From The NAB Exhibit Floor: SAM

Snell Advanced Media | Booth SL1805 | Website: www.s-a-m.com

On Sunday, Snell Advanced Media (SAM) released a number of announcements at the NAB Show. They include:

Live playout and production solutions that are empowering the move to 4K for broadcasters and media organizations. They allow them to support existing workflows while expanding into the new format.

SAM is uniquely positioned to lay the foundation of the future’s broadcast workflows by delivering 4K and HDR live production and playout technologies. This is evidenced by its market success around the world, including working with production company Timeline to launch the first 4K/UHD channel in the UK for BT Sport’s Ultra HD channel. SAM’s recent major end-to-end 4K live production and playout sale to Rogers Media also clearly bears this out as well as its work with MediaPro in Spain to produce the famous El Clasico soccer match in 4K.

Rob Rowe, general manager, live production and infrastructure, said: “Our customers are faced with increasing consumer demand for more content and higher quality TV experiences, and our mission is to help them overcome this challenge while giving them the chance to distinguish themselves from the competition. More specifically, what we’re seeing is sports coverage really pushing the 4K market, and our recent announcement with Rogers Media is a prime example of this.”

Earlier this year, SAM inked a deal with Rogers Media to provide it with a range of leading technology for its new, market-defining 4K service. The announced programming package to be delivered includes over 100 live sports events, featuring every Toronto Blue Jays baseball home game and more than 20 NHL games. SAM provided a Kahuna 9600 switcher — featuring a 16 input A/B cut buss — for the MCR alongside Morpheus automation and ICE Channel-in-a-Box (CiaB) units. Rogers Media has also installed main and backup 4K sQ servers in addition to a range of SAM infrastructure products. This project marks the most comprehensive rollout of SAM 4K technology to date.

4K, IP, HDR, software/virtualization and monitoring and workflow solutions. SAM is demonstrating and introducing key technologies that will lay the foundation for the broadcast workflows of the future, support existing architecture while enabling media organizations to expand into new formats.

SAM’s new IP-Edge removes the complexity from hybrid and pure IP rollouts. Products that are IP-Edge enabled include routers, switchers, IQ Modular processing, servers and playout systems. Customers can invest with confidence knowing that IP-Edge closely follows the interoperability goals of AIMS, the Alliance for IP Media Solutions. A major product launch in this area is the IQ-Edge processing solution made for interoperable processing of media in IP environments.

SAM will demonstrate how it will enable customers to transition to a datacenter model. SAM’s CiaB solutions — ICE, ICE IP, and ICE SDC — coupled with Morpheus, Momentum and SAM’s xFile framework form a pathway to the future. More specifically, ICE SDC, provides all of the functionality of ICE plus the additional benefits of enabling migration to IP and the cloud. In response to the growing market demand for adjusting content duration, SAM is introducing Alchemist Kronos, which brings Alchemist’s unmatched image quality to the application of duration adjustment.

The Kahuna switcher is SAM’s leading live production product and has clear, demonstrable competitive advantages over other switchers. From SAM’s Quantel Rio heritage, the company has deep experience and know-how of HDR and wide color gamut. By adding this capability to the live workflows from LiveTouch/sQ Servers plus remote editing to SAM’s new HTTP-based Go! suite, this means SAM’s solutions for fast turnaround sports and news are unmatched. With the newly introduced Kula switcher, SAM is offering switcher capabilities that have never been seen before at an unbeatable price point.

SAM is showing its latest News Solution package with new features and functionality that allows users to create the fastest news packages ever and publish them to any platform; from immediate breaking news on social media to crafted pieces for premium news broadcasts. A new user interface unifies the application regardless of whether the user is editing on a mobile device, creating simple desktop edits, or creating a piece for a broadcast by using a full post production effects package.

SAM’s Media Biometrics brings unique capabilities to monitoring with systems being able to track content throughout a media workflow. By purchasing products that include Media Biometrics, such as SAM’s switchers, multiviewers, routers, XFile and IQ processing solutions, customers are implementing monitoring by exception and maximizing their cost savings. It’s now shipping in products across SAM’s portfolio, including the new Sirius 800 integrated multiviewer that brings sophisticated monitoring capabilities.

In addition to the above product announcements, SAM reported double-digit percentage growth in playout technology sales for the second year running. Its technologies are being used to launch over 140 new services globally, predominantly driven by deployments of its Morpheus playout automation and ICE CiaB products.

Neil Maycock, EVP of SAM, said: “The year has been very exciting with the launch of SAM at IBC, our involvement in several world firsts for 4K live events, including our technology being used in the development and market debut of the UK’s first 4K channel, and now confirmation of our playout sales success globally.  We have developed a good reputation, backed up by this global sales growth, in the playout arena via Morpheus and ICE. We are already seeing this continue across 2016 and alongside our development strategy we expect another year of strong growth.”

To aid its customers in the migration to IP operations, SAM also revealed ICE IP. This incarnation of ICE provides customers with a path to IP playout, without sacrificing any of the functionality or performance that has established ICE as the market-leading CiaB system. With the expansion of the implementation of MAM and workflow technology Momentum across the SAM range – expedited by the recently-announced purchase of technology partner Mantrics – the future holds tremendous promise. 

To see all of TVNewsCheck’s NAB 2016 coverage, click here.