFlixSales has been providing solutions to Digital Media Professionals for production, post-production, broadcast and live events.  Delivering personal service and aggressive pricing they can be found at www.ProFlixSales.com.

Now shipping, the 1×8 model addresses the challenge of distributing high dynamic range (HDR) formats in residential and commercial AV environments

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 23, 2019 – Atlona, a Panduit company, continues to innovate for emerging 4K and HDR requirements with the expansion of its Rondo family of HDMI distribution amplifiers. Now shipping, the new Atlona Rondo 448 (AT-RON-448) addresses the challenge of managing an imbalance of inputs and outputs for 4K/UHD/HDR sources and displays in residential and commercial AV environments.

The Rondo 448 provides a 1×8 architecture to move high-resolution video content from a central location to eight end points. This makes it a dependable problem-solver for high-end homes and retail environments, such as TV showrooms, tasked with moving media to an unusually high density of outputs. Similarly, the Rondo 448 supports full-motion, highly detailed graphics for presentation in conference rooms, classrooms and video walls, made livelier through professional visualization, 3D renderings, simulations and more.

Like its 1×2 and 1×4 siblings (Rondo 442 and Rondo 444), the Rondo 448 offers significant value to systems integrators and custom installers. All Rondo distribution amplifiers offer EDID management features to ensure compatibility between source and sink devices, and provide front panel LED indicators for power and signal status to simplify setup and troubleshooting. In addition, installers can cascade up to eight units without compromising performance, to accommodate a wide range of installations and expand when necessary.

The Rondo 448 is compatible with all video resolutions, audio formats, and color space formats supported in the HDMI 2.0b specification, and can pass metadata for HDR content. It is also HDCP 2.2 compliant, allowing for the uninterrupted passage of protected content streams between devices.

“The success of our first two Rondo solutions has proven its promise of a substantial efficiency boost to commercial and residential integrators looking for easy-to-install, easy-to-use switching and distribution solutions,” said Joshua Castro, Atlona product manager. “The Rondo 448 will provide a solution with the same high reliability and long-term value for end users managing content across a much higher density of end points.”

The Rondo 448 distribution amplifier is priced at $780, and is supported with Atlona’s award-winning 10-year limited product warranty. Atlona will present the Rondo 448 at InfoComm 2019 (Booth 3012) from June 12-14 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Register for a free pass using code ATL175.

About Atlona

Atlona, a Panduit company, is a leading global manufacturer of AV over IP distribution, connectivity, and control solutions. The company designs and engineers innovative, award-winning products for a diverse range of residential and commercial AV and IT markets. Backed by an award-winning 10-year warranty, Atlona’s products are developed to enable our customers’ ability to connect and collaborate with simplicity. More information about Atlona is available at atlona.com.

About Panduit

Global connectivity leader Panduit Corp. creates innovative electrical and network infrastructure solutions for applications across the enterprise. Headquartered in Tinley Park, Ill. and operating in 112 worldwide locations, Panduit’s technology leadership and robust ecosystem help support, sustain, and empower business growth in a connected world. panduit.com

Complex, space-efficient combining and switching system at DTV Utah facility solves the challenges of adjacent signal combining without performance loss

RAYMOND, Maine, April 23, 2019 — As Dielectric builds on its market-leading share of US repack antenna business, the company celebrates the launch of a unique ATSC 3.0-ready multi-channel combiner and waveguide switchingsystem installed at DTV Utah’s community TV transmission facility. Dielectric won the challenging multi-station repack project because of the quick turnaround of a complex system that met all size and performance specifications, including mask requirements on three adjacent channels in the system, resulting in a clean signal for each of thestations.

DTV Utah is the owner and operator of the facility, which houses transmission systems for nine Salt Lake City-area stations. Eight stations, six of which were repacked to new channel assignments, broadcast from specialized multi-channel antennas (two main and one backup). James and James Consulting managed the project, including the design, integration, and commissioning of the Dielectric system. The owner of the consultancy, Greg James, was a former director of engineering for one of the repacked stations (KSL-DT) and intimately involved with the original DTV Utah facility design.

“The DTV Utah site is an interesting mix of public, commercial and independent stations, most of which operate on a common antenna system that changed with the repack,” said James. “The site is located 3500 feet above average ground level (9050 feet above sea level) and transmits across the challenging Wasatch Front terrain, north and south of Salt Lake City, with specialized antennas built for the original system in 1999. We had no way to retune the RF system for all these newly repacked channels, which meant we had to replace the combiner system. Dielectric was the one vendor who could meet all of the challenging requirements across timeline, technical specifications and within space limitations.”

Available space was particularly important, given that the previous combiner — also a Dielectric system — had to remain operable during the transition. The old combiner system and mask filters were located in the ceiling of the building, and could not be removed. This inspired Dielectric to innovate its most compact combiner to date.

“We had a 17×20-foot space for a tenth transmitter that wasn’t installed, and Dielectric designed a 14×16-foot system that could combine all of our channels and leave room for the tenth transmitter,” said James. “Of most importance, we had to install the combiner before integrating the new repack transmitters. Dielectric was the only company that could deliver such a complex system, and on time.”

The technical challenges were also substantial, according to James. The three adjacent channels required sharply tuned filters, allowing the full use of each channel’s bandwidth. While the group delay measurement is increased slightly from a more broadly tuned filter, the new GatesAir and Rhode & Schwarz transmitters in the facility provide the necessary correction, making the group delay at the channel edge negligible.”

In addition to the RF, Dielectric provided the waveguide switching on the combiner’s input, allowing for various combinations of main and backup antennas.

“The switching network was complex and had to fit into a small space,” said James. “Dielectric designed a new compact waveguide switch for our requirement. The combiner is not trivial, because switching between three antennas across any combination of transmitters is very complicated to achieve. The performance across all transmitters and antennas is optimized and adaptable to any condition. Overall, the system that was installed and commissioned by Marsand, Inc., offers a very sound and high-performance solution to a very unique operating environment.”

About Dielectric

Based in Raymond, Maine, Dielectric LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Dielectric is a leading provider of innovative broadcast products. Now celebrating its 77th year of operation, the company builds and delivers antennas and RF systems optimized for every TV and FM radio broadcast need since 1942. Dielectric is an innovative, customer-centric organization with a long history of engineering excellence in designing and manufacturing high-quality broadcast solutions. As a trust partner of broadcasters worldwide, Dielectric maintains its legacy of advanced, precision RF solutions while building in features that prepare broadcasters for the future. More information can be accessed at www.dielectric.com

AI-enabled live translation system recognized by Future plc’s TV Technology, while new advances in automated captioning platform honored by Government Video

Southfield, MI, April 18, 2019 – ENCO‘s launch of the new enTranslate automated, live translation system and upgrades to the enCaption4 automated captioning solution garnered the company two prestigious accolades at the 2019 NAB Show. enTranslate received Future’s Best of Show award presented by TV Technology, while the updated enCaption was similarly honored by Government Video.

The patented, software-defined enCaption4 solution provides automated closed and open captioning for live and pre-recorded content in near-real-time, enabling broadcasters and content producers to cost-effectively meet regulatory requirements and growing consumer demand. enCaption4 combines machine learning with a neural-network speech-to-text engine to deliver exceptional accuracy with extremely low latency. The newest enCaption 4 enhancements further improve its speech recognition precision and speed, while expanding the array of source integrations from which the system can learn new vocabulary and names. The new update also leverages AI to distinguish changes between people speaking even within a mixed audio feed.

enTranslate builds on enCaption’s powerful speech-to-text foundation with advanced translation powered by Veritone, making live and pre-recorded content understandable to non-native-speaking audiences by providing near-real-time translation for alternative-language closed captioning, in-venue subtitle displays and more. Blending artificial intelligence with sophisticated linguistics modelling to provide high-quality, context-aware translations, enTranslate offers broadcasters and live presenters an easy and affordable solution to automatically translate television programming, board meetings, legislative sessions, lectures, worship sermons and other content.

“enCaption4 already offered an unmatched combination of accuracy, performance and cost-efficiency, and our latest updates make it even more powerful,” said Ken Frommert, President of ENCO. “Meanwhile, enTranslate is a great example of how we are extending our proven core technologies and expertise to solve new problems and empower content creators and live presenters to reach new audiences. We are delighted that the TV Technology and Government Video judges have honored us with these awards.”

Future’s Best of Show Awards are evaluated by a panel of engineers and industry experts, and are selected based on innovation, feature set, cost efficiency and performance in serving the industry and the target readership of each particular publication. TV Technology, the digital television authority, serves the broadcast, cable, production, post production, business and new media markets, while Government Video is a key resource for federal, military, state and local government media professionals.

“The Future Best of Show Awards at NAB are in their sixth year,” said Paul McLane, Future managing director, content. “The program focuses attention on superb innovations in technology as seen around the million-square-foot exhibit floor of the industry’s top trade show. The list of 2019 winners and nominees shows where media technology businesses are headed.”

About ENCO

Founded in 1983, ENCO pioneered the use of computer-based, digital audio and program automation for radio station and TV studios. The company has since evolved its product line to cross all aspects of today’s automated broadcast and production workflows, including closed-captioning, visual radio, audio compliance, instant media playout, remote contribution, and cloud-based web streaming. Its two flagship systems, DAD and MOM, bring the industry’s best reliability, cost-efficiency and intuitive operation to automated radio and TV operations worldwide. ENCO is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan USA and retains a global distribution network, plus a growing network of partnerships with complementary industry vendors. For more information, please visit: www.enco.com.