Media Without Bounds: Grass Valley Group Unveils New Digital Media Solutions, Internet-Related Capabilities

—Broad-Based Effort Enables Content Creators to Access, Create, Manipulate, Query, Distribute Digital Assets Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere—

NEVADA CITY, Calif., Jan. 27, 2000 — As the on-air and online worlds continue their convergence, the Grass Valley Group today announced Media Without Bound™, a broad-based effort to enable broadcasters and video professionals to access, create, manipulate, query, and distribute digital assets across any media, at anytime, and from anywhere. To that end, the company rolled out its first hardware and software solutions of the millennium, unveiled new Internet-related capabilities, and detailed how its initiative will help content creators leverage the burgeoning opportunities made possible by the exploding bandwidth of an increasingly networked world.

As a digital media leader, the Grass Valley Group works with preeminent content producers worldwide, ranging from ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and CNN in the United States to BBC, BskyB, TV4, SVT (Swedish Television), NOB (Nederlands Omroepproduktie Bedrijf NV) in Europe, and China Central (China), Star TV (India), Tokyo Broadcasting (Japan), and the Seven Network (Australia) in the Pacific Region.

Present at today's announcement were representatives from a range of companies focused on helping content creators leverage new digital technologies and distribution pipelines. They included The Associated Press (New York, N.Y.) and Avstar Systems LLC (Madison, Wis.), both market leaders in newsroom computing systems; Dolby Laboratories (San Francisco, Calif.), the world leader in both analog and digital film sound; and Media DVX (New York, N.Y.), whose store and forward technology enables the digital, electronic distribution of television commercials and other video content throughout the U.S. television industry.

"The next century of broadcasting will be defined by digicasting: the ability to create high-caliber content that can be easily re-purposed for delivery via any transmission network, protocol, or output format," said Tim Thorsteinson, president and chief operating officer of the Grass Valley Group. "We're focused on bringing together the right applications with our platforms and distribution products to provide for these needs. In addition, we are focusing on streamlining the production work flow to enable material to move from high-resolution production formats to those suitable for new distribution channels."

Thorsteinson continued, "Today, efforts to leverage content using new delivery mechanisms such as the World Wide Web are fraught with delays due to an over-reliance on manual processes and a lack of proper tools and standards. With a wealth of software technology and more broadcast content playing off our super-networked Profile XP Media Platform than any other video server, the Grass Valley Group is in an ideal position to eliminate these barriers."

Announcements Reflect Simple Precept: Freedom Of Choice

The idea of Media Without Bounds is based on a belief that content creators need the freedom to access, create, and distribute content whether they are in the same building or across the world, and that niggling technological details should not limit that freedom.

"Media without bounds means no format boundaries, no resolution boundaries, no protocol boundaries, no geographical boundaries," said Thorsteinson.

To that end, the Grass Valley Group's initiative relies on three core components that encompass all facets of content creation and distribution: Media Software, which enables widespread media access and centralized device monitoring and control; Media Connectivity, which bridges the worlds of traditional video routing and standard computer networks; and Media Platforms, which provide video storage, production, and manipulation while supporting multiple formats and resolutions and providing the open architecture necessary to meet both the current and future needs of content creators and distributors.

Media Software

Continuing to build its repertoire of video software, the Grass Valley Group today released ContentShare™ Explorer 1.0, a browser-like application that makes accessing and managing storehouses of digital media assets as easy as using the World Wide Web. Leveraging open, Internet-based technologies, ContentShare Explorer 1.0, which ships with the Profile^® XP Media Platform, is extensible to a wide range of storage devices, enabling users to find assets no matter where they may be housed. The source code for the ContentShare platform, upon which ContentShare Explorer 1.0 is based, is available to all developers, enabling them to create new asset-management tools or extend the asset-management capabilities of their own applications.

The Grass Valley Group also announced the availability of NetCentral™ software, an SNMP-based application that addresses the total cost of facilities ownership by centralizing the monitoring of Profile XP Media Platform/video servers and related systems.

Media Connectivity

The Grass Valley Group announced a series of initiatives that reinforce the capabilities of its signal-management systems and their router and modular lines. Leveraging off-the-shelf microprocessor and networking technologies, these initiatives will dramatically boost the scalability of the Grass Valley Group's routers while simultaneously slashing their control-panel costs. Adding to the most flexible signal routers in the market, the company unveiled a host of new, SNMP-compliant modular products that simplify signal conversion and distribution in today's digital plants.

As for the Grass Valley Group's networking solutions, the digital media company was the first in the industry to provide, high-speed intra-facility networking and WAN connectivity. Today, it announced that it is making a significant investment to bridge the worlds of traditional video routing and computer networks.

"We have the most comprehensive line of traditional video routing as well as video networking solutions," said thorsteinson. "Going forward, it won't be enough to be the best in these two areas. But we believe we have the technology to greatly simplify the support and control of these hybrid networks from a user's perspective. The result will be greater freedom for our customers to access the materials they need."

Media Platforms

The Grass Valley Group's Profile XP Media Platform offers the most robust software technology and the flexibility to support myriad digital formats from one platform. Today, the company announced a new series of hardware and software technologies for the platform that will lower the cost of content creation and increase its quality throughout the distribution chain. Those announcements included a technology preview of the company's MPEG Transport Stream (MTS) option for the Profile XP Media Platform (see "Grass Valley Group Previews MTS, SDTI Technologies for More Powerful Media Platforms, Media Connectivity," dated Jan. 27, 2000). The company expects to ship upgrades to add an MTS interface to its Profile XP Media Platform later this year.

The Grass Valley Group also showcased ongoing work to deliver interoperable solutions with VTR formats, including a demonstration of an SDTI-CP (content package) with Sony MPEG recorders.

Long-Standing Recognition Of Internet Importance Guides Developments

Guiding the software, hardware, and technology developments of the Media Without Bounds initiative is the Grass Valley Group's long-standing recognition of the Internet as the foundation for entirely new commercial enterprises, and that true freedom for content providers means leveraging their work across new, developing, and as-yet unseen markets built upon Internet-related technologies.

Demonstrating the power of Media Without Bounds, the company today previewed the WebAble Internet publishing solution. WebAble is a suite of software tools that allow Web publishers to locate, access, and manipulate their media assets (video, audio, and metadata), design Web pages with a host of standards-based tools, and publish to the Web with the push of a button. The company's highly networked Profile XP Media Platform and ContentShare Internet-based software platform for media access and management are at the core of the WebAble solution.

The Grass Valley Group is a privately held digital broadcast and video company at the forefront of the transition to digital transmission and video content production and has more than $2 billion of equipment installed worldwide. Whether it's distributing video over the air, through digital broadcast facilities and across standard data networks, or providing the industry's best video storage and production products, the Grass Valley Group has the digital solutions for the world's media markets. Its product lines include the Emmy award-winning Profile digital video server, Emmy-award winning Grass Valley™ switchers, and Grass Valley router and modular lines.

For the latest Grass Valley Group product information, see www.grassvalleygroup.com.

# #