1 February 2011An Easy Upgrade Path Makes DK-Technologies PT0710M Waveform Monitor The Ideal Choice For PERFORM
A chance encounter at last year's IBC exhibition has resulted in Danish metering manufacturer DK-Technologies supplying two PT0710M audio and video waveform monitors to PERFORM, a world leader at broadcasting and commercialising sport in digital media.
PERFORM's Engineering Project Manager Mike Edwards was at the show investigating equipment for two new Avid edit suites the company was building for its OMNISPORT news service. At the entrance of Hall 8 he came across the DK-Technologies stand and stopped to demo the company's products.
It really is worth going to IBC, he says. Had it not be been for the position of the DK stand, and the excellent demo we received from Andy Page, we would not have known anything about the company's waveform monitor products and would have only looked at Tektronix and Hamlet. Established in 2007, PERFOM has its headquarters in the UK and employs over 470 staff worldwide. The company uses industry leading production, technical and publishing solutions to power hundreds of digital channels that distribute content in a number of forms video, editorial, audio and data - across multiple platforms, to millions of sport fans around the world. PERFORM currently owns or manages 346 digital channels and streams over 15,000 live events, distributes 15,000 editorial stories and 8,000 video news stories every year.
Among the services PERFORM offers is OMNISPORT, a dedicated sport news service that enables multi-platform broadcasters to easily feed ready formatted and cleared global sports news content across their TV, online and mobile services.
Mike Edwards says: The two DK units have been installed in our new Avid suites in London. We will be expanding our overseas operations later this year and will include more DK units in those buildings for a variety of different roles. We also hope to have a few shared units for our VOD Avid Newscutter clipping suites.
DK-Technologies' PT0710M was ideally suited to PERFORM's requirements because it provided the company with an entry level product that could be upgraded at a later date. The unit is based on DK's award-winning PT0760M HD/SD Waveform Monitor and offers a reduced feature-set without any compromise on quality. It can be easily upgraded to the full facilities of the PT0760M, as and when the customer's requirements change. The PT0710 allowed us to purchase the frame and add cards as required as our workflow and technology changes, Mike Edwards says. For our overseas facilities, we needed something that could be accessed remotely over the LAN. The unit's LAN control means that our operators can view sources at remote location via the network.
Edwards adds that PERFORM's VOD teams needed something that could be shared across several Avid newscutter clipping suites for colour correction and audio metering.
Our clipping stations don't usually require the use of a waveform monitor but we realised that at busy times, if the clipping stations had access to a waveform monitor and audio meters, it would reduce time required for finishing in the Avid Composer suites. The DK solution allows us to have a shared waveform monitor on the router which we can access remotely from the suite over the LAN. This means that we don't have to go down the expensive of route of equipping all of the clipping suites with waveform monitors that will only be used for a few hours a day. PERFORM is now testing its DK units and Mike Edwards reports that they are working well.
We are a new media company and, to me, this is a new media product that suits our multi-platform products, he says. The fact that we can easily upgrade the software and hardware on the systems and the LAN control - were major selling points and we hope to get the shared units in the near future.
About DK-Technologies
DK-Technologies develops and produces audio meters, video sync and test signal generators, as well as video waveform monitors and colour analysers both for LCD and CRT monitors. Alongside its worldwide distributor network, DKTechnologies also operates branch offices in Denmark, Germany, UK and USA.
