Tektronix to Launch Enhanced Waveform Monitors and Rasterizers at NAB 2010

Tektronix, Inc., the market leader in broadcast video test, monitoring and analysis solutions, today announced that it will roll out a series of enhancements to its entire lineup of waveform monitors and rasterizers at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) 2010 Conference, April 12-15, in booth N2522.

Tektronix will also be using the conference to demonstrate the capabilities of the recently introduced WFM8200 and WFM8300 advanced waveform monitors and introducing the new WVR8200 and WVR8300 rasterizers. These instruments provide high quality, real-time, automated 3G-SDI Eye pattern display and jitter measurements that help broadcasters and network operators easily monitor and diagnose signal problems. The new rasterizers provide the same capabilities as the waveform monitor equivalents, but are designed for use with an external display and offer enhanced remote monitoring and control capabilities.

One of the top themes at NAB is how the growth in HD television is driving higher resolution video formats in both content creation and broadcast. To deliver high resolution video, broadcasters are turning to 1080p (50Hz or 59.94Hz) formats with 3 Gb/s single link SDI transport (Level A or Level B). However, due to the high bit rate of 3G-SDI, they are facing new physical layer signal quality testing and measurement challenges, leading to strong demand for high-performance 3G-SDI-capable instrumentation. Tektronix continues to expand its offerings in support of 3G-SDI Eye pattern measurements to meet these pressing industry needs.

"What better time than NAB to showcase Tektronix' industry leading portfolio of baseband monitor products with the price and performance to fit a wide variety of applications and needs," said Ian Valentine, Director, Baseband Video Products, Tektronix. "As well as offering industry-leading 3G-SDI capabilities and upgrades across our high-performance waveform monitors and rasterizers, we are continuing to deliver updates and improvements across the entire product family."

Industry Leading 3G-SDI Support

The WVR8200 and WVR8300 are designed to help broadcast engineering staff reduce time and effort in equipment setup and more effectively detect system degradations before they become quality problems which can cause advertising revenue penalties or subscriber loss. This is made possible by the industry's most comprehensive physical layer measurements including automated 3G-SDI signal Eye pattern parameters and jitter measurements as well as Tektronix jitter waveform display and cable length measurement. Additionally, alarm information helps identify and diagnose video and audio content quality as well as vertical ancillary (VANC) data problems.

The new rasterizers incorporate the Tektronix toolkit of patented displays essential in color correction and content editing during post production. The patented Luma Qualified Vector (LQV™) display allows users to selectively choose a luma amplitude range over which to isolate color components within the vector display. This enables colorists and editors to identify color components in terms of shadows, mid tones and highlights within multiple LQV displays. The Tektronix patented Spearhead display provides a new tool for color grading allowing colorists and editors to view the video content in terms of lightness, value and saturation. This display allows colorists and editors to make precise color adjustments and enhancements to the content to achieve artistic excellence while maintaining color gamut compliance to prevent loss and distortion of color fidelity of the content during subsequent workflow.

As part of our continued effort to protect the investments our existing customers have made with us and to ensure they have access to the latest features and measurements, we are also pleased to offer the following enhancements -- For the WFM5000 compact waveform monitor and WVR5000 half-rack rasterizer free upgrades are available that deliver a new Quad Tile display giving users even more flexibility in customizing the measurement displays for specific applications. For the industry leading WFM6000/7000 and WVR6000/7000 families, a new firmware release for audio loudness monitoring and measurements adds even more capabilities to track the recent revision to the ITU-R BS.1770-1/1771 specifications as well as the new ATSC A/85 Recommended Practice.

Source: http://www.tektronix.com