AJA quote Brad Cheney, VP, field operations and engineering, FOX Sports: “As sports fans have come to expect a more dynamic, interactive experience, AR is quickly becoming a common production addition, but one that requires tons of video processing. Since we already had a number of FS-HDRs in place, we talked to the team at AJA about our need for an increased frame buffer on the device to support these workflows, and with FS-HDR v4.1, they’ve delivered.

AJA’s commitment to innovation and its user base is evident via substantial firmware updates like v4.1, which brings more value to customers without requiring new hardware and helps them stay ahead of evolving production requirements. We’ve already applied v4.1 to our MLB productions, and look forward to integrating them across the board into our basketball, football and motorsports productions.”

For productions looking to simplify HDR workflows and take advantage of the latest BBC HLG LUT developments, v4.1 extends support to v1.5 BBC HLG LUTs. Newly released v1.5 BBC HLG LUTs add two new LUTs for direct mapping and up-mapping conversions for SDR BT.2020 to HLG BT.2100, and improved color saturation in display light HLG BT.2100 to SDR BT.709 down-mapping conversions.

v4.1 also adds support for new NBCU LUTs, developed by NBCUniversal Media, in collaboration with Cromorama to enable a workflow for single-master production of simultaneous HDR and SDR content with the highest quality possible. NBCU LUTs include SDR, HLG and PQ LUTs that maximize the dynamic range and color volume in HDR, without compromising core SDR broadcasts.

In response to industry demand and user feedback, FS-HDR v4.1 increases ancillary data pass-through or translation capabilities for a wide range of formats and conversions. In transmission applications requiring the use of SCTE-104 markers for ad insertion, FS-HDR will now automatically pass-through SCTE-104 packets. FS-HDR’s new Timecode Xlator will pass-through or translate ancillary timecode (LTC, VITC1, or VITC2). Additionally, v4.1 expands the set of conversions that support pass-through of Closed Captioning.