Sony Demonstrated its Beyond Definition Strategy at IBC2013. Sony demonstrated a variety of new value-creating video production solutions this week at IBC2013 in Amsterdam. In line with the company’s beyond definition concept, Sony is continuing to develop exciting and innovative business opportunities that revolutionise the industry. Visitors to the Sony booth saw live 4K production solutions, highly usable IT-driven systems and services and an HD product line positioned at the core of today’s media industry.
   

The use of 4K content for movies, TV shows, adverts and documentaries is growing rapidly, boosted by the launch of the Sony PMW-F55 CineAlta camera in February and the new XAVC video format, capable of handling both 4K and HD data streams efficiently. At IBC2013, Sony is pushing the envelope further with new solutions for live 4K broadcasting for sports and events.

And while solutions by Sony are breaking new technological ground in 4K, they are also allowing broadcasters and producers to follow familiar HD workflows and continue using existing HD systems, lenses, and other assets. They can move easily into live 4K with a relatively small investment and amount of 4K equipment.

A 4K live camera system can also add value to HD video productions. The camera allows HD capture at up to 240fps that can then be used for slow motion replay. Another approach is to use two 4K cameras to cover an entire playing field, while utilising PWA-4KS 4K Stitching Software to extract and replay HD video from any area on the field, and the PWA-TS1 Telestrator Software to add player information and graphics**. This capability can significantly raise the entertainment value of a live sports broadcast. Sony successfully conducted 4K live production trials in a joint project with FIFA TV at the FIFA Confederations Cup 2013 in June with the aim of driving 4K technology further into the forefront.

Sony has also just announced the PXW-Z100, a professional 4K handheld XDCAM camcorder featuring a 1/2.33" Exmor R CMOS sensor. The sensor has total of 16 million pixels and is able to acquire stunning 4K content (4096x2160) at 50p or 60p. The camcorder marks Sony’s latest step in expanding the 4K world to everyone, from high-end cinema to corporate and event productions. IBC2013 was also an opportunity for Sony to introduce its first SSD and HDD portable storage range. The drives are compatible with a multitude of hardware including Sony’s PMW-50 and PMW-1000 recording decks and can transfer content at up to 400MB per second for SSD and 120MB per second for HDD via USB 3.0. With this speed, approximately 30GB of content can be transferred in less than a minute and a half onto the SSD drive via USB 3.0. The PSZ-SA25 SSD drive, PSZ-HA50 and PSZ-HA1T HDD drives will be available from September 2013.

A 4K viewing system displays four times as much information as HD, allowing information from multiple sources to appear together in high quality, even on large screens. On the Sony stand at IBC is the Multiview technical exhibit which demonstrates how a segmented high resolution display such as monitor or projector—can be used to present impressive video entertainment and presentations by showing a combination of camera inputs (from multiple sources), movie files, presentation files, Web pages and more.

Sony’s Optical Disc Archive is a low-cost high-volume storage system that holds 12 optical discs in each compact cartridge - an excellent solution for long-term reliable storage and for keeping video data compatible from one generation to the next. Sony strengthened the line-up adding high speed drive units and library products; ODS-D77U USB-3.0 drive and ODS-D77F fiber channel drive, both can run at speeds up to a maximum over 1 Gbps; Sony’s PetaSite series, ODS-L30M, -L60E, and –L100E are modular library units ideal for building large archiving systems. Since the release of the first products in the beginning of 2013, many customers in the media and entertainment industry have chosen the Optical Disc Archive technology as their long term archiving solution.