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ANALYSIS—Can You Hear Me Now, and I Am Here Now, to the Tune of 13.3B/USD Personal navigation, and the GPS devices that guide you to where you need to go, are hot ticket items. Now, after much hype, mobile Location Based Services (LBS) are finally taking hold with wireless subscribers. This growth is driven on the supply side by WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile) handsets increasingly joining the many CDMA-based devices that incorporate GPS capabilities. Add to that the increasing consumer interest in personal navigation functionality. ABI Research’s latest report indicates that LBS revenue will reach an annual global total of 13.3B/USD by 2013, up from an estimated 515M/USD during 2007. Other projections include personal navigation and enterprise services are anticipated to be the highest revenue-generating services of the five LBS categories profiled, and are forecast to be worth about 4.3B/USD and $6.5 billion respectively, per annum, by 2013
Personal navigation, still the most popular consumer application over the next several years, will be joined by concepts such as: friend-finder, local information searches, family tracker applications, and enterprise applications (including workforce tracking and fleet management), will all find niches under the LBS umbrella. Friend-finding is anticipated to be the next service launched for mass consumption. One element of concern is that the wider availability of all-inclusive data tariffs will spur service usage, which will, in turn, reduce users’ concerns about how much data value-added services such as LBS might consume. In addition, the most important development could well be the cross-network interoperability of services. Once services provided by one carrier are capable of seamlessly incorporating users from other networks, then the usage of LBS will be driven virally by the desire to respond to and interact with friends and family on other networks—London, England -
CREATION + DELIVERY—NBC Olympics has selected five Omega with Bluefin consoles as part of its coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The 56 fader consoles will provide audio mixing for a number of events across several venues. Two consoles will provide audio coverage for both the opening and closing ceremonies and the athletics; a further two consoles will be used for gymnastics and trampoline, and a fifth will be utilised for beach volleyball. The new Calrecs will give NBC Olympics the ability to address all six channels at once, or divide them up quickly and easily to provide independent control of each channel. The Omega with Bluefin console provides 160 channel processing paths packaged as 48 stereo and 64 mono channels, allowing up to 24 x full 5.1 surround channels. This capacity is provided on just one DSP card, with full EQ and dynamics on all channel groups and main outputs—Hebden Bridge, United Kingdom
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BIZ—Comscape has received the “Commercial DIRECTV Dealer of the Year” award from DIRECTV. The inaugural award recognizes the top commercial dealer in the United States. The award is based upon the number of new customers a company secures and their commitment to excellence in customer service over the course of the previous year. DIRECTV accepted internal nominations from across the country, examining more than 300 of its dealers’ ability to represent DIRECTV in a professional, positive light. Comscape was recognized for successfully securing new customers across a large territory that extended well beyond its Southern California headquarters, as well as its reputation for extraordinary customer service. The company, which became a dealer for DIRECTV in 2004, was also recognized for its team’s attention to detail and its extraordinary sales accomplishments—bringing in more than double the number of new commercial customers in 2007 versus its competitors—Anaheim, California
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DELIVERY—MultiDyne has introduced their new HD-3000 Series of 5 to 2970 Mbps Serial Digital Video Fiber Optic Transport Link. The fiber optic link supports the new 1080p progressive 3 Gbps HD format. The HD-3000 line will provide an economical solution for the fiber optic transport and distribution of virtually any digital signal from 5 Mbps to 3 Gbps, reducing risk for new formats in the foreseeable future. The HD-3000 will future proof your system design and infrastructure to support 1080p. The supported standards include SMPTE 424M 3G-SDI, SMPTE 292M 1.485 Gbps, SMPTE 259M with operation from 143Mbps – 360Mbps, SMPTE 310M 19.4Mbps, M2S or DVB-ASI 270Mbps, SMPTE 344M 540Mbps and SMPTE 305M SDTi rates—Locust Valley, New York
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CONTENT + DELIVERY—iTX is Xactly what the BBC needs! The BBC is respected worldwide for their professionalism. Helping to further this reputation is OmniBus Systems iTX NEWS a software-based iTX playout and automation system that’s used to broadcast the BBC’s two-minute national news summaries between major news programs. The iTX system is integrated with the network’s Quantel servers and Jupiter asset management system and enables the summaries to be broadcast by a two-person, producer-presenter team. iTX NEWS takes edits to air without prior rendering, with graphics, audio and video effects, stills and captions generated in real time. Providing multi-format capabilities, iTX NEWS allows users to easily ingest and edit together SD and HD sources, and then combine them in the same playlist with non-broadcast material, such as security footage and user-generated content, with real-time format conversion and rendering of effects. The iTX architecture streamlines the output of multiple versions of the same playlist for SD, HD, Internet streaming, mobile TV and other platforms, with automatic transcoding and distribution of content—Leicestershire, United Kingdom
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CONTENT—Interactive Dad TV proves that Dad is active, indeed. Selig Multimedia, Inc., creators of a parenting web site for fathers called Interactive Dad TV, now provide the first syndicated TV news franchise for fathers. Of course, it is produced in HD and aimed at fathers who want to be active in raising their children. Focusing on family and finance, the program targets men ages 25 to 54 and is scheduled three times a week and will air in local newscasts. Today’s dad works and comes home to participate in diapering and bathing kids, much different from earlier generations interactions. Interactive Dad TV is based on the online fatherhood magazine InteractiveDad.com, which was created five years ago and attracted a worldwide audience. A poll conducted by InteractiveDad.com rerveals more than half of all dads surveyed said they would flip channels to watch a news segment for fathers—Tampa, Florida
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CONTENT + DELIVERY—Snell & Wilcox has integrated its Kahuna SD/HD multiformat production switcher with the NewsForce SD/HD newsroom system from Harris Corporation. As part of this collaboration, engineers from Harris and Snell & Wilcox worked together over a period of several months to integrate Kahuna with a broad range of Harris products including the Harris Platinum router, NEXIO AMP server, ADC automation system, Inscriber G7 3D graphics systems, and the CENTRIO multiviewer. The two companies will demo a joint Kahuna/NewsForce solution in the Harris booth (N2502) at the upcoming NAB 2008 exhibition. This presentation will highlight the power of Kahuna for automated newsroom applications by using an AP ENPS rundown to deliver instructions to the Harris ADC automation system, which will drive the Kahuna — queuing, playing, and switching media elements from that list and advancing them to air—Hampshire, United Kingdom
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DELIVERY—Wohler Technologies’ video products division, PANORAMAdtv, has released their Touch-it Digital multichannel video monitor and controller. This latest addition combines side-by-side, 7-inch wide screen color LCDs in just 3 RU. The Touch-it Digital‘s left LCD is a touch screen that displays from four to 16 thumbnail images, which automatically scale to fill the screen. When one of these images is touched, the corresponding video source appears on the right LCD monitor at full size, and its HD/SD-SDI source signal is sent to BNC outputs. The multiview touch screen is also duplicated on a VGA output for monitoring on an inexpensive larger external display. The Touch-it Digital accepts and switches up to 16 HD/SD-SDI video inputs, passing along any embedded audio or data. A user-defined GPI output can be associated with any touch screen action, in addition to GPI input, for a variety of user-defined functions. The robust Ethernet and RS-422 interface system can also be used to enable remote control of routers, switchers, servers, and VTRs. When combined with an OpenGear frame, HDCC-200A closed captioning, and HDCC-100A logo keyer kits, the Touch-it Digital serves as an elegant and cost-effective master control system. The 10/100 Base-T interface also facilitates remote configuration over a network connection—Hayward, California
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