In preparing for NAB, I was speaking to a sales person about this particular company's new product, which he described as a "multifunction integrated production system." Apparently, this product contains everything needed for a typical live news production including a production switcher, news server, a character generator, graphics still/clip store, multichannel DVE, multiplayer keyers and can function as a commercial insertion player and robotic camera controller.

According to this sales guy, integrated production systems are going to be a huge thing at NAB this year. Excuse me for being a bit skeptical of sales people, but I wonder if these systems really are going to be the big thing at the show. I mean, an integrated production system makes sense --- it cuts down on cost, space, personnel, etc. But why now? What has been holding companies back from making these systems available until now? I believe Dalet was showcasing something like this at the show last year, but I didn't hear as much hype surrounding it as I would've expected if it were truly an integrated newsroom workflow system. I guess the question is, are broadcasters going to buy into the multifunction integrated production system?

Does anybody remember the Trinity/Globecaster product, circa 1997?  Weren't they the first ones? 

Video toaster, aka Globecaster was one of the first. And if you look in the latest issue of Broadcast engineering there is a product that looks like a direct decendant.

 I take care of about 10 toaster systems with robotic cameras. They certainly are a cost-effective solution.

However, all the eggs are certainly in the one basket. The toasters that I support are all used live for various

city council meetings. We've only had about two missed airings in a couple of years, and some other hairy moments.

Used for a non-live studio, they are great, with a nice NLE included, as well as the DVE, Graphics, and switcher.

Thomson launched Grass Valley's Ignite on January 25, 2005. Calling it an Integrated Production System that delivers the first and most complete link between News and Control Rooms. It provides turnkey workflows for signal processing and media distribution in cable, direct-to-home, satellite, telecommunications, and terrestrial television operations. You can read more here: http://www.grassvalley.com/news/2005/20050124-sort60-IPS_Release.html  or in our favorite broadcast magazine http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv/Thomson-gvg-ignite-20060207/ . I am certain that during those three years many have been installed and the technology is acquiring a fairly respectable and stable reputation. Here is another one that sort of monitors the slow but consistent success of this system http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6413128.html .

Toaster came out bundled in an Amiga 2000 computer around '90, if I remember correctly.  Remember the groovy color bar melting-paint wipe and dancing wipe?

Tinity/Globecaster became GlobalStreams Globecaster...a decent offering, albeit with wavelet (yes, you read correctly) compression and a few other quirks...

These systems fit a market when you are in the process of replacing a control room, but would rather maximize on your existing NLE environment. We have several Globecasters, but use them as a live switch/keying source into our edit/production environment...with the ability to go live if necessary. I for one am looking forward to this year's offerings for a more tightly integrated match up with common production platforms.

I have to say that the Globecaster product does so many things that are VERY useful to those that have a limited budget.  I have access to one and sometimes I use it to impress my video engineering friends.  I find it fun to prove to them, that technically and by design, Serial Digital Component video has pedestal.  Though I have to then explain that when black reads 16-16-16 in the YUV scale, it in fact reads 0 IRE in the waveform monitor.  When they see the digital component video goes under what they think is 0 IRE, their eyes light up in horror, like they don't understand why the black signal can actually go under 0 IRE.  (This happens when the YUV black is lowered from 16-16-16 to 0-0-0)  It's fun.  For simplification, I use the YUV term but in Chile, we are NTSC so the correct term should have been Y, R-Y, B-Y instead of YUV color space.  

Certainly these 'all in one' solutions can be attractive, but having all your eggs in one basket can be a a touchy situation at times.

Another issue is true video quality- I have a customer who uses one of these devices- they were having video quality issues.  We took a waveform monitor and tracked the video signal from the analog camera source through the entire chain- finding that each lower cost video solution was doing rather nasty things to the signal.  And compared it to what the waveform monitor in the 'all in one' showed, and they were no where close to each other.

So, to summarize our findings- the all in one was certainly a 'value', but what it did to video quality was far from ideal.

The challenge today is having manufactures from an IT background trying to bring video tools to the market, but they really don't have a true understanding of video quality and supporting a broadcast application. 

Does anyone else remember some of the 'Integrated Production Systems' from the late 80's or early 90's from Grass Valley and Abekas?  Back in the days of tape and 'linear' editing...

Parkervision had their PVTV system studio automation system.  Grass Valley acquired the company and now has the new version coming out called Ignite.  These systems are Kayak switcher, Klotz audio control and automate other items like server playback, deck control, CG's, digicarts, etc.  Other systems are made by Ross called Overdrive and another company I can't think of. Some other companies do CG's include monitoring, etc, like a system Sony makes I can't think of.  search for studio automation and some others may come up.

Integrated News Production that has a very open platform IT-Centric feel has been up and coming for the last two years.The "island of digital" in the sea of analog has now moved toward collaborative workflow where everyone pushes finished media content around until it is delivered in whatever manner you would like, play to air, web streaming etc.Now it does not matter what type of NLE,and what the content is repurposed and sold for.IT  companies like Bit Central and Video Technics have been successful in demonstating the reliabilty and now they have been out for a few years,they are being accepted as being more cost effective than proprietary systems.