Imagine Communications and NEP UK are working to boost sports coverage

Kneipp UK Installing SNPs on four of the largest external broadcast trucks, in order to provide a seamless automated workflow for delivering 4K, UHD, HD, Standard (SDR) and High Dynamic Range (HDR) signals.

NEP UK provides facilities for the UK’s leading sports broadcasters, and is increasingly offering UHD coverage as an option to subscribers. At the same time, they must maintain the highest possible quality of HD output to serve the majority of viewers.

We adopted the use of a SNP as a high-density signal transduction driver. Given the narrow confines of an outdoor broadcast truck, we really appreciate that we can get eight channels of UHD conversion at just 1RU, and that includes signal format conversion, as well as SDR-HDR conversion. We set the SNPs and forget them – they work just fine, take up little shelf space, use less power, and provide the full range of HD, UHD, SDR, and HDR output we need. Chris Cannon, Director of Technical Operations for NEP UK.

SNP is a software-defined SDI and IP signal processing device. Each 1RU contains four independent processing blocks, each of which can adopt software defined characters. The applications are available in individual licenses, so users can select the exact functionality they need and reconfigure their SNPs as the tasks require, making them particularly suitable for external broadcast work. NEP UK has requested a range of licenses to convert signal formats including HD, 3G and 4K, as well as convert dynamic range between SDR, HLG, PQ and Slog3.

“The SNP is an incredibly scalable platform, to which new functionality continues to be added,” he said. Matthias Eckert, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EMEA, Asia Pacific, Imagine Communications.

Because it’s so compact and flexible, it’s ideal for outdoor broadcast operators like NEP, who need to be able to reconfigure their trucks on site, day in and day out, as they navigate various sports and entertainment productions. In the long term, software-based SNP design ensures rapid adoption of future requirements, for example 8K video. We have a wonderful partnership with NEP and welcome this additional extension of their SNP certification.