Distribution
Cobalt Digital’s new IP focused products awarded at IBC2024
AMSTERDAM: Cobalt Digital, the designer and manufacturer of award-winning edge devices for live video production and master control, and a founding partner in the openGear® initiative brought innovative solutions to IBC designed to streamline a path to IP and was rewarded with two best of show awards.
The two winners were tapped as exceptional standouts in Cobalt’s stand that was crowded with ground-breaking, IP focused products. The Cobalt UltraBlue IP-MV multiviewer won best of show in the TVB Europe category, and the Indigo OG-21100-Bidi4-Gateway took home the same honour in the TV Tech one.
The awards recognise the very best media and broadcast technology products and solutions on display at IBC2024, with hundreds of products and solutions considered. All entries were reviewed by a panel of industry experts and editors at the Rai. Factors taken into account include how diverse and comprehensive the product’s features are; how easy it is to use and how it integrates with other products; how well it solves a problem for the user; and how innovative and unique it is within the market.
The new Cobalt UltraBlue IP-MV multiviewer can be provided as a turnkey solution with four HDMI heads, or as a software package to run on customer-supplied dedicated hardware, delivering maximum flexibility. Features include support for receiving audio/video content over IP across a variety of protocols and formats with very flexible audio routing, bringing a multitude of options to suit every application.
Winner in the TV Tech category and a member of the company’s Indigo platform, the Cobalt ® Indigo OG-2110-Bidi4-Gateway has native SMPTE ST 2110 support in an openGear® format card with dual 25G ethernet interfaces for ST 2022-7 support. The card is a bidirectional quad channel native ST 2110 interface to SDI I/O, and the transmit and receive paths of the gateway can operate simultaneously. The gateway also includes support for IS-04/IS-05 NMOS for automatic discovery and configuration.
“We are so grateful to both TVB Europe and TV Tech for these enormous honors,” said Cobalt Digital senior vice-president of worldwide sales & marketing Suzana Brady. “Our products are all developed to accommodate the requirements of our customers, and IP is a predominant factor during all our conversations, so we know we hit the mark with our lineup. But it is also reassuring to know that the journalists and judges that review and evaluate all the new technology in the industry acknowledged our products as some of the best on the entire show floor.”
The awards’ editorial team said that “IBC2024 has been busier than ever this year, with over 1,300 companies showcasing their latest innovations. Our awards followed suit with this popularity and more were entered than ever before.. judging and winner selections were extremely difficult this year, feedback from our judges confirmed that the standard across the board was incredible. To all those companies who have won, you can be truly proud of your company’s achievements in standing out amongst the crowd at IBC2024.”
New Delhi: Prasar Bharati has thrown open applications for fresh capacity on DD Free Dish, signalling a timely opportunity for broadcasters looking to expand reach without long-term lock-ins. The public service broadcaster has issued a dual notice for its 95th and 96th online e-auctions, aimed at filling vacant MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 slots on a pro-rata basis for February and March 2026.
The two auctions are tentatively scheduled to begin on January 27, with allotments valid from February 1, 2026. Applications for both auctions close on January 21 at 3 pm, giving channels a narrow window to get their bids in.
The 95th e-auction will cover vacant MPEG-2 slots, while the 96th will focus on MPEG-4 capacity. Participation is limited to satellite television channels holding valid downlinking and uplinking permissions from the ministry of information and broadcasting. International public broadcasters cleared by the ministry are also eligible.
As with previous rounds, channels have been grouped into buckets based on genre and language, with sharply differentiated reserve prices reflecting reach and demand.
For the MPEG-2 auction, Hindi and Urdu general entertainment channels sit at the top of the pile. The starting reserve price for bucket A+ in the first round is Rs 2,63,48,000. Movie, music and sports channels in Hindi and Urdu follow in bucket A at Rs 2,10,14,000. Bhojpuri channels and other Hindi and Urdu genres, excluding devotional content, fall under bucket B with a reserve of Rs 1,78,62,000. Hindi and Urdu news channels in bucket C start at Rs 1,33,27,000, while bucket D, which includes regional language channels, English news and devotional or spiritual channels, begins at Rs 1,13,96,000.
The MPEG-4 auction comes in at a far leaner price point. News and current affairs channels in Hindi, English or pan-India languages, grouped under bucket G1, start at Rs 13,41,000. Non-news genres under bucket G2 have a reserve of Rs 8,80,000. Regional languages such as Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati in bucket R2 begin at Rs 4,84,000. Southern language channels in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, grouped under bucket R1, start at Rs 81,000, the same reserve price set for other scheduled 8 regional languages in bucket R3.
Prasar Bharati has underlined that compliance will be closely watched. Broadcasters must ensure that at least 75 per cent of their monthly programming, excluding advertisements, aligns with the declared genre and language. Any deviation could trigger show-cause notices or even removal from the DD Free Dish platform.
For channels chasing reach in a crowded market, the message is clear. The window is brief, the prices are set and the audience is waiting. On DD Free Dish, visibility still comes cheap, but only for those ready to move fast.
