Image Matters Adds Flexibility to the Transition to Cloud-IP from SDI

#thenewscompany : “The transition to Cloud-IP from SDI continues to rock with HDMI now added to the Pro-AV mix. Our unique modular products safeguard OEM’s, helping Broadcasters and AV facilities leverage whatever technology will eventually win” – Jean-François Nivart, Image Matters CEO.

Image Matters is proud to announce at NAB 2017 (booth C8629) the launch of their B21 Carrier Board aimed at OEM Broadcast and Pro-AV applications. Combined with the B20 ORIGAMI™ module, the B21 is a low profile high performance PCIe board made to handle high resolution video with extreme connectivity.

The B20’s modular business card form factor, low power and high end 20nm Xilinx FPGA is the perfect platform to host advanced video codecs. The B20’s Z-Ray high density connector reliably exposes the FPGA’s core functionality to further simplify development, empowering system architects to rapidly design their own carrier board and deliver high speed video applications quicker to market.

Thanks to Image Matters taking care of the processing hardware for high-resolution video, integrators and solution designers can focus on their core activity of developing next generation AV products.

Sub-frame latency multiple channels of different codecs is easily achieved in a tiny, ready to ship module. Up to 8K120p can be achieved on a single B20 with TICO compression, or up to 4K60p with HEVC or JPEG2000.
Concerning Broadcast and Pro-AV media connectivity, the B21 carrier board is populated with 3 SFP+ cages, for flexible I/Os. HD-3G-6G-12G SDI, HDMI, 10G Ethernet are available on SFP inserts for any of the 3 available cages.

OEM manufacturers can quickly take a product to market at competitive costs due to the agility and connectivity of the B21 and B20 combination. The B21 provides immediate connectivity for 10G Ethernet, HDMI and SDI, allowing OEM’s to focus on developing solutions knowing the underlying hardware is solid and extremely reliable.

The B20’s Xilinx Kintex Ultrascale 060 FPGA provides high speed transcoding and processing of codecs up to 8K-UHD-2 uncompressed and TICO formats, as well as 4K-UHD-1 uncompressed, TICO, JPEG2000, HEVC IP, AVC and MPEG2 formats.

Consuming only 25W of power with customizable heat dissipation, low power solutions can be easily delivered, and the B21 and B20 combination can provide a stand-alone product that is used in any environment and space sensitive location.

Future proofing is key for OEM’s and their clients. With the industry constantly changing and the next technology direction still emerging, Broadcasters and AV facilities must have confidence in upgrade paths, and OEM’s must cover their development time and costs. As technology continuously evolves, new IP-Cores will be designed to address formats we haven’t even thought of yet. Image Matters unique modular approach will guarantee future-proofing as new emerging IP-Cores and more demanding applications will run on the B20’s Xilinx Kintex Ultrascale 060 FPGA.

The B20 module and B21 carrier board are interconnected through the Z-Ray Z2-50 interposer. The latter offers a high-density connection with a huge bandwidth of 26 Gb per second per pin. The Z2-50 includes 32 serial connections and 160 discrete digital connections. The Z-Ray allows connection of any carrier board like the B21 and any custom OEM designed carrier boards. These specialized boards and solutions perfectly fit every application in an affordable, reliable and fast way.
Indeed, the complexity of a new design is taken care of by the processing module. All that is left to do for the system designer is define the form factor and I/Os of the carrier board, and route the tracks.

Combined with the B20, the B21 has made streaming into the cloud viable and simple. Traditionally serving the domain of high end servers and workstations, Image Matters has now provided all the resources needed to receive, transcode and deliver video signals over any network.

Data analytics deliver important information for remote monitoring, and both the Broadcast and Pro-AV applications benefit from the combination of the B21 and a big Xilinx Kintex FPGA.

The Internet of Things is an established technology for the Pro-AV market and is fast making its way into professional infrastructures. Centralized management control allows one AV technician to manage an entire fleet of equipment without even leaving a room. The possibility to combine an ARM processor and FPGA fabric provides the ideal platform to interface with third party monitoring applications – improving integration and operability of solutions.

With high speed video processing, remote configuration and control, the B21 and B20 combination empowers OEM’s to deliver solutions they could only have ever previously dreamed of.

More information about this and any other Image Matters products is available at http://image.matters.pro or by phone at +32 495 23 00 08.

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About Image Matters

Image Matters provides unique FPGA video processing modules to accelerate image transcoding and save time in (post)production, distribution and archiving. Image Matters advanced video boards manipulate multiple video codecs as JPEG2000, TICO, HEVC and MPEG to provide the highest image quality. Ready for High Frame Rate, High Dynamic Range, Wide Color Gamut and Stereoscopic-3D, Image Matters powerful cost-effective new PCB delivers superior quality and affordable high-end image processing for OEMs.

Image Matters is a member of the Origami Ecosystem, a unique off-the-shelf modular hardware product range and software toolkit delivering customized multi-channel HD, UHD, 4K and 8K products. For more information on Image Matters and its products, go to http://image.matters.pro/