Turn Your Event Into a Success Story with HEVC Transmitters & Encoders [Webinar Recording]

Turn your event into a success Story with Haivision transmitters & encoder

Our foremost experts in broadcast, sports, news, and video production are going to walk through new transmitters and encoders portfolio enhancements.

A far less costly alternative to traditional telecom, satellite, fiber, and microwave connections, the Haivision transmitters send broadcast-quality video through the public internet or unmanaged networks, which are practically free. The transport of broadcast-quality video and audio is made possible by Haivision’s robust bonded cellular capability, SafeStreams Transport (SST). Designed to facilitate mobility, quick news coverage, interviews, and sports, the 5G ready PRO3 and AIR Series provide a camera-mount, backpack, or belt-pack alternative to satellite.

We will also feature our new Rack-mountable RACK200 and RACK300 Series designed for remote field and at-home productions.

Transcript:

Jim Jachetta (00:00:01):

Good morning, everyone. I’m Jim Jachetta, CTO and co-founder of VidOvation. Once again, I have the pleasure of having my friend, Florian Kolmer, and colleague from Haivision as a guest. Today, I think we’re going to get into more of the products, the nuts and the bolts, and the features, and the different functionality. Is that correct, Florian? What are you sharing with us today?

Florian Kolmer (00:00:29):

Yes, right. Thank you, Jim. So today’s webinar is about more of one side of the Haivision workflow and range of products. It will be about the transmitters and encoders we are manufacturing and developing. Thank you for joining us today. Today’s webinar, which is part of a season of webinars, I think it’s our fourth one together, Jim?

Jim Jachetta (00:00:55):

Yes.

Florian Kolmer (00:00:55):

And we have been covering different subjects, from remote production to bonding. And one of the previous webinars was where [inaudible 00:01:06] NAB, with the announcements of our new products, and 5G integration as well. But today… and you are welcome, of course, to download and watch them online.

Florian Kolmer (00:01:17):

But today it’s for Houston’s Haivision transmitters and encoders. So we have a full range of products doing bonded cellular, but not only, for different use cases and workflows with different designs. And now we’ll be focused on this. Of course, I will explain all its integration into Haivision workflow, but we will speak mostly about computers.

Jim Jachetta (00:01:40):

Very good. So one of the things Florian and I have noticed… I’m sure this is a global phenomenon, but particularly here in the US VidOvation, when we’re designing and deploying Haivision technology, there’s a big trend even before the pandemic or the current crisis, even before this, a trend to do At-home production or REMI production or whatever name you give it. The concept of not having a truck or multiple trucks or trailers on site and the concept of just home-running the video back to master control. And where Haivision particularly shines is doing this o ver cellular and an unmanaged network. Other vendors do it over a fiber or a managed network with a high level of quality of service, a service level agreement, but cellular in the public internet, it is not easy to maintain genlock and lip-sync.

Jim Jachetta (00:02:48):

And Haivision really shines at this. And there was a landmark event on Sunday PGA charity tournament, and there were six or seven cameras. One camera, the seventh camera was in a drone and Haivision technology made amazingly beautiful pictures. There were no dropouts, and it’s a real testament that it is possible to do a fairly sophisticated sports production without the truck, without 50 personnel, without flying people and putting them in hotels, renting several trucks. All those logistics were eliminated. So Florian and I would like to know, are many of you or any of you doing an At-home or REMI production workflow now. Is this something that you guys, men and women, are using right now, today? Have you been using it? Is it something you just started using because of the pandemic? Is it something you’re not using it now, but maybe considering it in the future? If no, does it really fit your workflow? Let us know.

Florian Kolmer (00:04:14):

You see Jeremy, we are doing webinars about different subjects over the weeks, but REMI production is always a subject which is coming back again and again. And we are being more and more requests and customers moving into this new kind of workflow. It’s usually not really an easy move because production companies or broadcasters are not really used to this kind of remote production. And at the beginning, some years ago, it was only considered for some college sport or minor events. And now, as you mentioned, with the PGA event, it’s becoming very popular for major events as well and… Using bonded cellular.

Jim Jachetta (00:05:01):

Right. So you can see here 14% have been using it for a while. 14% have just started and a big chunk no, but plan to use it in the future. So that’s good to hear. Even though today’s presentation is not about at-home production specifically, keep that in the back of your mind that this technology is very robust and customers of ours have tried other cellular solutions and Haivision is the only one that maintains frame accurate genlock for multi cameras, as well as lip-sync. Cellular is really meant for a single camera going out shooting. As I like to say, my go to thing is a reporter going out to shoot a new story on the courthouse steps with a single camera.

Jim Jachetta (00:05:58):

Haivision has taken this technology to another level where we can do multiple cameras and maintain genlock. So we’ll let Florian takeover and tell us more about this technology.

Florian Kolmer (00:06:11):

Yeah. And just to finish with that, the main difference with US products or REMI production is the quality of the encoding as well. So we know what our products now you’ve got, but I will explain more later. You’ve got an HEVC [inaudible 00:06:25] HEVC 42210 bits encoder. So there is no compromise on the video quality as well, especially for sports. But today it’s more about the encoders and transmitters we’re manufacturing, but as REMI is a popular subject, I would always try to explain all those products can be used in a remote production environment.

Florian Kolmer (00:06:52):

The Webinar FOCUS

So let’s start. The Haivision encoders have historically been used from the field to the station. That’s all you are usually using bonded cellular in the past. But thanks to the technology we have been developing, it can also be used for distribution. As you can see on this diagram all the Haivision products and transport is using a protocol called SST, it means “Safe Stream Transport”, that’s a proprietary IP protocol we’ve been designing for more than 10 years now, which is much more well versed over public networks and using standard [inaudible 00:07:34] and so on. It can cope with much less reliable networks, including cellular or public WiFi, and so on. And these technologies one handling the bonding, but not only, it’s also doing two dimensional [inaudible 00:07:54] correction, [inaudible 00:07:55] general IP capability. You have been mentioning Jim Hogan production, and I’ve been [inaudible 00:08:03] between multiple cameras.

Florian Kolmer (00:08:05):

And now, as you can see here, it can also be used for content distribution. And we have been doing more and more project on that instead of distributing over a satellite and having a satellite opting between stations or dedicated fiber, to move that part to the public internet as well, using our robust SSG technology.

Florian Kolmer (00:08:26):

But today, as it’s well shown here, the webinar is focused on the contribution part, as we will be talking more about the field units and the field encoders here. So we are going to showcase the whole range of Haivision encoders, could be hardware based camera mounted mobile solution, [inaudible 00:08:47] based and software based for smartphones as well. Mmm. Between the field and the first steps, the first station and main control. Mmm. So let’s move forward. Yes.

Florian Kolmer (00:09:05):

Your Markets

So the Haivision encoders and feed units are being used for a wide range of applications. So it can be used for a breaking news report, as you can see on the picture on the top left, you can use for sport like cycling, as you can see here, it can be used inside for news or rooms or places like we’re showing in the bottom left. And it can also be used, that’s a bit different, for public safety organization, like here you can see on this picture, it’s firefighters using our technology with drones. So basically they are flying over forest, or fires, or houses to get a live content back at the remote command center to be able to deploy the right team and crew in the field.

Jim Jachetta (00:09:59):

I should mention, Florian, we recently did a… with the outbreak of the current crisis, we’re working with several law enforcement organizations, giving them the ability to broadcast emergency announcements, the governor, et cetera, using Haivision technology. We’ll do this over this, over cellular and over the public internet.

Florian Kolmer (00:10:26):

Right, so what are usually your needs, especially when moving to this kind of technology? First of course, you are looking for something really mobile, you can use everywhere and don’t have any trouble anymore to install the satellite [inaudible 00:10:47] or find out how to get the fiber connectivity on your location. So that technology will help you to work from everywhere, without searching anything in advance. It’s also the technology, which is helping you a lot to save on costs. So saving on costs, doesn’t only mean reducing your expenses, but it’s also allowing you to produce more content.

Florian Kolmer (00:11:11):

Your Needs

Then you need some reliable transmission technology, and in all our products, that’s done thanks to our SST protocol, having the best video quality available and the HEVC encoder, which is in all our outwear products is designed for that. And it’s probably going to provide you with better video qualities than the existing rack mount encoders, you may have at the station.

Florian Kolmer (00:11:41):

It’s also giving you full mobility, autonomy, and everything can be also managed remotely. So we, in all of our products, it’s very easy to use and not only is it easy to use it can be used remotely. So you can just give the units to a freelance camera man, one of your crew, without any training, and not only do the production remotely, you can manage the feed units remotely as well.

Florian Kolmer (00:12:07):

So here on this picture you can, for example, see, it’s one of the TV show here during the lockdowns, they have been producing the show at home. So they’ve got a small TV set at home. It’s one of the famous TV shows here and it’s done at the presenter’s apartment here in Paris. And on the front end, you can see this small PRO3 unit sending a feed to the station.

Jim Jachetta (00:12:37):

I should mention, Florian, you know, speaking about working at home VidOvation, as you know, is working with some production companies that are, are staying active. They consider some of their productions essential. They’re covering some news stories, et cetera, but a common thing right now is the Haivision, take the PRO 380 or the AIR product, it has the HEVC encoder, so streaming or transmitting video is its primary function. But what this production company is actually doing is just using the bonded hotspot function, the bonded VPN function to run zoom phone calls through. So…

Florian Kolmer (00:13:26):

We’ll talk about later in the [crosstalk 00:13:26]

Jim Jachetta (00:13:30):

Okay. So we can talk about that more, more about that application.

Florian Kolmer (00:13:35):

So let’s move to the product presentation, as you may already know, we have sort of a full range of products and we don’t have a single bond cellular solution. We have multiple products to match your requirements and your workflow. So here’s the first two rounds of product, two series of products, two mobile encoders, to use with mobile cameras. So the first one is a PRO3 series. It’s a small device, which is designed to be mounted on your Anton Bauer cameras. So it can be like some sandwiched between your camera and battery and probably is getting through, and you just have to connect the [inaudible 00:14:19] of your camera. And I will show you more on that.

Florian Kolmer (00:14:24):

Transmitters

And the second one is the AIR series. It’s a smaller product to use with smaller camcorders. It has an internal battery can be attached on your bed, for example. Both you need to share the same encoding platform and the same kind of features, so they can be used in the field or news, for example, news reports, can be used for remote and at-home productions, they can be used for online streaming and they can also be used to provide IP connectivity as you have been mentioning, Jim, and I will show you more in the next slides.

Florian Kolmer (00:14:56):

PRO3 & AIR in a nutshell

So, in terms of hardware, what does it look like? You can see here is a PRO series can be either mounted on the camera, that’s the typical set up for news and it can also be carried in a small backpack. So that’s basically a small backpack with an Anton Bauer [inaudible 00:15:14] inside and you can just keep the unit with a battery and get [inaudible 00:15:18] to your camera.

Jim Jachetta (00:15:20):

We can also do V-Lock as well. I mean, Anton Bauer is the most popular here in the US but we do have V-Lock units as well.

Florian Kolmer (00:15:28):

Yeah. That’s why I did speed up when I mentioned Anton Bauer.

Jim Jachetta (00:15:32):

yeah. Yeah, it depends. If you’ve got Sony cameras, you probably going to be doing V-Lock. If you’re doing Panasonic, it’s going to be Anton Bauer, but we cover both.

Florian Kolmer (00:15:45):

Yeah. And so all the series of the AIR product can be carried in a small shoulder bag across with your camcorder. It can be attached to your camera as well. And something, we are not showing here, but we can provide the belt kit as well. So you can attach it on your bed, especially if you want to move.

Jim Jachetta (00:16:05):

So, let me interject, Florian. So, I think this is a good picture, the workflow of the PGA. So the six handheld cameras all use the PRO mounted to the camera so the camera men were on the golf course, following the players. Then there were several commentators on the course just with audio, you know, they weren’t filming. So they were in the frame with the players and they had the small little shoulder pouch with the AIR, bringing their microphone, audio into the AIR, bringing that back to master control. So the production actually use the combination of both technologies.

Florian Kolmer (00:16:51):

Yes. That’s a good point to mention Jim. In fact, you can use a combination of all of our encoders with the same production environment and the same receiver at the user end. They are all using and sharing the same SSG protocol and hardware HEVC encoder.

Florian Kolmer (00:17:09):

User friendly UI

So let’s look a bit closer. On both units you have a very friendly UI, which can be either located in the field, on the unit screen itself. So for example, on the PRO3, unit, you can see on this slide, you have a small touch screen. You can access all the features directly from the screen. And in the AIR series it’s the exact same UI, but it’s a smaller screen, which is non-touch, and you have like a press button and voting button.

Florian Kolmer (00:17:38):

And then you can also access the user interface through a web user interface using any tablet or laptop locally or remotely from the station as well. So, what are the main features for those products? Of course, you might guess I can do live transmission, but not only, you can also do record, so you have a localized SD-card in the unit and you can record video. You can forward, of course, your material to the station. Not only is it recorded videos, but you can forward any kind of files. So on both units, you got the USB port, you can plug in an external hard drive and push all kinds of content to the station as well. You can do live and simultaneously record.

Florian Kolmer (00:18:29):

New Features

That’s not unique as a feature, but that’s unique in the way it’s being done in those products, because in both the AIR and PRO3 units, you have to separate hardware-based video encoders, HEVC, so you can get live in a valuable bitrate quality depending on your serial networks. But you can record at the same time in constant bitrate high quality on the SD card.

Florian Kolmer (00:18:51):

Jim has usually a good example of this feature being used usually by the Live PD show, the police show, on A&E and what they’re doing? They are following police departments in seven different States simultaneously, and they are doing it live. But in some location, if they are chasing car in the countryside and the serial connection is not that nice. Say we have a live feed at a lower bitrate depending on serial conditions, but they will record in high quality at the same time. And as soon as they are switching to another state, they are just [inaudible 00:19:37] of recorded material for rerun and post-production.

Jim Jachetta (00:19:37):

Of course you can always record live in camera, but then you have to wait until the show is over to get that content out. What many of our competitors do they do record, but they’re recording the live, the transmission, the variable bitrate. And when do you need the recording the most?

Jim Jachetta (00:19:55):

So in the example, Florian mentioned of live PD, the recording was needed when the cellular was… The bitrate was rather low, then there would be no point in using the recording because the recording would be in low bitrate. So by having two encoders, the live one is going up and down in bitrate and the recording is always at 5 max, 6 max, 10 max, whatever you choose as the quality.

Florian Kolmer (00:20:22):

Right. So the next feature is a near live functionality. So some of our customers, they don’t necessarily to produce a live show, but they want to be able to get support at the station as soon as possible. So on [inaudible 00:20:40] can do record and simultaneously forward. So, if you stopped forwarding your [inaudible 00:20:45] while it’s still being recorded.

Florian Kolmer (00:20:46):

Some new features. So first one is called the data HotSpot. So it’s providing your third party gears in the field a nice speed internet connection of a bond…

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:21:04]

Florian Kolmer (00:21:03):

Is in the field, an high speed internet connection of a bonded serial. So it’s called the internet hotspot, but it’s also doing a VPN connection to the receiver at your station.

Florian Kolmer (00:21:14):

Two main use cases for that. The first one means in the field, you will be able to access secure local resources at the station, typically, like a VPN connection. But also from the station, you will be able to remotely control [inaudible 00:21:31] equipment like PTZ cameras, IP [Bays 00:00:21:34], video switches, and so on. Always it working on both the PRO3 and AIR products, you do have the wifi hotspots. You also have an online internet port acting as a gateway. So you can plug all kinds of IP based equipment. And it’s doing an IP bridge with a [streamer 00:21:56] receiver at the station. So all the equipment in the field will be on the same LAN on the same subnets as the station. So then it’s quite agnostic and you can use it for any kind of IT-based data on traffic and workflow.

Jim Jachetta (00:22:14):

And as I mentioned earlier, we have one production company running Zoom group phone calls through this. So Hollywood and television now is so hungry for content because all television, all movie productions are closed. That they actually shipped the equipment to Hollywood actors and participants houses. The Haivision technology is so easy to power up. They just turn the unit on. They actually send a computer and some cell phones that are already connected to the hotspot and they just bring up the Zoom app and they do Zoom phone calls. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of people in Hollywood that live in Calabasas and in the hills that have really bad internet connections, believe it or not. I guess you can be a multimillionaire and still have a crappy internet connection. Maybe not a France, Florian, but this is the U.S. So the 380 has been used for this application and it’s working very well.

Florian Kolmer (00:23:26):

Yeah. The new thing we have been talking already about last week during our virtual NAB would be now is a 5G connectivity. So we are integrating 5G modems into both products. That’s already working and we’re going to ship the first units very soon. And all 5G frequency bonds being deployed in the U.S., but worldwide as well, in Europe and Asia. And they are going to be integrated in both products. We have been working on 5G for a long time. We are part of 5G research labs and programs as well. We start testing the very first engineering samples of 5G modems from multiple manufacturers. And now we are in the final stage and we are going to ship that soon. It’s already being used by some of our customers in Asia and Europe for now.

Florian Kolmer (00:24:34):

And I will speak maybe later bit more about that. It’s going not only to bring you a higher bandwidth and lower latency, but it has also a full new round of features like private networks, network slicing for bandwidth and so on. But that was part of another webinar.

Florian Kolmer (00:24:57):

Then, we have been recently adding a new feature for a video return feed. So now in both the PRO3 and AIR products, you have an HDMI output and you can get a return program feed from the station. What can it be used for? It can be used for remote tele prompting. You want to send the tele prompt feed from the station to the anchor, for example. It can be used for remote monitoring. So if you want to be able to watch a program in the field, but not [inaudible 00:25:28], if you are doing a [inaudible 00:25:31] production, you can also send remote to you back to the field for monitoring.

Florian Kolmer (00:25:37):

You can also, and we have more and more customers doing that, it can be used for remote production to be able to return your sport program back to the stadium and broadcast it on the large screen, for example. So that’s the video return feed. Basically, you are encoding your program at the station and send it over the same SST protocol over bonded serial, for example, back to the same unit that’s working simultaneously. So it’s a full duplex video solution. And then you can just get the HDMI outputs when you can’t get monitor.

Jim Jachetta (00:26:18):

Let me add one note, that I thought of this question after our last webinar. You know, we talked about return video that… You’ll get into the mechanics of how to do it from the studio side. But if many of our customers have already bought or they’re renting an AIR or purchased an AIR and a PRO3, the AIR now is what, about two years old? The PRO3, about a year. But Haivision had the foresight to put not only SDI and HDMI outputs on these newer products more than a year ago, two years ago, they put- I’m sorry, SDI, HDMI inputs. They also put outputs in anticipation of this video return feature coming. So there’s no upgrade that you have to do, correct? On the field side, on the encoder side, right?

Florian Kolmer (00:27:15):

Yeah, right. Right. And you are right on that, Jim. In fact, those products are having a longer lifetime than some other solutions. And the other way we do the video return capability, for example, was ready from scratch as well. And we have been developing the software process.

Florian Kolmer (00:27:37):

So all the existing units can already do video return. It’s just a softer [inaudible 00:00:27:42].

Jim Jachetta (00:27:44):

Right.

Jim Jachetta (00:27:45):

Another new feature on both products is mission centric feature. We’ve got more and more customers integrating the Haivision technology and workflow into the NRCS system in the newsroom. And we have been integrating with solutions like [Belair 00:07:02], EVS, News bridge, and Abit as well, so that now we can create, you can get a list of bonded serial equipment into your EVS or Abit system. Just create a new mission. [inaudible 00:28:18] don’t go there. You want to assign it to, and then when your user in the field will switch on the device, they will see your [inaudible 00:28:26] mission. They need to run there and all the live content and recorded materials they are going to produce and send back to the station will be automatically ingested along with the metadata into your newsroom system. So that’s the mission centric workflow.

Jim Jachetta (00:28:43):

You mentioned, what was it? NRCS, Florian? What does that stand for, for those that don’t know?

Florian Kolmer (00:28:51):

The newsroom central system.

Jim Jachetta (00:28:54):

Yeah. Newsroom central systems. That’s the system that manages the whole workflow, the whole production.

Florian Kolmer (00:29:00):

Yes. Right. And we are going to showcase this more later. I have a slide on this.

Jim Jachetta (00:29:04):

Okay.

Florian Kolmer (00:29:07):

And then, we got a new to-live features that’s to add a zero button operation. You just plug the battery and you’re live. I will show you more later on that, as well.

Jim Jachetta (00:29:19):

PRO3 verses AIR

That feature has been very helpful, sending the units to untrained actors in their home to do the Zoom. All they have to do is plug it and boom, the hotspot comes up. Boom, the video goes. So the little switch, right? Well, you’re going to show it, but that’s really helpful. The second power is applied… There might be some cases where you don’t want to go live when your turn on power. Cause you’ll use cellular data unintentionally, but for low tech operators, it’s great.

Florian Kolmer (00:29:52):

I have a dedicated slide on that a bit later, Jim.

Jim Jachetta (00:29:55):

Okay.

Florian Kolmer (00:29:56):

But just to show, to start with the video encoding part. So on the PRO3 and AIR units, you got H.264, and HEVC encoders. So the PRO3 is a higher range product. You can do both H.264 and HEVC. On the AIR product, we have two series. We have the AIR3 series doing HEVC only and the AIR2 series doing H.264 only. Why are we still doing H.264? Depending on our customers. We have some customers that are only going to stream to CDN, reporting on the H.264 and they have enough bandwidth so they don’t really need to save on HEVC with that. And in their workflow, it would require to trans-code anyway from HEVC to H.264. So that’s why we are still offering H.264 encoders as well.

Jim Jachetta (00:30:47):

Well, and then also the AIR2 is a very cost effective entry point. Obviously there’s a big cost savings.

Florian Kolmer (00:30:57):

Yeah.

Jim Jachetta (00:30:58):

Your H.264 Codec was very good to begin with. So many of our customers are still using H.264 and they’re going head to head with other HEVC, but it’s still a viable solution, I guess, is my point and a lower cost entry point into the Haivision ecosystem.

Florian Kolmer (00:31:26):

Yeah.

Florian Kolmer (00:31:28):

Audio & Video Specs

So then they are supporting all standard resolution, so we can do up to 1080 p60. They are supporting all resolutions here with both products and you will see later we have another solution for 4K UHD as well, if you are doing 4K UHD. Both can encode in constant bit rate and variable bit rate. Why constant bit rate? Some of our users, they see a need to use sometimes this encoder on a dedicated network with a dedicated bandwidth. And, on the other end, they have decoders reporting on CBR mode, for example. So that’s why we are still doing CPR. And they can encode from the lowest, 200 kbit per second up to 20 Mbit per second.

Florian Kolmer (00:32:12):

A key advantage here with the HEVC, the hardware HEVC encoder we have in those units is that it can encode a very good quality video at low bit rates and high bit rates as well. Of course not the same, but the encoder here can start doing 10 [hei 00:32:27] at 300 kbit per second. So for most of our user’s doing news, they are now doing, for example, 1 Mbit per second on HEVC news, depending on the quality they are expecting, but this will allow you to save quite a lot on data costs as well.

Jim Jachetta (00:32:47):

And the picture still looks pretty good. You know, if it’s just a talking head, there’s not a lot of motion, the quality still looks good.

Florian Kolmer (00:32:56):

Yeah. And it’s easy to use. You can set up your own profiles. So you’re not depending on a U.S. predefined profile on that. So if you’re doing News, Sports, whatsoever, you can create a News profile, Sport profile, and then your user, in the feed, just needs to pick the ones they are using.

Jim Jachetta (00:33:13):

The PGA ran the PRO380’s and the AIR320’s at 6 Mbps. I’m sorry, 5 Mbps. And the quality was amazing. It was equivalent to 10 Mbit or 12 Mbit of H.264.

Florian Kolmer (00:33:34):

Well, yeah, one of the points with this new encoding platform is the latency. So we have been reducing the latency in both the SSG IP protocol and in our HEVC encoding and decoding platform. So now we can go down to 500 [inaudible 00:33:54] latency.

Florian Kolmer (00:33:57):

So then you have SDI input and HDMI input. So you don’t need to choose between one or the other in the unit. You got both available all the time. In terms of audio, as well, we have been improving that with this new platform. We can encode for all your channels, a HD encode. You can define your own duo bit rate as well. And one unique feature, as well, is that you can also use external analog audio channels. So of course we can encode audio on the SDI and HDMI signal, but analog audios as well. We got two mini XLR connectors in those units, both the AIR and PRO series. So you can also get your external analog inputs here.

Jim Jachetta (00:34:42):

Well, that’s exactly what we did with the PGA. So the commentator on the course, he had the AIR320 on his shoulder. Right now, the mini XLR analog inputs is only line level. Samuel Fleischhacker, your product manager, confirmed that it’s on the roadmap to do microphone level. So the PGA probably had to use a microphone to line level amplifier in the little backpack to get the microphone up to line level. And then we just ran the video portion of the AIR320 on the test pattern. So the two channels of analog audio were able to come into the field so that the talent and the commentator microphones work carried. And all in perfect lip sync, you know. So we had camera shooting with the PRO380 with open microphones, had the talent interviewing the golfer with a microphone. If there was a genlock or a lip sync problem, you would have heard echo in all those open mics, making the audio engineer’s job virtually impossible. Haivision makes that all look so easy and simplifies the production, cause everything, all the audio, everything was all in sync.

Florian Kolmer (00:36:11):

Any Networks from Anywhere

Yeah. That’s part of this slide. That’s what I just going-

Jim Jachetta (00:36:14):

I keep doing that Florian. Sorry.

Florian Kolmer (00:36:21):

That’s the transmission part. So, as I mentioned earlier, all our products are using this SST technology [inaudible 00:36:29], and what is this IP protocol doing? Of course, it’s doing bonding so we can bond multiple serial networks together. But of course we can bond also heterogeneous networks. So we can bond serial with online, serial with wifi, with satellite, whatever IP networks is available can be used here. And that’s definitely what we wanted to do from the beginning is to be easy to use for the customer. And it’s completely agnostic and it’s making use of any kind of network from everywhere. But the SST technology is not only about that. It’s also doing for audio transmission, retransmission.

Florian Kolmer (00:37:11):

And for audio collection, that’s a two dimension APC, a feature, which is built in the technology as well. It’s also doing genlock of the IP, as you mentioned, Jim, and that is great, which means if you are the audio getting through one of the encoder and the videos to another one your feed will be perfectly genlocked, on the receiving end, without having to physically wire in genlock, you want put it in the field. So it’s using some PGB cloaking mechanism and the streamer receiver in the station is sending clocking information to all the encoders in the field.

Florian Kolmer (00:37:50):

So, that’s the genlock feature here. And then, we got also a new feature allowing you to define priorities on your IP networks. So let’s say you are in some location, you have a dirty online internet access you can’t rely only on, but you want still to use it because it’s free. You can bond serial with online and you find a higher priority on the online connection and lower on serial. Then the way it’s designed is that you will define the target video bit rate that you want to achieve, like 5Mbit per second, and it will use all the connections, simultaneously bonded together. And as soon as it’s reaching 5Mbit per second, we use the serial networks less. So, that’s the way it’s designed. We not switch from one to the other to avoid any video freeze and packet losses, but we try to prioritize your cheaper connections against the more expensive ones.

Florian Kolmer (00:38:51):

So, that’s data balancing with priorities. So, that’s the transmission technology here. Everything is automatically managed by the SST protocol. And the SST protocol is also the network giving the encoding instruction to into the HEVC encoder in the unit. As this technology, we are very proud. We won two Emmy awards in a row. We were at the ceremony at an Emmy last year, but we missed this one, unfortunately. But we have been awarded twice in a row for this technology, which is very robust and very powerful. All of our customers were sending us feedbacks that it was robust, that the genlock was really accurate. And all those priority features, a two dimension for audio correction were more powerful and giving them a more robust the transmission path for their production.

Florian Kolmer (00:39:54):

Embedded 3G/4G modems & antennas

So let’s move a bit more. So to use source, this SST protocol, and use all the IP connections, we have different modules embedded in those units.

Florian Kolmer (00:40:08):

So as you can see here, we got 3G, 4G embedded modems and antennas in both units. So in the PRO3 series, we can have four modems or eight modems. Those are worldwide modems. They are supporting all frequency bands, 3G, 4G, and then 5G as well deployed worldwide. And not only is it useful when you are traveling, but it’s also useful in the U.S. as Verizon, AT&T, and the others, they have been awarded more frequency bands for 4G HD, which are code extended bands. Most of the modems, smart phones, USB modems, and other bond serial solutions, they are not watching those frequency bands. We do support them here, which means you will have more coverage, of course, but you will have probably more bandwidth, especially in venues in which you’d be the only one to use those frequency bands. And then on the AIR product, you can have either no modems at all, that’s for our [inaudible 00:20:08] solution, or if you want to use wifi or online only, and we have modems, with 2 bit modems. In both products, you have high efficiency antennas.

Florian Kolmer (00:41:22):

We have been designing. They are patented. And those antennas are different between the AIR and PRO Series to be able to avoid any coupling effect between antennas together and to take into account the wall structure of the unit in terms of signaling as well. And those antennas are making a big difference. Of course, if you are alone outside, you won’t notice it because we work as any serial solution. But if you are in a full stadium with a lot of smartphone users, you will get more bandwidth from the servers, thanks to those antennas. It’s also making a big difference if you are far from the towers inside the building or-

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:42:04]

Florian Kolmer (00:42:03):

Far from the towers, inside the building or in a remote place in the lake, for example, then you will be able to get more bandwidth, or at least bandwidth compared to some of the alternative solutions.

Florian Kolmer (00:42:15):

Then with the AIR products, you can also add some external USB modems to [inaudible 00:42:20] cellular connections on the AIR220 and AIR320. So that’s about the module sign, especially using the new 5G modules we are embedding. So for now, if you’re familiar with the AIR [inaudible 00:42:37] products on the PRO3, as I mentioned before, you can have four modems or eight modems. When you will update your units or when you will order a new 5G units called PRO3-5G you will have six modems inside.

Florian Kolmer (00:42:53):

Embedded 5G modems & antennas

That’s because of the size of modems, [inaudible 00:42:58] making. So you will have six modems in the PRO3 unit and you will still have the same two number of modems in the AIR series.

Florian Kolmer (00:43:07):

For our existing customers, it’s an easy update. We have an upgrade purse, so you can upgrade your existing [inaudible 00:43:14] unit into a 5G solution. And of course I should mention, because sometimes I have this question, [inaudible 00:01:29].

Jim Jachetta (00:43:28):

Hmm, Hmm. Why…

Florian Kolmer (00:43:30):

That’s good because…

Jim Jachetta (00:43:31):

Well, go out and start flooring.

Florian Kolmer (00:43:33):

Well, some solutions should work in 5G only.

Jim Jachetta (00:43:37):

I should mention too, that not all modems are equal, that you mentioned the superior antennas, the brand and the choice of modems you guys pick for your 3G and 4G today, and the coming 5G, not all modems are created equal.

Jim Jachetta (00:43:58):

You pick modems that cover all or most of the available cellular frequency bands. And when you look in the gooey interface of the Haivision system running, I was monitoring the PGA event on Sunday. I could even see to Verizon, to just take Verizon for example, two modems were connected: one modem was connected to Verizon band number three, and another one was connected to Verizon band 33, let’s say, I may have the bands incorrect, but the units… The system is smart enough to grab different bands, even from the same carrier, which helps with redundancy. Maybe you can speak to that a little bit more flooring. Maybe I’m not doing that justice, that there really is a difference in the quality of modems you guys use. Maybe speak to that.

Florian Kolmer (00:44:51):

Oh, right. The example was, Verizon might be band-searching on 66, for example, and it’s giving you an advantage because you show up connecting under the same carrier, but on two different frequency bands, so you are catching more bandwidth.

Florian Kolmer (00:45:08):

So, say the strategy in the SST technology to be able to combine the right frequency bands, depending on the bandwidth and so on.

Florian Kolmer (00:45:18):

And this is dynamic because, of course, in one location you will have better signal on this band and in other location not, because it can be crowded and so on.

Jim Jachetta (00:45:29):

And you can see that if you watch the interface, if they get into a dead spot, the modem will actually switch bands because one band disappeared and another band becomes available, or the signal is better on another band, or the throughput is better on another band.

Florian Kolmer (00:45:50):

Roaming Solution

Right. That’s a good introduction for that. We are not totally speaking much about this, but if you are using monitor on you are traveling. It can be difficult to get SIM cards and to change SIM cards from a country to another. And now we’re providing worldwide SIM cards with roaming solution. Roaming can always be scary because of cost, but we have been tailoring some specific offers to be able to have a maximum compatibility worldwide with a maximum look at carriers at the lowest possible cost.

Florian Kolmer (00:46:29):

So, for now we are providing two different packages… Three different packages I would say. We’re providing a package for the U.S., with UGM especially, and we are providing Europe packages in the E.U., and we are also providing a worldwide package.

Jim Jachetta (00:46:50):

In the past, it was a little bit of a challenge. Like for example, a European news org would come to the U.S., they would have to rent a unit from [inaudible 00:47:02] that had U.S. modems.

Jim Jachetta (00:47:03):

I’m talking many years ago. So their European unit was not optimized or would not work in the U.S. Now, the last few years, now that you’ve standardized on global modems, all you need is the right SIMs and the unit will work in any country, correct?

Florian Kolmer (00:47:21):

Right. Then it’s fully automatic now with the PRO and AIR units, it wasn’t the case with the previous generation of our products.

Florian Kolmer (00:47:28):

It’s fully automatic. So you don’t need to configure any APN or whatsoever with the SIM card, you just insert the Siemens configuration is automatic. As in, in those packages, especially in the E.U. and especially worldwide, we are now also providing wide SIMs, which are multi carriers. So you can let it automatic, and it would be to get automatically choose the combination of local carriers to connect to, or you can force this manually as well.

Jim Jachetta (00:47:56):

Well, that’s actually a common question. I mean, typically we deploy a PRO 180, the older product, or a PRO 380 to new product. It has eight modems. We typically do two Verizon, two AT&T, two T-Mobile, two Sprint. But if someone is going to a ballpark where Verizon is the sponsor, and they have a lot of Verizon access points or repeaters, you might want more than two modems of Verizon. And this, the Haivision unit can make that decision, that Verizon is more prevalent so let’s have more than two, two modems be Verizon. Is that correct?

Florian Kolmer (00:48:41):

Yes. Right. So that’s a way you can manage that and it can be non-automatic as well by a [crosstalk 00:48:48] .

Jim Jachetta (00:48:47):

You can force it. Yeah.

Florian Kolmer (00:48:51):

It’s also the case, if you have a special agreement and a special plan with the carrier. So, that is how a dedicated rental service, we have a dedicated service team to manage all your rental request and all your service requests. So don’t hesitate to get you in touch with them, so they can give you more information about that. So you can also [inaudible 00:49:16] you with our local partner, like [inaudible 00:49:20] in the U.S., but we have partners in more than 100 countries across the globe. So if you are traveling in the most remote country, don’t worry. We got you covered there as well.

Florian Kolmer (00:49:35):

Video Preview

So let’s have a look on the other side of the product, that basically [inaudible 00:49:40]. On the PRO 3, as I mentioned before, you have a touch screen interface, you can monitor your transmission, you can monitor your [inaudible 00:49:50] as well. It’s all automatically detecting now your video source. So you don’t have to manually select it, you can let it automatic, and it will automatically check between SDI and HGMI. If you are, unfortunately, unplugging your camera, don’t worry, just replug and the live video will continue without any interruption or manual operation. So that’s automatic things we have been adding recently.

Florian Kolmer (00:50:22):

Auto-LIVE Start

And as you tried to spoil me at the beginning…

Jim Jachetta (00:50:26):

Sorry.

Florian Kolmer (00:50:27):

No, no, it’s fine. We have been adding some fully automatic workflow. It means you will always love when it’s a one button operation. Now, what we have been doing here, can be one button operation, that’s on the right, but can use zero-button operation as well.

Florian Kolmer (00:50:45):

So now in the unit, in the PRO series and in GL as well, you can set it up in advance to be fully automatic, and when you will plug power, battery or external power, it will automatically boot so you need connect to the server and start the live transmission, fully automatic. Or… so that’s a zero-button operation… or as you can see on the right, it can be a one button operation. So it automatically start the live transmission when you boot the unit.

Jim Jachetta (00:51:16):

Auto-LIVE Boot

Well, this is particularly helpful. I’m sorry for that. But it’s particularly helpful. Like with a show, like live PD, a common problem that used to happen was when a camera operator changed battery, they had to go in and hit the unit. They’d have to either turn the unit on and then hit the live button. This way, they change battery… You know, it’s almost like a war zone, they’re chasing with the police after a bad guy, they quickly change battery. They don’t have time to make sure the units on and go live. With this feature, it’s idiot proof really.

Florian Kolmer (00:51:52):

Yeah. You change the battery and it is automatically restarting. So what it is doing, as soon as you plug the batteries, the unit is booting, then it’s detecting the [inaudible 00:52:03] on that person, connection to the [inaudible 00:52:05] areas, then it’s connecting to the receiver at the station. If there is no video, the source is waiting for you to plug your video source. So it won’t fail if you plug the battery before the video source, for example. And as soon as there will be a source it will start the live transmission.

Jim Jachetta (00:52:25):

That’s perfect.

Florian Kolmer (00:52:27):

Yeah, so that’s the way that it has been designed. That’s a new feature. We have been introducing recently, and that’s [inaudible 00:10:37].

Jim Jachetta (00:52:37):

Networks Priority

So yeah, you should know you don’t have a picture of it, but there is a little switch hidden. Like you go in there with little, little screwdriver, if for some reason you want that feature turned off, correct? There’s like a little hidden little switch.

Florian Kolmer (00:52:52):

Yes. Yes. So you can choose to activate this feature or not. So next thing is a network priority. I’ve been launching that a bit in the introduction, but that’s a unique feature as well. We start having more and more customers using [inaudible 00:53:12] network satellite [inaudible 00:53:14] for example, or [inaudible 00:53:15] with [inaudible 00:11:15]. Or some like, for example, in the U.S. having different data costs. If you’re using with Verizon, it’s usually more expensive than using T-Mobile, for example. So now in both products, you can define for each of your IP connection, you can define the priority. So basically, it will be low priority or high priority.

Florian Kolmer (00:53:40):

Network Settings

So it’s like, as you can see in the interface for each of the landline connection, wifi modems, you can choose which one are low priority and which one are high priority. And as I mentioned earlier, it’s [inaudible 00:53:55] intelligence. It’s not going to turn off your low priority networks because if you are doing so and your single high priority landline internet is disconnecting, the time to recover in cellular you will have some video [inaudible 00:54:09] . So the way it’s designed, it’s using all connections together. But as soon as it’s reaching your target bitrate, it’s going to decrease the usage of your low priority network.

Jim Jachetta (00:54:21):

So, a common question a customer might have: “Well, why don’t I turn the cellular modems off to save a hundred percent on the data?”. That’s a bad idea because you know, an operator would have to be there ready to turn them on. If there’s a dropout in this example, on the cellular, but no one can respond instantaneously to turn the modems on, they’ll take 30 seconds to connect. So you want them on low priority, so there’s a little bit of a trickle, a little bit of data, so the connection stays open, correct? The connection is still there waiting on… It’s waiting on warm or hot standby, correct?

Florian Kolmer (00:55:02):

That’s fully correct, except the full answer is that we can do both. So if you want, you can also turn off the modems, you can see you have a column with a priority, low and high, and on the right, you can turn off an on modems as well.

Florian Kolmer (00:55:19):

The reason why it would be useful if you’re sure about what you are doing, like you already have two landline connections or using some landline, and especially if you don’t want to use the eight modems, but only four, because in your particular work four is enough, you can do that. So the reason you would do that, it’s not exactly to save on cost it’s to save on battery as well.

Jim Jachetta (00:55:44):

Ah, okay. So the eight modems running, if you don’t need all eight of them, they’re sucking down power. That’s a point I didn’t think of, but like you said, you want to use some intelligence. If you only had the one satellite connection, it wouldn’t, from a transmission reliability standpoint, you want to have at least two or three or four connections, not just a single one to rely on. But that’s a good point, I didn’t think of that about power.

Florian Kolmer (00:56:16):

Video Return

So the next one is as a video return feed. So that’s a new feature. We have been implementing a few months ago and now it’s available and it’s a quite advanced, it’s not having just a low quality return feed on the unit screen. It’s more advanced than that. That’s why we have a dedicated [inaudible 00:56:34] I need to explain more.

Florian Kolmer (00:56:37):

So the way it’s working, and it’s working during the live as well, of course, it’s [inaudible 00:56:42] . So here you can see we’re doing a multi camera production, for elections here, on the street, different places, locations. We are sending live feeds to the control room, and now we want to send a return program back to the units. With this feature here, it’s not only a single program. You can return multiple different programs to different feed units. So it can be one to one, like you can see in green, or it can be one to many, as you can see in blue.

Florian Kolmer (00:57:15):

Som the way it’s working, it’s being sent through the same SST protocol and tunnel from the same stream of receiver, and if you want to [inaudible 00:57:27] an SDI program feed, you would just need one of our Rack [inaudible 00:57:33] 200 and plug your SDI program in. Then it would be local with your StreamHub at the station and your StreamHub will distribute your program feed.

Florian Kolmer (00:57:43):

So in the StreamHub interface, you will be able to choose which return video feed you have available, and to which [inaudible 00:57:52] units you want to send those programs. And then in the feed it’s, as a video returns a high quality feed, you can get it out from the [inaudible 00:58:04] port, so it can be used on a small monitor for monitoring, but it can also be used on a large [inaudible 00:58:10] , for example, if it’s in the stadium or [inaudible 00:58:15] .

Jim Jachetta (00:58:16):

Well, I think I mentioned this on the last webinar, and you mentioned also, Florian, the teleprompter. So in your example, here, site three, maybe that’s a commentator. So the green feed is the teleprompter. So, he’s reading his script, him or her is reading their script. Then the blue feed, it could be the program feed. There could be a third feed.

Jim Jachetta (00:58:44):

So, one of the caveats of doing at-home production is if you’re at a sporting venue, you don’t have an instant replay feed to feed the screens in the venue. If you’re doing instant replay back at master control, you’ll need to send replay feeds back to the stadium. And you mentioned you don’t want a low quality, a grainy looking video, especially if it’s going to go on a big screen, you want full resolution, full motion video, and that could be a third feed. So you could have teleprompter, program, video and the instant replay feed for the big screen at the venue, right?

Florian Kolmer (00:59:29):

So that’s a perfect introduction to two the points for that return video feed. So, first one, it’s an HD quality feed, high quality for the reason you’ve been mentioning, but also you want to be [inaudible 00:59:43] because it’s a multi location show and you… Who in each location want to be able to monitor all the users. So we can send an interview back into the feed as well. And it’s also a low latency return video. So it’s an end-to-end [inaudible 01:00:02] return video feed, which is key for the teleprompter, for example.

Jim Jachetta (01:00:06):

Yes.

Florian Kolmer (01:00:10):

So, that’s a video return.

Florian Kolmer (01:00:18):

Cellular Bands Selection

So, the next feature, we are not talking that much about, but it’s a bit more advanced and I think it’s the only cellular product you can do that in. Yes, you can select a cellular bands manually. So in all our products, the PROs, the AIR, you can also get into an advanced cellular configuration. And for each of the modems, you can choose which cellular bands you want to activate or deactivate.

Florian Kolmer (01:00:55):

Why would you do so? First, it can let you reach some older cell towers, which are further from the stadium and venue. For example, that’s to touch an unloaded cell, instead of using an overloaded cell and get higher bandwidth. It can be also useful, if you’re using this technology in a helicopter, for example. You are flying fast and you want to use more lower frequency bands, because if you’re using higher frequency bands, it means you will have a lot of handovers between the center [inaudible 01:01:34] most packets doing so.

Florian Kolmer (01:01:36):

So you can force to be using only lower frequency bands. Same thing for indoor transmission. The first time we launched this cellular band selection was quite a long time ago, Jim, if you remember, it was like [inaudible 01:01:52] I guess. I remember well the show in which the journalist was constantly moving by foot from the streets, inside buildings, back in the street, inside buildings.

Florian Kolmer (01:02:06):

So it was always switching from higher frequency bands in the street to lower frequency bands, getting through the walls in the buildings, and that wasn’t working very well. So, in this feature is a way built to only activate the lower frequency bands. And you can see here in the UI, you can stick to standard, which we are usually recommending because only selecting your own frequency bands manually is risky.

Florian Kolmer (01:02:38):

Two Models

If you are just selecting frequency bands [inaudible 01:02:41] you don’t deploy in the location you are going to, it won’t manage to work at all. So last reason for that is with some carriers, you might have some specific contract with dedicated quality of service on particular frequency bands. And in that way, let’s think you have a contract like this with Verizon, for example…

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:03:04]

Florian Kolmer (01:03:03):

Let’s think you have a contract like this with Verizon, for example, you might want to force some of the modems to that particular one. Not all of them, but some of them.

Jim Jachetta (01:03:13):

Well, I should add too, Florian, in most cases this happens automatically, that this is more of an advanced function to override that if you have a unique workflow. You kind of touched on it. The higher frequency bands are usually shorter range but higher bit rate. So they don’t propagate as far. They don’t go through walls as well. They don’t work as well with a high-moving vehicle or a fast-moving helicopter. But it should operate dynamically. But if you want to take some of the decision-making process away from the automatic algorithm, you should only do this if you’re an advanced user, I guess is the point, right?

Florian Kolmer (01:04:00):

Right. This is one of the most advanced experts showing on our product, so it’s only for very specific use cases. And you need to really understand cellular networks and coverage as well. The next picture is a data hotspot. It’s becoming more and more common to use bonded cellular solutions to get an internet access in the field, so of course we’re offering that, but we are really going a step further in terms of features. So this data hotspot, that’s why it’s not named an internet hotspot, because it’s not only an internet hotspot, it’s making a full IP bridge between the field and the station. Like if you were on a VPN, but using the bonded cellular connections and the SST technology. So in the field, you will be able to connect multiple devices over wifi or long line, and then on the StreamHub side it will connect to your secure local network at the station, and can be used for, of course, an high speed mobile internet access, but also it can be used for any IP workflows like PTZ camera, IP video switchers, and so on.

Jim Jachetta (01:05:28):

Data Hotspot from Everywhere

This slide is almost exactly the production application I mentioned at the beginning. If you added a second cellphone, I think they send a Mac computer with Zoom on it. They either hook the Mac via wifi or a hardwired internet connection, and then the two cellphones are on wifi, and then they add a celebrity’s mansion that has poor internet, and this is how they run the Zoom phone call. So they have a Zoom phone call going on the Mac, with the built-in camera on the Mac, and then they’ll have two cellphones for a second and third camera. They’re doing these simple reality shows where Jerry O’Connell is getting a hair cut from his wife. There’s all these Zoom reality shows now, as if we don’t have enough Zoom, Florian, in our daily life right now. We’re working with Zoom, we’re talking to our friends with Zoom, now we need to watch shows about other people using Zoom. But that’s where we are. This is the exact workflow that they’re using, that you’re showing here.

Florian Kolmer (01:06:53):

Yeah. This feature is also the next step for at-home production, which means you are physically at home, but using this IP bridge capability, it’s like if your cameras, switches, and equipment and lights and everything you can have remote, will be at home at the station.

Jim Jachetta (01:07:17):

Yeah. Your IP-based comms can come through this data hotspot or VPN, as an example. That’s one example.

Florian Kolmer (01:07:27):

[crosstalk 01:07:27] using PTZ or robotic cameras at the station locally in your studio, and that allows you to do exactly the same, but with those cameras remote. Next, I’ve been monitoring during the introduction, and it would be this mission centric work flow with AV, [inaudible 01:07:48] and [DBS 01:07:49]. So the idea is to speed up the production and the post production, doing everything with automatization optimization and stream lines of workflow. At Haivision, in fact, in all our products, you have some open API, so it can easily be integrated in third party solutions. The idea is to [inaudible 01:08:11] the powerful Haivision protocol and technologies without adding extra layers, so we can be fully transparent into your existing newsroom environment, and both for live and file operations. So, that’s what you can see here in this diagram. If you are not totally familiar with the manager and scheme of products, you’re really welcome to watch our free use webinars online.

Florian Kolmer (01:08:40):

Mission Centric Systems

The StreamHub receiver puts a server your station which can receive, decode and distribute your live and recorded content. The manager, it’s a over-the-top global management solution, if you have a multi-studio operation, for example. Then with this manager, it can be connected to your newsroom system, and it will provide a list of encoders to your newsroom system, and then you can pick one of the encoder, assign a new mission, put metadata, journalist information, and so on. And when the unit will be turned on in the field, they will see a list of mission on the screens. They can pick one mission. And all the live and recorded content they will produce will be sent to the streamer and ingested into your asset management system along with the metadata. So it’s a fully automated solution, and it’s easy to integrate in the newsroom system, and it’s compatible with any kind of newsroom solution you might be using.

Florian Kolmer (01:09:54):

Encoder

We have been speaking for now about mobile encoders which support [3M 01:10:00] Air series. We have been launching at [NAB 01:10:04], that was a virtual NAB we did last week, Jim, a new round of products based on the same hardware platform, the same hardware HEVC encoders, the same kind of modems and so on, which is called the RACK series. It’s a small [inaudible 01:10:23] rack. It’s designed to be used more for remote at-home production. It can be used in a vehicle. It can be used in a stadium or venue. So it’s less mobile, but it’s useful if you have a rack of equipment and if you are in a fixed venue.

Florian Kolmer (01:10:43):

That’s for contribution. Remember my first slide? It can also be used for distribution. A use case would be to have this RACK [inaudible 01:10:52] encoder into your studio to distribute your content. So that’s content sharing here, so let’s see what’s inside. In the RACK Series, we have two different models. We have the entry range [inaudible 01:11:07] H.264 solution, RACK 200, and we have the more advanced H.264 HEVC product, which is called the RACK 300. They are using the same encoding platform as the PRO and AIR Series, using the SST protocol as well, and they’re providing a low latency end-to-end solution down to 500 milliseconds, like for the mobile unit.

Florian Kolmer (01:11:33):

You will find again the same kind of features, live record, forward, [inaudible 01:11:38] intercom, the video return feature we have been talking about, the automatic live transmission and the mission centric workflow. So that’s very similar, because it’s a different design, but with the same kind of hardware and functionalities. So we will find the SDR input and output as well. To remind you, because I didn’t mention it earlier, the SDI out is a loop back just for monitoring, so it will loop back to ASDI in or HDMI in for monitoring, and you will have the HDMI output positive video return, [inaudible 01:12:13] for the intercom and for the analog video inputs, as well, and online connections.

Florian Kolmer (01:12:21):

RACK Series

What’s different here is that you will have two power supply that’s [inaudible 01:12:26]. You will have two internet port as well, so we can bond two online connections together, and you will have USB ports as well. That’s the main difference if you’re comparing with the mobile unit. In the RACK series here you don’t have bridging modems or internets, because it’s designed to be inside the studio. So instead of having bridging modems, it’s relying on another US product called the QUAD CellLink. The QUAD CellLink is a small device which is magnetic, which can be mounted on the roof of a truck or it can be permanently installed on a truck or outside a building. It can be outside on tripod as well, for example.

Florian Kolmer (01:13:15):

In this QUAD CellLink you will have four cellular modems and four antennas bridging. Same things, those are [potentive 01:13:23] high-gain antennas. We have been designing same modems as on the PRO3 units covering all frequency bonds, and you can connect two QUAD CellLink on the RACK Series to get eight cellular modems. So, that’s the design of the racks.

Jim Jachetta (01:13:43):

Here’s a dumb question about the QUAD, Florian. I assume the QUAD CellLink will have a 5G version coming out soon as well, correct?

Florian Kolmer (01:13:53):

Yeah. Of course that’s in the roadmap as well, and that’s planned as well. So same workflow. The RACK Series is using a long line internet IP-based satellite and cellulars through the QUAD CellLink containers using the same SST protocol to the same schema. So that’s very similar to what we have been showing you just before. To have a closer look to the interfaces, those who are already familiar with the PRO3 Series, they will recognize that it’s quite similar in terms of connectivity and interfaces.

Florian Kolmer (01:14:34):

RACK Series Interfaces

So on the phone panel, you have a touch screen interface, and as you start to record and the [inaudible 01:14:40] and a USB port, so you can plug the QUAD CellLink especially, or USB hard drive if you want to forward some files. At the back, you got the same SDI in and out, HDMI in and out, two long line connections, analog audio inputs as well, and two [inaudible 01:15:01] supply, and the same switch you mentioned, Jim, for an auto start mode as well.

Jim Jachetta (01:15:08):

I have to say, usually in a single channel encoder like this, I don’t know of any other vendor that has a dual supply capability. Usually that’s an Achilles heel that, “Oh, it’s not going to be as reliable. I can’t have two power supplies hooked to it.” Usually you have to buy a whole frame, two or three rack unit frame, to get redundant power. So I think that’s a big deal, having dual supply. The field units, you can have a battery and the AC power to get redundant power. So I think that’s a big deal in this design here, to me.

Florian Kolmer (01:15:49):

Right, and that’s also a compact solution. As we’re mentioning, it’s a 1RU rack, as you can see here. So you can use it as a stand-alone one or you can put two side by side in a 1RU enclosure we’re providing, so that’s what you can see, or a single unit in a 1RU rack, as you want. So it’s a high density solution. You will have two [inaudible 01:16:13] in a 1RU rack mount space. We are not showing it here because it’s another product, which is not new as those ones, but we have a multi-HG rack mount product as well, which is called the HE4000 [inaudible 01:16:30] rack for HG encoders. That was used by Turner for the Ryder Cup, as well.

Jim Jachetta (01:16:39):

RACK Series mounting kit

Well, you should mention also, it’s four HDs or one 4k.

Florian Kolmer (01:16:44):

Okay. So, that’s the end of the presentation about our encoders today. As you noticed if you have been following our previous webinars, this one was about our hardware-based video encoders, PRO, AIR, RACK Series. If you missed our webinar about our software-based encoders, a [inaudible 01:17:16] solution for mobile journalism which is designed for smartphones and tablets, you are welcome to watch it online. It was two weeks ago, if I remember when?

Jim Jachetta (01:17:24):

Yes. Yes.

Florian Kolmer (01:17:25):

You will find that on our website. I just would like to introduce you two of my colleagues. If you have any questions about our products, about the Haivision technology, if you have a project with this technology, if you have questions, if you want to fine tune something for your workflow, if you want to deploy this in 50 different stadiums with removed production in the cloud, you’re definitely welcome to get in touch with Jim or myself. We would be able to find you and give you the best advices to match your production workflow. But you are also welcome to get in touch with Ronan, our CTO, here at the headquarters, or Samuel, our product manager, who I thank for designing those slides [crosstalk 01:18:18]-

Jim Jachetta (01:18:18):

Ronan Poullaouec and Samuel Fleischhacker

Yes. Samuel, all the nice graphics… Well, aside from the product design, but the nice graphics are from Samuel as well. We have to thank him for that.

Florian Kolmer (01:18:33):

Well, you’re welcome… you can drop them an email as well.

Jim Jachetta (01:18:35):

Actually, this is the third in a series of four. We have one more, Florian, the one about live video contribution and content sharing. Is that more about the StreamHub? Maybe tell us a little bit about that. And we’re skipping next week, because next week’s kind of a holiday week. So it’s Wednesday, June 3rd, at 10: 00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern. Do you know-

Florian Kolmer (01:19:05):

Two weeks time, same day, same time?

Jim Jachetta (01:19:08):

Yes.

Florian Kolmer (01:19:08):

All right. Today we have been computing on Xeon for this and a few units. For this next webinar we will compute on the receiving side. So it would be the contribution reception, and also the distribution part and content sharing. That’s also a part of the workflow, which is becoming a lot popular and we’re having a lot of requests to initially [inaudible 01:19:37] have been moving to bonded solar on public networks, focus the contribution part, but we have more and more of our customers are turning down their satellites service or their dedicated fiber distribution network to move to the public internet. Save on cost, be more flexible, and having something easy to deploy in terms of networks as well. So that will be the topic in two weeks, and we will show both as a product.

Florian Kolmer (01:20:07):

So this team event manager, you quickly saw today, we’ll have a big focus on all the advanced features they can offer, and also show some use cases on web flows from our existing customers to give you some ideas about how you could use that. We can solve your existing issues and/or you can move towards the public internet for distribution as well. So you’re welcome to register for this webinar as well, and we will be welcoming you and pleased to see you again in two weeks. Just moving to the very last slide. I’ve been very pleased to have you online today. That’s our general contact information for both VidOvation and Haivision. You are definitely welcome to get in touch with us for any question or request. I was pleased to have all of you today and hope to see you in two weeks.

Jim Jachetta (01:21:11):

Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone. Let me leave you with one last thing. Be sure to tune in two weeks. Next week, on the 28th, colleagues of ours from the PGA will be speaking on the sports video group panel. They’ll be talking about this past Sunday’s at-home production using Haivision and VidOvation. I will also be on a panel talking more about the technology as well. If you visit Sports Video Group, but their website is sportsvideo.org, be sure to register for that, and look for other VidOvation webinars on our website. Thank you so much, Florian. Everyone out there, I hope you stay safe and healthy, and we hope to see you virtually soon, but we also hope to see you in person at some point in the future when it’s safe. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you again, Florian.

Florian Kolmer (01:22:16):

Thank you, Jim. Bye.

Jim Jachetta (01:22:18):

Bye-bye.

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