Avid has announced the latest announcements to its Avid Stream IO software subscription platform for broadcast production ingest and playout, including additional channel count, playlist building, closed captioning and new codec support.
To improve performance, Avid Stream IO’s channel count has doubled to now support up to eight channels in a single system, with the flexibility to configure inputs and outputs freely. This is in addition to the existing four channel configuration available since launch.
Enabling eight channels in a single solution delivers greater value to customers by reducing the overall cost per channel.
Alongside the increased channel count, content teams are now able to build media playlists ready for playback during production directly from the Avid Stream IO web remote console. Ideal for manual operation, this also offers a solution for business continuity by providing a back-up should studio playback automation be unavailable for any reason, meaning shows can stay on air in the event of such a failure.
With this release, Avid Stream IO now supports closed captioning on playout, giving teams the option to preserve and include closed captions on both ingest and playout — an essential content accessibility requirement. Increased codec support is also available, with AVC-LongG12 and 25 formats added.
Tim Claman, Chief Product Officer at Avid, explained, “The enhancements in this new release of Avid Stream IO are part of our drive to enable Avid customers to stay ahead of the increasing demand to accelerate the delivery of quality news, sports and live entertainment content.”
With a flexible architecture that can be configured to ingest or play out SDI streams today and in the future various IP-based formats, Avid Stream IO allows production teams to migrate from legacy workflows and on-premises deployment to cloud and IP workflows at their own pace. It also allows them to increase efficiency by combining different ingest sources in a single configuration.
Avid Stream IO supports all common production formats, including SDI. Compressed IP streams SRT / RTMP are coming soon, while NDI and then SMPTE 2110 will follow later next year.