The company will demonstrate a complete solution designed to handle every element of the content management process from ingest, pre-production and scheduling to transmission. Fully modular, it offers broadcasters the flexibility to choose between hardware-based, software-based, cloud-based or hybrid operation on any scale from a single regional or thematic channel up to a global network.

"The two years which have elapsed since the last IBC show have seen major advances across many sectors of the broadcast media industry," says PlayBox Neo CEO Pavlin Rahnev. "Most significant of these have been the need for maximum flexibility in where, when and how broadcasters choose to work given the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Secure IP-based operation has long been a core feature of our technology, allowing easy control of the entire playout process regardless of physical distance. Flexibility is also becoming increasingly important given the ever growing public appetite for online TV viewing in addition to the terrestrial, cable and direct-to-home satellite networks. Interest in UHD is also growing given that 4K is the default definition for practically every large-screen TV display. All our products include UHD, HD and SD compatibility."

NEW: Capture Suite
Making its first European show appearance, PlayBox Neo's Capture Suite is designed to speed up the ingest workflow of television networks, post-production facilities and playout service-providers. Operators gain the ability to control multiple ingest channels across multiple servers. Functions such as input selection, ingest presets, file-naming conventions, assignments and auto-transfer can be performed quickly and easily from a single web user interface. Features include a web-based multiviewer with black-frame and freeze-frame alarms plus loudness audio level monitoring as well as manual, scheduled and compliance ingest modes with automated input switching. Content can be now edited in Adobe Premiere and Grass Valley Edius Workgroup 9+ while ingesting. MXF and TS files being ingested are available for immediate playout via AirBox Neo-20 automation without having to wait for the ingest process to complete.

ENHANCED: AirBox Neo-20
An automated streaming and broadcast playout system based on 20 years of refinement, available in 1U channel-in-a-box and 3U multichannel versions, AirBox Neo-20 makes TV content creation and management easy and stress-free. Suitable for local or IP-linked remote control, it allows playlist scheduling to be performed weeks ahead of actual transmission. Media files can be finessed, rescheduled or integrated with live production. Playlists can be configured for 24/7 automated operation on any scale, including support for multiple time zones in multiple languages. Recent refinements include GPU acceleration to achieve fast file decoding. Input/output configuration can be performed using a web-based resource monitor connected via a secure link. Automatic alerts warn operators of absent or frozen video feeds via a web-based multiviewer. Picture-in-picture digital video effects creation and real-time loudness compliance are also provided. Transport stream and XDCAM MXF file clips can be played back while still being ingested. Enhanced connectivity capabilities include NDI input in addition to the existing compatibility with SDI, MPEG-2 TS and IP streams. NDI output is also now included, supplementing the existing SDI, SRT/UDP/RTP stream and RTMPS outputs.

ENHANCED: Cloud2TV
PlayBox Neo will additionally be promoting its Cloud2TV. Available on a SaaS subscription, itis fully compatible with existing AirBox Neo-20 playout infrastructure and can be used to extend both scale and functionality. Specific Cloud2TV applications are assigned to content ingest, graphic editing, media browsing with metadata handling and clip trimming, quality control and verification, transcoding, playlist management and audit logging. These can be closely coordinated to provide a full set of broadcast resources supporting the workflow of an entire TV channel. Cloud2TV is configurable for terrestrial, satellite or CDN-based playout under full IP control. It also forms a robust platform for secure media asset management and archiving, accessible by authorized operators anywhere in the world.