ViXS announces 2nd generation Golden Reference Decoder for broadcast

Wednesday, April 8th, 2015
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ViXS Announces “GRD2” the Next-Generation Golden Reference Decoder for Broadcast Stakeholders Transitioning to UHD 4K HEVC Deployments

  • ViXS Golden Reference Decoder Gen 2 Provides Critical Enhancements and Tools Used to Validate and Enable UHD 4K 8/10 Bit Broadcast Content Distribution

TORONTO, ON — ViXS Systems Inc. (TSX: VXS), a pioneer and leader in media processing solutions, today announced the availability of the industry’s next generation Ultra High Definition (UHD) 4K HEVC Golden Reference Decoder (GRD2) tool, critical to the testing, validating, debugging and deploying of UHD 4K content for the broadcast industry. As the broadcast industry quickly transitions to HEVC and UHD 4K, a standardized reference tool is highly valuable to companies deploying any type of rich video streaming, broadcast, or UHD 4K services.

This latest UHD 4K GRD2 toolkit enables content creators, service operator technologists, encoder manufacturers, and HEVC promoters to easily decode and display broadcast content up to 4Kp60 HEVC 10-bit with full support for HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2. The Golden Reference Decoder tool will allow users to verify stream compliance, encoder quality parameters, transport multiplexing parameters, video output quality in both 8-bit and 10-bit. These key metrics are requirements to upgrade systems to support HEVC and/or 4Kp60 10-bit video across all types of networks.

Over the past year, more than fifteen different Tier-1 encoder/transcoder manufacturers, studios, content creators and service operators have taken advantage of the ViXS UHD 4K GRD to verify their broadcast content. ViXS has led the charge by both demonstrating and deploying 4K UHD technology worldwide.

“This is a direct reflection of our leadership position regarding advanced video processing capabilities,” said John Pomeroy, VP Sales, Cloud & CPE, VIXS systems Inc. “We are excited about this newest generation ViXS UHD Golden Reference Decoder now launching which will expand testing parameters, bringing additional functional capabilities to continue paving the way for a smooth and seamless transition towards UHD and HEVC network expansion.”

New Feature Highlights of the GRD2 design:

  • 4Kp60 10 bit HEVC decode and display
  • 4:2:2 output
  • HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 support
  • Additional streaming modes and expanded file handling
  • Continued support for Legacy codecs (including AVC up to 4K)
  • Simplified operation
  • Small form factor

The VIXS UHD 4K Golden Reference Decoder 2 tool will be demonstrated at NAB 2015 from April 13 to 16, 2015 in the ViXS Suite at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel and is available for order immediately, with shipment following NAB.