Thomson Debuts New Modules and Features For Its Grass Valley K2 Media Server System

September 20, 2007

Source: Thomson

At the IBC convention Thomson demonstrated several new features and technology advancements to its Grass Valley™ K2™ Media Server and Media Client system.

These enhancements will allow its worldwide customers, including those requiring multi-lingual capabilities and the ability to easily import elements from third party applications into an existing K2 clip, to develop non-proprietary, highly secure and tightly integrated infrastructures, from ingest to playout. This is a feature that is especially important to European broadcasters.

Helping to maximize customers’ media investment, the Grass Valley K2 Media Server offers reliability, multiformat support, and cost-effective operation to handle the most demanding production and distribution applications and workflows.

This includes new storage and server options that more than double the existing performance and provide a new entry level offering; a new software release that provides advanced audio support for multi-language broadcasts; increased interoperability for MXF; three new storage clients that provide ASI import, transcoding and file scanning; and increased compatibility with third-party systems.

In addition, new Grass Valley K2 Plus servers and storage products will be introduced and a suite of new K2 applications will be demonstrated highlighting examples of the K2’s open system architecture and interoperability with third-party products using MXF and QuickTime wrappers.

“In Europe, many application partners, such as Pro-Bel, Pebble Beach, Aveco, SGT, Pharos, Vivesta, Ibis, Etere, Ardendo, S4M, and Harris have deployed systems using K2 as the foundation of their system designs,” said Jeff Rosica, Senior Vice President of Thomson’s Broadcast & Professional Solutions business unit. “We’re happy to be working with these global vendors to establish complete workflows for our customers.”

All of these new features make the K2 platform more flexible and useful for the automatic recording, management, and distribution of audio and video media than ever before. They also strengthen the K2’s position as the most technologically advanced server on the market by using best-in-class IT enterprise technology with Grass Valley core video technology.

During the first half of 2007, K2 platform sales to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East increased by 105 percent over the same time period last year, and has continuously grown since the K2 platform was introduced in Q4 2005, making K2 the most successful server platform in Thomson’s history.

The K2 server’s open and flexible architecture can be used as the foundation for the Grass Valley ContentShare2™ system, Grass Valley Aurora-based systems, as well as other third party MAM systems. With the Grass Valley ContentShare2—the first solution on the market that manages processes at the operation level with an intelligence workflow engine—users can leverage an open media asset management (MAM) Framework that can be configured according to individual operations and system infrastructures. This system solution can be easily and cost-effectively adapted to legacy systems and third party applications as well.

Among the new K2 systems and features shown at IBC (Hall 1, stand 411) are:

The new K2 Plus server options leverage the latest in Enterprise IT technology including dual and quad core processors and 10 Gb Ethernet options offering higher performance in less rack space and lower overall costs.

The new K2 Plus Storage options offer two new high performance RAID systems with over to 50% more bandwidth than previous systems using new 300 GB SAS drives and higher performance RAID controllers.
A new K2-ASI Client for the Media server platform that will take an ASI feed in, extract individual program files and store them on disk for editing and playout.

Other new applications include a file based MPEG validation capability to automatically QA clips without physically viewing them (due to the integration of the Thales MPEG Scan tool), automatic transcoding capability, and tighter integration with EDIUS nonlinear editing systems as well as NLE systems from Avid and Apple.

Since its availability in Q4 2005, more than 1,000 four-channel clients (roughly 60 percent are configured to support standard-definition and 40 percent high-definition) have been shipped and are now in various stages of operation. With an IT-centric backbone built around iSCSI, Gigabit Ethernet, and CIFS protocols, the K2 Media Server supports file-based playout workflows for a variety of applications.

Blending the latest advancements in IT technologies with Grass Valley's extensive experience in video and audio processing, management, and storage, the K2 Media Server and Media Client System are designed specifically for the sharing and reuse of digital media assets. The result is a client/server architecture that supports IT-centric, file-based playout and distribution workflows, simplifies installation and operation, and provides new levels of network control.

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