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Snell & Wilcox Highlights “Smart” Infrastructure and Open Standards as Transition Strategy to IT-Based Future of Broadcasting

Releases Free MXF Development Tools and MXF Player/ Wrapper to Accelerate Multi-Vendor Interoperability of New Generation of Open Standards Broadcast Products

Introduces 17 New SD & HD Modules to enhance Industry’s Most Comprehensive Infrastructure Range, Advanced SNMP Monitoring, Affordable Motion-Compensated Standards Conversion for Broadcasters, High Definition Compression Pre-Processing and Telecine Gra --

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 16, 2004 -- Intelligent infrastructure solutions that bridge previous generations of video technology with the IT-based television facility of the future are among the highlights of new product introductions and demonstrations from Snell & Wilcox at NAB 2004, April 19-22 in Las Vegas.

Snell & Wilcox has taken a leadership role in the movement toward the open-standards IT-based broadcast facility with the free release of a comprehensive set of developer tools, called MXF Express, that will help broadcasters and equipment vendors ensure interoperability among file-sharing products and systems through the MXF file format. Also being released at no cost is MXF Desktop, a software-based MXF file player that will bring MXF compatibility to any Windows PC desktop.

At NAB, Snell & Wilcox will demonstrate the benefits of the file-based future with the launch of two breakthrough products based on the open standards concept. For end-users, the company will show Comet, an open standards ingest system for servers and asset management systems that takes advantage of the recent standardization of MXF and the SMPTE RP-210 metadata dictionary; and sets a new benchmark for cost-effectiveness and interoperability. For OEMs, Snell & Wilcox will demonstrate the “engine” behind Comet, its new MediaX high-performance PCI card that can run on an off-the-shelf Windows PC.

"The transition to file-based facilities will come sooner rather than later because of the tremendous economic advantages in store for broadcasters - including freedom from costly proprietary broadcast hardware, more efficient workflows, better asset management, lower operating costs, and speedier time to air," said Joe Zaller, vice president of marketing at Snell & Wilcox. "Each facility is on its own path to this transition however, so Snell & Wilcox is committed to providing flexible, networked, forward-looking infrastructure solutions that serve facilities on each point of the continuum leading up to primarily file-based, open-standards facilities."

Transition to the Future with an Intelligent Infrastructure

17 New Modules Added to IQ Range
Snell & Wilcox IQ Modular infrastructure products are the smart building blocks facilities need today to bridge and interconnect existing islands of analog, digital standard definition, digital high-definition, and file-based equipment. The IQ Modular range will see significant expansion with the introduction of 17 new products including converters, synchronizers, distribution amplifiers, routers and audio modules all capable of operating in either standard definition or high definition resolutions. The company will also introduce HDTV converters and a significant number of audio processing modules for the standard definition environment as part of the expanded range.

Enhanced Control & Monitoring, Including SNMP
All the new IQ Modular and conversion products on view at NAB 2004 - and virtually all Snell & Wilcox products - can be networked using the company's RollCall software, the broadcast industry’s most comprehensive and scalable infrastructure control and monitoring system. RollCall streamlines the management of infrastructure components and allows every new device that a facility buys to be integrated instantly into its network. Snell & Wilcox has committed to enhancing RollCall to support IT infrastructures, and the new RollCall products being introduced at NAB have the built-in capability to recognize metadata and to identify file movement throughout an existing SDI television plant. In this way, Snell & Wilcox is making today’s infrastructure products future-proofed for tomorrow’s IT-based facilities.

At NAB, the company is adding a new layer of control to RollCall and its sister application, RollMap, with RollSNMP, the ability to monitor SNMP status information from the products of other vendors. RollSNMP has already been integrated with products from Pinnacle, Cisco, Pro-Bel, Barco and Omneon as well as Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP workstations and servers. Other devices are easily integrated using XML, the industry standard for metadata exchange.

Digital Makeover Contest for US Broadcasters
To build awareness across the industry of the infrastructure choices that are available to smooth transitions from analog to digital, from SD to HD, and from baseband to file-based operations, Snell & Wilcox will award $100,000 worth of products from its IQ Modular, RollCall, RollMap and RollSNMP product lines to the winner of its "Digital Makeover" Contest. Prior to NAB, employees of U.S. call letter stations were invited to enter the competition at www.snellwilcox.com on behalf of their stations. The winning TV station will be announced at the Snell & Wilcox booth on the final day of the NAB show.

“With this contest, we’re making the point that there is no such thing as a 'commodity' mission-critical infrastructure component," said Zaller. "An investment in quality pays off in flexibility, controllability, extensibility, scalability, and reliability. The design excellence of each infrastructure component is essential to maintaining high-quality program feeds and enables broadcasters to adapt quickly to rapid change, even with a limited staff."

Snell & Wilcox Core Image Processing Technologies Enhanced

New Alchemist Ph.C Smashes Price / Performance Barrier
NAB2004 attendees will see the first public demonstration of a new broadcast-centric Snell & Wilcox motion-compensated standards converter priced at just $60,000. Smashing the price/performance barrier for motion-compensated phase correlation conversion, the new Alchemist Ph.C, latest in the Ph.C family of Snell & Wilcox converters using the company’s Emmy-award winning motion measurement technology, gives broadcasters no-compromise performance at a substantially lower price than has ever been achievable.

"Alchemist Ph.C is our sixth-generation motion compensated converter featuring Ph.C, the award-winning Snell & Wilcox motion measurement technology. It is the latest milestone in a process of innovation that has been ongoing since 1990 and one in which we’ve invested hundreds of man-years," said Zaller. "This investment shows in the industry-best performance that Alchemist Ph.C delivers, but not in the price tag."

Occupying just 3 RU of space, Alchemist Ph.C produces clear and crisp outputs from the widest range of input materials. Offering both analog composite and digital video I/Os, Alchemist Ph.C accepts and outputs SDI with embedded audio and composite analog in all major television formats and integrates on-board aspect ratio conversion, an intuitive touch screen user-interface, CleanCuts, and a number of other advanced features.

HDTV Up and Down Conversion
To complement the launch of its new HDTV modular products, Snell & Wilcox is introducing a line of cost-effective, broadcaster-friendly conversion tools for the DTV transition. Priced at $15,000 list, the HD5400 Upconverter will upconvert 525/625 standard definition video to HD 1080i, 720p or 480p output formats and provide the standards, aspect ratio and color space conversions required by broadcasters. The new HD6300 Downconverter, also priced at $15,000, can convert SMPTE 292M and ITU 709 HD standards to standard definition serial digital video.

HDTV Compression Pre-Processing
Building on an installed based of more than 1,000 standard definition compression pre-processors, Snell & Wilcox will introduce at NAB the CPP1000 Prefix-HD, a next-generation multi-standard high-definition compression pre-processor that provides the dual benefits of improved picture quality for viewers and lower bandwidth usage for cable, satellite, and terrestrial TV broadcasters.

Prefix-HD reduces noise-related artifacts in HDTV video in the pre-compression stage so broadcasters can avoid encoding artifacts such as excessive film grain and video noise. The resulting pictures are clean and stable, result is better bandwidth efficiency and increased picture quality. The bandwidth savings that Prefix-HD delivers provides genuine benefits to users in the form of increased revenues and short pay-back time.

Grain Management for Virtual Telecine Environments
Also being introduced at NAB 2004 is NIAGRA, a grain management and artifact suppression system designed for virtual telecine environments. Priced at half the cost of the nearest competing solution, NIAGRA provides users with powerful real-time tools for improving the quality of film-originated material and delivering superior picture fidelity during electronic assembly.

Designed for operation in the virtual telecine environment via integration with the da Vinci Systems 2K control surface, NIAGRA works with all high-definition and standard definition video standards and supports AES, AC3, and Dolby E audio. It provides automatic gamut legalization as well as a primary color corrector.

Demonstrations of Comet, MediaX, new IQ Modular infrastructure components with RollCall control and monitoring, Alchemist Ph.C, NIAGRA, CPP1000 Prefix-HD, HD5400 Upconverter, and the HD6300 Downconverter will be ongoing on the Snell & Wilcox NAB booth # C6421 at NAB2004, April 19 through 22 in Las Vegas.

-ENDS-

SNELL & WILCOX is a world-leading electronics design, manufacture and engineering group with an international reputation for the development of advanced image communications technologies for the world’s broadcast television, video, satellite, cable, film and image communications industries. The company is dedicated to preserving the true content of the moving video image. Snell & Wilcox Inc. has offices throughout the United States and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Snell & Wilcox Ltd. is based in Hampshire, England with offices all over the world. www.snellwilcox.com.

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