Ideas Unlimited.tv Extends Compliance Recording Capabilities

Leading content tracking and verification specialist ideas Ideas Unlimited.tv is launching new and enhanced capabilities at IBC 2009.
The new applications add capacity and automation integration, offer content archiving and introduce a new entry-level version of the recorder.
The Content Probe from Ideas Unlimited.tv is designed as a highly reliable, long term recorder of compressed content to capture the entire output of a channel, over a period of three or six months. Because of its high level of resilience, it is widely accepted as a legal compliance recorder.
It is supplied with a desktop tool which allows the recording to be searched by date and time to confirm what was actually transmitted at any historical point.
IBC 2009 sees a new version of the Content Probe, which offers four channel recording in a single device, with inputs as composite video, SDI and HD. As well as being an effective standalone device, IBC will also see it demonstrated integrated into the iTX automation system from Omnibus.
As standard, Content Probe checks for video faults such as frozen output, black or blue screen, and silence or tone.
In the Omnibus version this fault detection will cause the Content Probe to trigger a switch from main to standby iTX to maintain the channel output. In any event, the fault will be noted in both the Content Probe and the iTX logs.
A new option for Content Probe allows it to automatically manage the archiving of compliance recordings beyond the capacity of the device itself. Recordings which have reached the end of their allotted time span on the device can be transferred onto any suitable archive medium, which could be a corporate data server network.
Once archived, the content is still accessible by the search tools, and can be reviewed and checked just as if its was still stored directly on the appropriate Content Probe.
The final new product launch at IBC is the Ideas Unlimited.tv MRF monitoring recorder. This is aimed at unregulated markets which do not require a guaranteed recording for legal compliance purposes, but where the broadcaster wants to maintain a local recording for monitoring and technical checks.
By eliminating the redundant components which give the Content Probe its extremely high reliability, the MRF can deliver similar functionality at approximately 40% lower cost.
Glyn Powell-Evans, Director of Ideas Unlimited.tv, explained: "We spend a lot of time talking to our users and the industry, and it was very clear that there were refinements to our systems which would make them even more valuable.
"Providing a link to the Omnibus iTX system adds value to both, by giving a simple means of detecting problems and managing failovers.
"We also saw that broadcasters valued the ability to make a continuous output recording, even when it was not a legal requirement, and to archive it beyond the time regulations determined it should be kept. Our customers requested this functionality and we were delighted to add it."
Ideas Unlimited.tv is exhibiting at IBC 2009 at the Omnibus Stand 8.C97.
(KMcA/BMcC)