By Michael Burns The Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera, which takes a full spherical panorama when airborne, is aiming to make an impact in Hall 8 – but is thankfully well-padded. To use, the operator simply throws the ball shaped camera into the air. At the peak of its flight, 36 mobile phone camera
modules capture a full panoramic image instantaneously. The foam-padded ball-shaped enclosure also contains an accelerometer, which is used to measure launch acceleration. After catching the ball camera, pictures are downloaded in seconds using USB. Developer Jonas Pfeil explained: “The images that make up the panorama are taken simultaneously while the camera is suspended in mid-air.
Every direction is covered – even up and down – and the single images are combined into a panoramic picture afterwards.”
“The camera is easy to transport, requires no set-up and is extremely intuitive to use,” continued Pfeil. “Conventional techniques for capturing panoramic images have either a low resolution or cannot be used with moving subjects.” 8.G29
Olympic-class encoders, decoders Sapec
By Ian McMurray
The high definition encoders and decoders used by RTVE (Spanish National Television) for its coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games were supplied by Sapec, a Spanish company specialising in solutions for the transmission of video and audio signals.
Sapec supplied Altum equipment, the second generation of its multiformat (H.264/MPEG-2) encoders and decoders. Altum units are HD MPEG-2 and H.264 encoders and decoders and support the 4:2:2 profile with low delay in both MPEG-2 and H.264.
The Altum models deployed by RTVE included the AHE 1210 encoder / AHD
1210 decoder, which support MP@HL and 422P@HL profiles in MPEG-2 HD and the AHE 6210 encoder / AHD 6210 decoder, which support MP@HL y 422P@HL profiles in MPEG-2 HD and Hi422P@L4, HP@L4 and MP@L4 profiles in H.264 HD. The audio and video interfaces of the Altum units are completely digital: one
HD-SDI/SDI port and, for audio, four or eight SDI embedded channels and two or four AES/EBU channels. The units supplied were equipped with four stereo pairs.
In terms of transport interfaces, Altum units have one or two IP ports, and, optionally, DVB-ASI (two output ports in encoders and one input port and loop output in decoders). The units supplied featured two IP ports and DVB-ASI.
In London there was one link between the International Broadcast Centre and one studio. For this link, Sapec supplied 12 Altum encoders and 16 Altum decoders. Similarly, RTVE established links between the IBC in London and both Barcelona and Madrid, with the link to Madrid being the main one and the one with Barcelona the back-up. Sapec supplied 14 encoders and 14 decoders for this. 1.F21
Sunday 09.09.2012 35
It’s round, it’s green, and lots of angles can be seen
Your Content. Anywhere.
Wherever your content is: in the cloud, in your own facility or on the other side of the planet, Aspera software enables access, ingest, sharing, transformation, storage, delivery and distribution at maximum speed, without restrictions.
With their unique, patented faspTM transport
technology, high-speed data transfer and automation solutions from Aspera power the world’s most complex, global media workflows.