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2008 NAB Show Preview

Booth SU4220

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Company Overview

Founded in 1973, Snell & Wilcox designs and manufactures high-quality image processing, conversion, switching, and compression products for the professional film and television markets. The company this year is celebrating its 35th anniversary and its 20th year as a provider of products for HD broadcasting. Snell & Wilcox is building on this history of leadership and innovation, leveraging its technology into the mobile TV space to enable mobile TV operators to increase the quality of their services. The company is regarded as one of the world's leading video quality authorities, and its customer base includes most of the world's major broadcasters, content owners, and film studios. With more than 1,000 digital media customers including tier 1 content owners and broadcasters, Snell & Wilcox has an unrivalled track record. The market is demanding a large selection of video content that is of the highest quality and available across multiple platforms, and Snell & Wilcox is perfectly positioned to help content owners meet this requirement.

Snell & Wilcox has won more than 100 industry awards for its products and technologies, including four technical Emmy® Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in the United States. Further information is available at www.snellwilcox.com.

Snell & Wilcox at the 2008 NAB Show

"Putting Pictures to Work"
Snell & Wilcox will showcase a range of products that empower broadcasters to launch HD services and to deliver content in the right format and form factor for any platform and for any device. These innovative technologies give broadcasters and content owners the tools they need to provide consumers with the highest possible picture quality, whether that media is viewed on a large-screen HDTV monitor or a compact phone. With Snell & Wilcox's sophisticated solutions for live production, broadcast systems, control and monitoring, and conversion and content repurposing applications, media owners can deliver high-quality content that meets the varied demands of a rapidly evolving broadcast market.

iCR V3.0 -- Automated Content Repurposing System
At the 2008 NAB Show, Snell & Wilcox will showcase iCR V3.0, the newest release of the industry's first end-to-end content repurposing solution. Designed for producers of film and broadcast content in the mobile, telco, cable, and broadband markets, iCR enables ingest of SD and HD content at the highest standards of reliability and quality. iCR V3.0 represents a major upgrade, offering dozens of new features and allowing users to industrialize and streamline reliable, file-based video repurposing operations while achieving higher quality and lower bit rates.

New universal conversion tools simplify creation of multiple variants of HD and SD programs within the file-based domain. In a single step, users can perform complex tasks such as resolution, aspect ratio, and color space conversion, as well as advanced deinterlacing, film pull-down removal, and automated audio retiming. Integrated into the iCR V3.0 platform, motion compensated, software-based Alchemist IP SD standards conversion dramatically improves both quality and processing speed. iCR V3.0 features advanced MPEG-4 authoring tools, including professional conversion and encoding, that produce an exceedingly high quality of deliverable for a broad range of platforms -- mobile TV, broadband TV (Web), VOD, IPTV, and portable media players -- in a smaller file size.

Major enhancements to iCR's real-time review and QC tools include expanded codec and file support, enhanced QC reports, XML-based integration to asset management systems, and frame-accurate review at full resolution on a professional display. A new plug-in API allows the system to integrate easily into any workflow environment, and an enhanced SOAP/Web services interface further simplifies integration into environments controlled by automation and asset management systems.

Enhanced Kahuna SD/HD Multiformat Production Switcher and IMPAKT DVEs
Snell & Wilcox is introducing a series of major enhancements for the multiple-award-winning Kahuna SD/HD multiformat production switcher. During the 2008 NAB Show, the company will demonstrate powerful new DVE capabilities, including a first-of-its-kind "Fluid Effects" capability that allows operators to wrap live video around animated models for a highly sophisticated look in live production. Rather than render video and the 3-D model on a separate system, Kahuna operators can select any real-time source and apply it to any 3-D model that has been preloaded onto the switcher.

IMPAKT DVE Models Version 4 brings new film effects, global lighting, flag waves, and window blind effects to the IMPAKT 3-D DVE option for Kahuna, giving operators more than 30 film effects and a rich portfolio of dynamic effects models. Additional switcher enhancements being highlighted at the 2008 NAB Show include the quadrupling of the Kahuna's clip stores, improved third-party integration capabilities through Kahuna Manager, VDCP control interfacing, and a series of new auxiliary panels that provide highly visible source selection of three levels of mnemonics.

Expanded Range of Intelligent Infrastructure Products
Snell & Wilcox will introduce a variety of new products for its IQ Modular intelligent infrastructure system. With more than 400 intelligent component building blocks, IQ Modular gives customers the flexibility to construct any type of broadcasting facility. IQ Modular components provide compatibility with 3G emerging standards and metadata-rich infrastructures, as well as current analog, SD and HD standards, therefore serving as a single flexible and future-proof system that can be easily adapted and expanded as the user's needs evolve.

New modules at the 2008 NAB Show include IQDSK00, an HD/SD downstream keyer; IQSPI00, an interfacing product with custom configurable operational control; and the IQSDA2 series of single- and dual-channel SD/HD/3G-capable distribution products. Further additions to the existing modular range include advanced Dolby® E processing enhancements, featuring a unique automatic Dolby® E alignment tool that provides seamless synchronization with smooth tracking delay in a mixed audio environment.

The new single-unit IQHIP00 is a second-generation Hyperion quality-control engine that brings a higher level of sophistication to multichannel content monitoring and offers broadcasters significant new protections when airing high-value, premium television programs. The Hyperion content monitoring system's intuitive algorithms mimic human intelligence to provide dedicated audio, video, and metadata monitoring for all content throughout the broadcast infrastructure, from ingest to transmission. IQHIP00 now features a dedicated local monitoring output in addition to remote IP thumbnailing capability and real-time, frame-accurate content status. Reporting through RollMap, the company's flagship control and monitoring system, provides a rich graphical monitoring environment.

RollMap V3.1 incorporates custom-defined controls, SMS and e-mail alerts, real-time status and event reporting, audio-level metering, and advanced alarm-level masking and filtering. The next-generation RollSNMP V2.3 includes advances in system-level performance and integration of third party SNMP traps into RollMap. RollCall Control Applet V2.1 includes local and remote control capability with improved responsiveness of system-wide control to ease operational workflows. A full module backup and restore facility helps to maximize operational uptime benefits. RollMechanic eases operator workload by allowing single- or multiple-module cloning with full network backup and restore. An upgrade manager allows the user to carry out product software upgrades on single or multiple units.

Each new Snell & Wilcox IQ Module is designed to let broadcasters take control of their transition to digital broadcasting while remaining IT-aware for the next generation of workflow technology.

New Upgrades to Snell & Wilcox Conversion Product Lines

Quasar Ph.C Motion Compensated HD Upconverter
The Quasar Ph.C motion compensated upconverter combines four Emmy® Award-winning Snell & Wilcox technologies in its single compact 1-RU package to deliver HDTV outputs with twice the resolution of competitive products that use conventional linear adaptive techniques. New for the 2008 NAB Show are dramatically improved upconversion and cut-detection algorithms that enhance performance on a wide variety of complex images. These enhancements enable Quasar Ph.C to deliver stunningly sharp upconverted images from all types of inputs, including those with fast motion, fine detail, or both.

Alchemist Ph.C - HD Standards Converter
The company's Alchemist Ph.C - HD motion compensated frame-rate standards converter, acknowledged worldwide as the "gold standard" in conversion performance, now offers simultaneous SD and HD conversion in its compact 3-RU mainframe. This one-box approach delivers HD frame-rate conversion between 50-Hz and 60-Hz HD standards for both 1080i and 720p formats, as well as SD frame-rate conversion between 50-Hz and 60-Hz material. The Alchemist Ph.C - HD also provides motion compensated HDTV upconversion, downconversion, and crossconversion, making it the most comprehensive conversion solution available in the market.

Alchemist Ph.C - HD now provides co-timed simultaneous SD/HD outputs, each with independent aspect ratio and color space conversion -- a huge benefit for broadcasters wanting to simulcast in both SD and HD. Also new to the system is a seamless timecode conversion option that drastically improves operational efficiency by eliminating the costly and time-consuming use of additional equipment and manual re-editing of timecode information on videotapes. Full support for Dolby® E audio eliminates the need for outboard Dolby decoders and encoders, reducing space, setup, and configuration requirements in replication and dubbing operations.

Kudos Plus Family of Standards Converters and Synchronizers Extended to HD
At the 2008 NAB Show, Snell & Wilcox will be demonstrating the HD CVR700 SD/HD linear frame-rate converter and HD TBS700 SD/HD synchronizer, the newest additions to the comprehensive Kudos Plus range of rack-mountable signal processing products. The launch of these new products expands the range while at the same time giving customers greater functionality in a smaller package at a lower price point.

The Kudos Plus HD CVR700 SD/HD frame standards converter performs linear conversion between 50-Hz and 60-Hz SD and HD standards, including both 1080i and 720p HD formats. The unit also provides HDTV upconversion, downconversion, and crossconversion to any frame rate.

The Kudos Plus HD TBS700 is an HD synchronizer that includes HD upconversion, downconversion, and crossconversion to formats of the same frame rate. It also provides synchronization for SD sources. The unit features a half-RU form factor as well as full proc amp controls and an aspect ratio converter.

Snell & Wilcox Contact:
Charles Duchesne
Southleigh Park House
Eastleigh Road
Havant, Hampshire PO9 2PE
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 23 9248 9110
Fax: +44 (0) 23 9245 1411
E-mail: charles.duchesne@snellwilcox.com

Agency Contact:
Susan Warren
Wall Street Communications
Tel: +1 (631) 261 1013
E-mail: susan@wallstcom.com

Snell & Wilcox, Putting Pictures to Work, iCR, Alchemist IP, Kahuna, Fluid Effects, IMPAKT, Quasar Ph.C, Alchemist Ph.C - HD, Kudos Plus, IQ, Hyperion, RollMap, RollSNMP, RollCall, and RollMechanic are all trademarks of the Snell & Wilcox Group. All other trademarks mentioned herein are acknowledged as the property of their respective owners.