Cloud, Reliability and Conversion Top Cobalt Digital’s List of NAB 2023 Highlights
Encoding/Decoding Family Gets RIST Source Adaptation, SafeLink Gateway Goes to the Cloud and Sapphire Series Expands with JPEG-XS to SDI Card-based and Mini Converters
Champaign, IL – February 21, 2023 — Cobalt Digital, Inc. has announced its line-up for NAB and it ranges from significant enhancements to additions to its newly launched Sapphire Converter series. Cobalt, a designer and manufacturer of award-winning edge devices for live video production and master control, and a founding partner in the openGear® initiative, will show its tried and trusted 9992 ENC/DEC family enhanced with RIST Adaptive Encoding, its SafeLink Gateway as a cloud solution with redundancy features, and its new Sapphire converter series with functionality that supports ST 2110 JPEG-XS to SDI and HDMI conversion. Cobalt will be highlighting all its solutions at NAB 2023 in Central Hall, Booth C2419.
9992 ENC/DEC Family Gets RIST Adaptive Encoding
Cobalt continues to add capabilities to its award-winning software-defined family of 9992-ENC/DEC encoders/decoders that meet the evolving needs of today’s broadcast facilities. The 9992 series offers traditional broadcast features combined with advanced network options to provide a perfect solution for sports, news gathering, video contribution and affiliate distribution. At NAB 2023, the series is getting a boost of agility and reliability with the addition of RIST Source Adaptation (VSF TR-06-4 Part 1). This recently approved specification defines a protocol for the stream receiver to provide feedback information to the source to trigger an appropriate action. RIST Source Adaptation allows the 9992-ENC encoder to adapt its output data rate to match network conditions instantaneously based on feedback from the decoder. If network traffic conditions deteriorate beyond the correction capabilities of the ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest) error control and packet recovery method, the encoder reduces the bit rate without any interruption in operation. Once the network improves, the encoder automatically adjusts to the restored capacity. When combined with the Null Packet Deletion feature found in RIST Main Profile (VSF TR-06-2), the series can produce a Constant Bitrate (CBR) stream for legacy professional Integrated Receiver Decoders (IRDs.)
SafeLink Gateway in the Cloud and Redundancy Features
SafeLink 8TS-VM – SafeLink Gateway in the Cloud
Cobalt’s SafeLink Gateway that reliably transports any audio and video content over the internet with low latency is now available as a cloud instance in addition to the openGear form factor on the company’s OG-PC card. The SafeLink 8TS is ideal for cloud redundancy switching, as well as ground-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground transmission using RIST. SafeLink is compression-agnostic and can protect any type of transport stream. With up to 8 streaming sessions and each session offering up to 8 discrete transmit and 8 receive redundant (or aggregated) paths for a potential of transporting content to 64 destinations, SafeLink is ideal for providing link protection to existing encoding / decoding infrastructures. SafeLink can also support up to 8 RIST Main Profile tunnels, each of which can support any arbitrary number of streams.
SafeLink’s control is handled with Dashboard and includes support for UDP, RTP, FEC, and RIST Main Profile, with encryption and authentication. SafeLink is also available as a software license.
SafeLink Hardware Redundancy
Cobalt is also announcing the availability of 1+1 redundancy for the SafeLink Gateway. For high availability applications, it is now possible to commission a backup SafeLink, which automatically mirrors the configuration of the primary and takes over if it fails.
Sapphire Converter Series Grows
Sapphire 8JXS-8S – ST 2110 JPEG-XS to SDI Bulk Gateway
Visitors to NAB NY 2022 got a sneak peek at Cobalt’s new Sapphire converters with the promise of more to come. At NAB 2023, Cobalt is keeping that promise with the launch of Sapphire 8JXS-8S, a ST 2110 JPEG-XS to SDI bulk gateway in openGear form factor. Sapphire 8JXS-8S includes dual 25Gb/s Ethernet ports for SMPTE ST 2022-7 seamless switching and supports up to 8 SDI signals, up to 1920x1080p60. The card occupies four slots, allowing for up to five cards and 40 signal conversions in a standard openGear chassis. Like all Sapphire converters, the card includes full NMOS support for ease of configuration in addition to the standard openGear DashBoard.
Sapphire BBG-JXS-H & Sapphire BBG-2JXS-2H – ST 2110 JPEG-XS to HDMI Converter Appliance
Cobalt is also previewing an appliance in the Sapphire line for JPEG-XS to HDMI conversion. The Sapphire BBG-JXS-H & Sapphire BBG-2JXS-2H mini converters are part of Cobalt’s Blue Box Group (BBG) series developed to offer high-quality design, function, and reliability in a small package. The units are intended to be mounted behind the monitor and include single or dual 25Gb/s ports (for ST 2022-7 redundancy). Two models will be available: the Sapphire BBG-JXS-H, a single channel (one HDMI port), and Sapphire BBG-2JXS-2H, a dual-channel (two HDMI ports). The mini converters also include full NMOS support for ease of configuration.
The Sapphire 8JXS-8S card and the Sapphire BBG-JXS-H & Sapphire BBG-2JXS-2H mini converters will be previewed at NAB and available in July 2023.
