Gee Broadcast, the UK company that has been supplying the broadcast industry for more than 16 years, has introduced a new entry level server solution, Geevs Lite.
Geevs Lite provides full clip capture, management and playout functions. These can be under control from the standard Geevs V4 Windows UI, via network control, triggered by GPIs or using Sony RS-422 VTR protocol.
Built on the success of the Geevs V4 multichannel Server technology Geevs Lite provides a single channel solution at a lower cost but still with all the resilience and facilities offered by the underlying Geevs V4 technology.
Geevs Lite is a single channel solution which can insert logos over clips or provide a simultaneous picture and key out.
The Windows User Interface provides clip capture either with VTR control or with simple crash record. Recording can be for a fixed duration or open ended. The network control feature allows the User Interface to be run on a remote PC over a standard ethernet network.
Playback of selected clips can also be controlled by GPI. For example, one GPI will load and cue a clip and another GPI will play it. This allows clip playback to be simply integrated with other events such as Vision Mixer transitions. The Grass Valley Peripheral Bus protocol is also supported for direct Vision Mixer control.
In addition, according to the manufacturer, Geevs Lite provides a virtual tape mode for VTR play back emulation. Clips can be dragged and dropped into a “virtual tape”, time codes within the tape can be adjusted and the tape then “loaded”. Sony RS-422 protocol VTR control of the playback is then available with all the advantages of a disk based system with very fast cues to any point.
Clips can consist of Picture or Picture and Key with up to 4 audio tracks. Signal I/O can be Analogue Composite or Component video and Analogue audio or optionally SDI video and AES/EBU audio.
Media is stored with MJPEG compression at quality levels up to 1.4:1 or DV25/50 or MPEG2 at up to 50 mbits. Storage is provided with standard SCSI drives providing from 30 minutes to over 100 hours capacity. Clips may also be imported by network transfer from compatible systems.
Typical applications for Geevs Lite are VTR replacement, Automated or Remote Controlled Clip Playout, Live Clip Playout, Time delay etc.