Avid’s enhancements to Avid | Stream IO ingest and playout for broadcast production include higher channel count, playlist building, closed captioning and new codec support.
Avid’s new enhancements to the Avid | Stream IO ingest and playout software for broadcast production include higher channel count, playlist building, closed captioning and new codec support.
Avid | Stream IO’s channel count has doubled to improve performance, and now supports up to eight channels in a single system, increasing the existing four channel configuration available since launch and reducing the overall cost per channel. Users can configure inputs and outputs as required.
Easing Live Production
Broadcast content production teams are now able to build media playlists ready for playback during production directly from the Avid | Stream IO web remote console. Well-suited to manual operation, this feature also maintains business continuity by running as a back-up should studio playback automation be unavailable for any reason, allowing programs to stay on air.
Tim Claman, Chief Product Officer at Avid, said, “The enhancements in this new release of Avid | Stream IO aim to help Avid users stay ahead of the increasing demand to speed up delivery and raise the quality of live content – news, sports and entertainment.”
Edit while capture workflow
Avid | Stream IO now supports closed captioning on playout with this release. Teams have the option to preserve and include closed captions on both ingest and playout – an essential content accessibility requirement. Increased codec support is also now available, extending to AVC-LongG12 and 25 formats.
Since the introduction of Avid | Stream IO in August 2023, various broadcasters – including BQ Prime (BloombergQuint) and RÚV in Iceland – have adopted and used its continuous stream of ingest and playout developments. The Avid | Stream IO platform runs on COTS hardware and is available through subscription.
FastServe Opportunities
Combined with the Avid FastServe family of video server hardware, Avid | Stream IO opens various options for media content producers planning to upgrade from their existing Avid AirSpeed systems. Dispersed creative teams can use FastServe | Ingest to access, log and edit incoming media as it is captured, encoding up to four UHD streams or up to eight HD streams simultaneously from in-studio cameras, satellite feeds and other input sources.
FastServe | Playout integrates into Avid’s news playout environments, MediaCentral and iNEWS. With its Send to Playback engine, playout can proceed while media is transferred from timeline to server. Meanwhile, users control video, image and motion graphics playout from one place.
FastServe | Playout
With a flexible architecture that can be configured to ingest or play out SDI streams today, and various IP-based formats in the future, production teams can start out with on Avid | Stream IO using legacy, on-premises workflows, and then migrate to cloud and IP workflows at their own pace. It also allows them to work more efficiently by combining different ingest sources in a single configuration.
Already prepared for live entertainment and multi-camera productions, Avid | Stream IO supports all common production formats including SDI – compressed IP streams SRT / RTMP are coming soon, while NDI and then SMPTE 2110 will follow later in 2024. www.avid.com
