LAS VEGASThe new 4K LDX addresses two issues that Grass Valley President Marco Lopez said were problematic in live 4K sports production. The inability to get close and slow down.

We were hearing that existing 4K cameras have limited storytelling capability for sports, he said. They have limited depth of field and zoom range. The LDX 86 has the same zoom range and depth of field as HD cameras.

Another key problem that exists is that producers have had to choose between 4K and higher frame rates.

The LDX 86 Universethe new flagship of the LDX lineis switchable between 6x, 4K and HD. The switching is done through a software license, so if you need 4K capability for an event, you can activate it with a software key, he said.

The LDX 86 has Grass Valleys proprietary Xensium-FT CMOS, and can be used in any camera position where a 1x, 3x or 6x camera is required.

The 86 was introduced in conjunction with the new K2 Dyno Universe, which does replay optimized for 6x and 4K.

Existing 4K servers support only a fraction of the channels they support in HD, so they require double the servers, double the rack space and double the operators, Lopez said.

The new K2 Dyno Universe does replay optimized for 6x and 4K in the same rack space, with the same number of servers and the same number of operators as an HD workflow, he said. It relies on solid state storage and is scalable by networking multiple systems over 10GigE. Grass also developed a new fiber transmission system, the XCU XF Universe to support the system.

With the IP transition is accelerating like a waterfall, Grass is trying to get in front of it. Lopez said that in talks with 200 customers around the world, three main points emerged about IP workflows: multiple video streams over a single Ethernet cable; format agnosticism; and the ability to integrate video from multiple remote facilities.

He said Grass created a glass-to-glass IP production system that incorporates both proprietary and generic routing from Cisco, HP and Arista, software-defined networking and commercial off-the-shelf hardware.

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NAB 2015: Grass Valley Unveils 4K Slo-Mo LDX, IP Workflow