NAB 2011: Volicon Products Preview

2011 NAB Show Preview
Volicon
Booth SU5902

Volicon provides the broadcast and cable industries with automated a multichannel video content logging and monitoring system for compliance, media analysis, content repurposing and quality of service.

Volicon will unveil three major additions to its Observer® product line. ASI/transport stream logging, Loudness Monitoring, and AC-3/Dolby® Digital decoding features build upon the existing Observer framework.

Observer ASI/Transport Stream Monitoring and Logging—The new Observer ASI/Transport Stream Monitoring and Logging system gives broadcasters, networks and cable operators the ability to handle MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 transport streams and retains the content and extensive metadata carried within them. Complementing the existing Observer Enterprise analog, SD-SDI, and HD-SDI systems, this new interface simplifies signal flow, allows for greater signal density and flexibility and enables full-quality content logging, thereby opening the door to new use cases — such as re-broadcasting high-resolution data, interactive content, and dialnorm reporting — for logged content. Using the ASI/Transport Stream system for compliance logging and air checks, operators can easily extract MPEG metadata and troubleshoot the MPEG transport stream live or from the Observer log.

Observer Loudness Monitoring—With commercial loudness being legislated in the United States with the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act and in Europe by groups including the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Italy’s AGCOM, it’s more important than ever that TV stations and networks are able to monitor the loudness of their broadcasts in real time to comply with regulations and improve the overall user listening experience for viewers. Using intuitive overlay controls within its Web-based interface, Observer provides continuous measurements identifying program loudness and true-peak signal levels. Observer’s fully compliant, integrated loudness monitoring simplifies the overall monitoring workflow and adds value by eliminating the hassle and cost of working with external systems.

Observer AC-3 (Dolby Digital) Decoding Option—This is designed to make it easy for operators to capture and log HD/SD-SDI content without the need for an expensive external AC-3/Dolby Digital decode. Now, rather than send audio through a separate processing workflow using costly third-party systems, broadcasters can send HD-SDI with AC-3 embedded stereo or 5.1 audio directly to the Observer system, saving on budget dollars and valuable rack space, eliminating extra cabling, and increasing workflow efficiency.