Las Vegas – April 17th, 2016: Croatel, an independent production and playout facility service provider based in Zagreb, Croatia, will take successful delivery of a 4K-ready OB truck this Spring to broadcast stunning live action throughout the busy upcoming Summer of high profile sports events. Working with AVC, a Sony Professional Solution Specialist also based in Zagreb, Croatel has selected a combination of OLED monitors and a 4K/IP Ready switcher at the heart of its truck, enabling it to produce in 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR).

For the past 20 years Croatel has specialized in OB truck production of sports events across Eastern Europe and the Adriatic region. By selecting an XVS-8000 multi-format video switcher from Sony as part of its new UHD OB truck, Croatel is able to meet growing customer demand for 4K and HDR production capabilities, future-proofing its investment as broadcasters continuously look to differentiate their live sports programming. The switcher’s multi-format support – which spans UHD, 1080/50P (Level A, Level B), HD, 24P, 25P, 50i and 720P – and compatibility with SDI and IP connections provides Croatel with complete flexibility to incorporate different vendor equipment to meet the demands of any given project.
​ The truck has six Sony PVM-A170 17-inch OLED monitors and one BVM-X300 30-inch Trimaster ELTM 4K OLED reference monitor.
​ By combining with the XVS-8000 switcher, Croatel’s operators will be able to multi-task across two panels – one as a main control panel for cutting programmes, and the second as a sub-control panel for working on slow motion and additional effects.
​Game-changing image quality coupled with complete IP interoperability

The IP-enabled switcher incorporate Sony’s Networked Media Interface (NMI), a standards framework that underpins the seven ‘planes’ of live production interoperability as identified by the EBU: media transport, timing, identity, discovery & registration, flow control, flow switching and compression. From an Audio and Video mapping perspective, NMI supports 4K and HDR media transport in a way that SMPTE 2022-6 – the industry standard otherwise touted as the ‘solution’ to IP interoperability – does not. To date 48 vendors have joined the NMI alliance, providing customers with the peace of mind that all legacy and future technology investments will be truly compatible as they migrate to IP.

“We’ve chosen to switch to Sony as we evolve our OB business to meet customer demand for 4K and HDR imaging, having worked with other live production vendors in the past,” said Tonko Barac, Managing Director of Croatel. “As we shift towards increasingly data-intensive live productions we need support from a vendor that not only offers technology leadership, but which truly understands the operational pressures our OB teams face. By working with Sony and AVC we have this level of partnership, while retaining the freedom to incorporate compatible equipment from other manufacturers now and in the future, however we see fit.”
​ “OB facilities like Croatel are looking for flexibility to add higher frame rates, higher dynamic range and higher resolutions to their live productions, but need to ensure the chosen solution can support and streamline their production workflow. We’re pleased that our XVS-8000 Production Switcher and BVM-X300 are at the core of Croatel’s new truck, meaning it’s ready for 4K and HDR today, and open for incorporating future broadcast innovations such as IP tomorrow,” said Norbert Paquet, Strategic Marketing Manager for Sony Professional Solutions Europe.
​ NAB attendees can visit the Sony stand for a working demonstration of Sony’s 4K, HDR & IP Live production systems and to learn more about Sony’s industry-wide approach to IP Live interoperability and standardisation.

For more details on Sony’s ground-breaking imaging, IP and workflow solutions please visit pro.sony.eu.