The Best Of The Rest...

If IBC represents the end-of-year push by companies across Europe and beyond to unveil big announcements and new ideas, BVE must surely be the taster session at the top of the calendar, when the industry looks ahead to the coming twelve months.

Avid's big story was the London debut of its Everywhere platform, described as the company's "strategic vision for connecting content creators and audiences more powerfully and efficiently."
Avid was keen to showcase Everywhere's workflow capabilities and offered demonstrations for post-production facilities and broadcasters.
"Over the past 25 years, Avid has built a strong heritage of industry leadership; we're proud of the role we play in empowering our customer community to create the most compelling media in the industry," said Avid president and CEO Louis Hernandez, Jr.
"As a critical element of Avid's growth strategy, Avid Everywhere inspires our next phase of innovation around our entire product suite. We look forward to sharing more announcements over the next year."
The company also demonstrated its Interplay Production asset manager and Media Composer 7 video-editing software workflow, broadcast production solutions Interplay MAM, Interplay PAM and iNEWS newsroom management system, Media Composer 7 and Artist Color control surface for pro video editing and Pro Tools 11 and the Artist Series control surfaces for sound mixing and editing.

ARRI's stand was busy as always, as the company introduced the AMIRA to UK audiences for the first time.
The docu-style cam offers image quality up to 200 fps and records HD 1080 or 2K pictures. It operates a range of over 14 stops, low noise levels, highlight handling and natural colour rendering.
AMIRA records Rec 709 or Log C images using ProRes LT, 422, 422HQ or 444 codecs and also records to in-camera CFast 2.0 flash memory cards. This BVE it actually proved quite difficult get a closer look on the ARRI stand, such is the interest in this new release, but up-close the AMIRA more than impresses, offering a slick design and ease-of-use.

Vizrt looked towards this year's FIFA World Cup with the Viz Libero 5.6, a very nifty and smooth upgrade of the company's sports analysis systems. RFV were treated to an on-stand demo of the new version, which enables increased productivity of the landmark editor with further-customisable graphics and quicker access to content.
5.6 has also become the first version to run on laptops using a file-based workflow, allowing the user to generate 3D analysis clips from outside the studio.
With the enhanced SDI video recorder, the input SDI signal is buffered and stored in the background, while Viz Libero analysis clips can be processed in parallel, effectively offering seamless browsing through buffered content and the ability to select clips while retaining access to all game plays.

Talk of Cloud continued at this year's show, not least at the Sony stand, where visitors were treated to a demonstration of the company's scalable cloud platform, CiSM.
Sony describes it as a "one-cloud solution to collect, produce and archive high-value, high-definition content, allowing fast and secure collaboration on a global scale."
But the company's core focus this year was on 4K, featuring the PMW-F55 and F5 Super 35mm CineAlta cameras.
Sony has unveiled Version 3.0 firmware for both cameras, with 4.0 expected to be available from the end of this month. The company was also keen to shout about the HXR-NX3 Full HD camcorder, offering three 1/2.8-inch ExmorTM CMOS sensors for full HD and image-stabilised 20x G Lens with 40x Clear Image Zoom.

Panasonic previewed its new cloud-ready ENG camera with wireless connectivity, the AJ-PX270.
The stand also featured a demonstration studio set-up, showcasing the Panasonic's range of ProAV equipment, including the 4K LCD Monitor.
The recently-released AJ-PD500 memory card recorder and AJ-PX5000G professional camera recorder were also at the show.

PHABRIX announced several new enhancements across its Sx handheld and Rx rack mount T&M instruments ahead of NAB in April.
Comprising the dual integral screen 2U Rx 2000, the 1U Rx 1000 and the demi Rx 500, the Rx instruments can be configured with modules and, with 1920x1080 output via HDMI or SDI, the Rx range provides a multi-viewer type display of 16 instruments per channel.
PHABRIX also previewed its new V9 upgrade; due to be released at the end of the month.
Other new features in the Rx rack mount toolset include multi-channel closed caption display – 608/708 and OP47.

Of particular interest to OB teams was Gearhouse Broadcast, which showcased its new HD OBLite. The unit is an incredibly compact little truck that fitted neatly onto the stand, such is the succinctness of its design. It features full HD capability and servers, cameras and routers from companies like Hitachi, Harris, Ross and Telex.
Despite its well-equipped interior, the custom trailer can house an eight-person production and operation crew.

One company that really impressed the RFV team was Vualto, which showcased its new webcasting platform. The solution provides a multiple state player that can be used to deliver seamlessly to multiple devices.
Vualto's software enables the client to cut away from the live stream and control what the user is seeing; including holding pages or information regarding delays or pauses.
The setup is easy-to-use and visually simplistic, which is necessary given the company's targeting of UK councils for the live broadcast and archiving of meetings.
Vualto was also on hand to present its own seminar coverage over the three-day exhibition, filming a selection of the seminar sessions taking place across the eight lecture theatres.

Roland Systems Group debuted its VR-3EX AV Mixer to the UK market, along with its VR-50HD HD Multi Format AV Mixer.
VR-3EX mixer incorporates a video switcher, audio mixer, touchscreen preview monitor and streaming-ready USB output in a single unit. It offers four HDMI inputs, two HDMI outputs, built-in scaling, resolutions up to 1080p and WUXGA and HDCP support. It also features an 18-channel digital audio mixer with effects and over 200 video transitions and effects.
The VR-50HD combines an audio mixer to mix the audio inputs from sources, a video mixer to mix video and computer sources and the ability to record, archive and live-stream an event online.
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