Toolbox

Sony has rolled out the newest addition to its PXW series of shoulder-mount camcorders---model PXW-X400-- which delivers stronger network and wireless capabilities, improved weight balance, XAVC-Long 60P recording and pool feed functions to give ENG and field production professionals a versatile and high-performance tool.

“This new camcorder combines all the capabilities pro shooters need--connectivity, ergonomics and high performance--into a true production workhorse,” said Alex Rossi, marketing manager, content creation systems, Sony Electronics. “The addition of features like XAVC 60P recording and pool feed make the PXW-X400 a perfect fit for today’s demanding field content creation requirements.”

When a wireless LAN connection is unstable or unavailable, the new camcorder’s Ethernet interface (RJ45) enables direct connection to a network for file transfer, live streaming and control from a web browser. Near-field communications capability gives users a one-touch link between the camera and a mobile device. A Content Browser Mobile application enables users to preview or remotely control camcorder settings of various menu functions.

The pool feed function (HD/SD SDI) lets users record a 1.5G HD-SDI external signal on SxS cards, useful for recording a distributed signal from another camera on-site without a portable deck.

The camcorder body’s inner structure has a new design that improves the weight balance between the camcorder and lens, resulting in more comfortable shoulder-mount use, especially during long periods of shooting.

The camcorder’s “ONLINE button” lets users bypass a mobile device or the camera’s menu for direct on/off control over: direct streaming transmission of AV signals from a PXW-X400 to assigned destinations; auto-uploading of proxy files to cloud services and FTP servers; and on/off control over Sony’s PWS-100RX1 network server during shooting.

The low-power (22W) camcorder PXW-X400 uses a 2/3” 3-chip CMOS image sensor and supports several HD and SD formats including XAVC.

The new camcorder also supports Sony’s new HDVF-series Full HD OLED viewfinder (model HDVF-EL20/EL30).

The camcorder will come in three versions: PXW-X400, body-only, no lens or viewfinder; PXW-X400KC with a 20x manual focus lens, viewfinder and stereo shotgun mic; and the PXW-X400KF with a 16x auto focus lens, viewfinder and stereo shotgun mic.

All models are planned to be available in February 2016, at the following suggested list prices: PXW-X400 at $16,500; PXW-X400KF at $20,600; and PXW-X400KC at $21,100.

PlayBox Technology, an international communications and information technology company known for broadcast television playout and channel branding, announces two key additions to its board.

Stanislav (Sunny) Petkov has been appointed chief technical officer to oversee ongoing development of the TV automation solutions. Pierre Kande joins the board as CloudAir chief architect with special responsibility for developing the company’s exclusive new software product range.

Petkov joined PlayBox Technology in 2006 from a technical operations role at Bulgarian broadcast Planeta TV. He has headed the PlayBox development team for many years, most recently as chief research and development officer, providing a high level of staff motivation, engineering expertise and continuity.

Kande joined PlayBox Technology from Cisco Systems in December 2014. As system architect, he has masterminded the CloudAir project, supervising the refinement of new-generation virtualized products which PlayBox Technology is developing alongside the established TV automation range.

The two new board appointments follow the recently announced promotion of Don Ash to president, Pavlin Rahnev to CEO, Phillip Neighbour to COO, Ananth Sam to director of solution sales and customer care, and Ben Gunkel to chief commercial officer. They come at a time when PlayBox Technology has achieved an over 30 per cent share of the total worldwide television channel playout market and a far higher proportion of the channel-in-a-box sector.

Telestream, a provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, announced the acquisition of Cloud-based encoding provider, PandaStream. The result of a comprehensive investigation of key suppliers in the cloud-based encoding market, the acquisition accelerates Telestream’s strategy for providing cloud services to complement its on-premise solutions.

As a direct result of this acquisition, Telestream is also announcing the launch of Telestream Cloud, a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that builds on Telestream’s significant position and long history in transcoding. This new platform makes the PandaStream encoding capabilities available under the Telestream brand today and will serve as the foundation for future offerings in the cloud.

PandaStream services and technology have been developed by a team of experts with significant experience in building scalable cloud infrastructure. PandaStream’s encoding at scale, ease of use and cost efficiency combined with Telestream’s broad set of encoding products means Telestream customers have access to the most advanced encoding portfolio available.

“After careful investigation of the market and consideration of various companies, we identified PandaStream as a very good fit for our needs. This acquisition fast tracks the development of our existing cloud strategy, enabling the immediate launch of Telestream Cloud. By acquiring PandaStream, we are achieving a quantum progression in our cloud development objectives for both our enterprise and desktop product families,” stated Dan Castles, CEO of Telestream.

Using the PandaStream architecture, Telestream Cloud offers a globally distributed, VOD encoding platform that dynamically scales in response to customer requirements. File transfer and encoding times are optimized from any location since Telestream Cloud leverages multiple cloud service providers including Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services and Rackspace.

“Telestream can now provide video transcoding anywhere and everywhere--on your desktop, in your facility’s server room or in the cloud,” said Shawn Carnahan, chief technology officer at Telestream. “In the longer term, this acquisition opens up new opportunities for Telestream customers across every market we serve.”

Existing PandaStream customers can expect the same products and services they have enjoyed under the Panda brand. Using the new cloud infrastructure, Telestream will be rolling out additional services over time. The PandaStream team will transition to a separate business unit within Telestream over the next couple of weeks.

Aframe has released the next iteration of its cloud video collaboration platform. Featuring new capabilities based on ideas and suggestions garnered from Aframe’s customer feedback program, the new release enables corporate marketing teams, broadcasters and producers to upload, transcode and store video footage, organize content and collaborate across locations and time zones at every stage of the production media lifecycle.

The fall 2015 release includes expanded file transfer capabilities and format support, new security controls and media library management features, enhanced audio features within the player and more updates that make managing professional video and production assets more efficient, accessible and cost effective.

Customers that have recently joined the Aframe platform include KPMG, Arsenal Football Club, A+E, and Telus International.  “Organizations appreciate the opportunity to contribute suggestions to the product roadmap,” said David Peto, Aframe’s Founder and CEO. “We’re continually expanding the platform to address the evolution of our customers’ cloud-based media workflows. This release delivers on key feature requests such as new security controls critical to corporate enterprises and administrators, more flexible transfer of large files and complex media structures, the ability to preview, share and annotate native OP-Atom MXF media directly in the browser, and more,” added Peto.

Key new capabilities include:

Faster, More Flexible File Transfer Experience – Aframe now supports fast and efficient HTML5 file transfer within the web browser; there’s no need for users to install applications or deal with continual Java updates, and they can upload directly from iOS and Android devices. To address more complex folder structure transfers, Aframe’s Desktop app now includes a new settings page that facilitates transfer management through protocol selection and network utilization controls to improve performance.

Audio Track Selection – Aframe continues to add functionality to its comprehensive media player, with the new ability to mute and enable audio tracks present in the original source media while previewing video in the browser; a feature particularly useful for international promotional and re-versioning teams.

Enhanced Media Library Management – A new media library model lets users batch-consolidate media files and copy them from one project space to another, to better support access and retrieval by content collaborators. Combined with cross-project search and organization functions, this new model moves away from strict project-based partitioning to facilitate storage, access and availability of high-value, in-demand assets.

Expanded Format Support on Ingest – Users can now preview, share and annotate native OP-Atom MXF media from Avid Media Composer and Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve directly from their browsers. Digital dailies require no secondary transcode pass prior to upload, and can be delivered directly to editing as well as to production stakeholders for review and approval through the Share Link function. The new release also eliminates a significant pain point with support for spanned clips, presenting rushes/dailies that are part of a spanned selection stitched together as a single proxy, for continuous playback and improved metadata handling.

New Security Controls – Aframe continues to build on its metrics dashboard and user hierarchies, with a new page that enables administrators to configure services for all users within their accounts. From this consolidated management control page account administrators can now create custom roles and abilities for user types and apply them to all or a selection of users, mass-enable/disable features, and manage security settings across all interactions with customer content – providing complete visibility and control over the enterprise account and facilitating compliance with internal security policies.