Grass Valley Equips Engineering Labs with Tektronix Waveform Monitors, Signal Generators

World’s Premier Broadcast Solutions Supplier Taps Tektronix for Internal 3G-SDI Signal Monitoring; Also Adopts PQA500 for Picture Quality Assurance

BEAVERTON, Ore. - Tektronix, Inc., the market leader in broadcast video test, monitoring and analysis solutions, today announced that Grass Valley™ has made a significant investment in a cross section of Tektronix video monitoring and quality assurance instrumentation for use in its video equipment design and engineering labs. Grass Valley is the industry’s premier broadcast and professional solution supplier with over 3,000 active broadcast customers, and tens of thousands of professional users generating content using Grass Valley tools.

Grass Valley recently upgraded and enhanced the Beaverton, Nevada City, and Salt Lake City facilities used by its engineering groups for video servers, production switchers, routers and modular products to enable next generation technology development and to provide full 3G SDI design capabilities. Among the Tektronix instruments deployed at these facilities are WFM8300 waveform monitors, TG700 video signal generators and PQA500 picture quality analyzers.

“Staying on the leading edge of video technology requires leading edge test and monitoring tools that can handle faster and more complex digital signals,” said Martin Fry, Senior Vice President of Routing and Signal Management Solutions for Grass Valley. “Tektronix has a well-earned reputation for stepping up to handle the most demanding signal and picture quality analysis challenges. We’re confident that these new instruments will help us maximize productivity as we continue to develop our next generation of products.”

The award-winning WFM8300 series waveform monitors provide an ideal solution for video and audio monitoring under multi-format environments. The WFM8300 features the complete range of easily configurable, field-upgradeable options and comes standard with composite analog, HD/SD-SDI and Dual-Link video formats support. 3G-SDI video support can easily be added through a software-only option. There are also options available to add a variety of audio formats supports from analog to Dolby E digital audio. The WFM8300 series also features notable advances in physical layer measurements (including 3G-SDI signals), color gamut monitoring and 3D Steroscopic video testing.

The TG700 modular multi-format test signal provides video test and reference signals in a variety of analog and digital formats. Grass Valley is also using the HD3G7 module for 3G-SDI test signals and the ALG7 Analog Genlock Module that adds the capacity to lock to a variety of signals. The TG700 supports more video formats than any other signal generator, including dual link, 2K color space formats and 1080p formats.

Based on the concepts of the human vision system, the PQA500 provides a suite of repeatable, objective quality measurements that closely correspond with subjective human visual assessment. These measurements provide valuable information to engineers working to optimize video compression and recovery, and maintaining a level of common carrier and distribution transmission service to clients and viewers.

"We view Grass Valley’s use of our equipment as a testament to our products’ reliability, quality and accuracy,” said Eben Jenkins, general manager, Video Product Line, Tektronix, Inc. “The combination of our waveform monitors and signal generators will help their engineering teams bring 3G-SDI products to market in less time, and provide the fastest and most reliable means to fully characterize product performance and standards conformance. And with the PQA500 and PQA600, they can quickly and accurately evaluate picture quality without the need for costly, time-consuming human panels.”

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About Grass Valley

With a rich history serving the broadcast and professional video industries, the Grass Valley name is synonymous with innovation, leadership, and performance. With a full range of products and services supporting many of the world’s most high-profile television events, Grass Valley offers the most comprehensive portfolio of flexible and cost-effective digital technologies and systems available. Customers deploying Grass Valley solutions include most of the world’s leading broadcast and teleproduction facilities, independent video professionals, as well as emerging content creators and distributors providing broadband, telecommunications, and transmission services. When you’re watching news, sports, or entertainment programming, whether on a TV, the Web, or a mobile phone, you’re watching Grass Valley at work. For information about Grass Valley products, please visit www.grassvalley.com.

About Tektronix

For more than sixty years, engineers have turned to Tektronix for test, measurement and monitoring solutions to solve design challenges, improve productivity and dramatically reduce time to market. Tektronix is a leading supplier of test instrumentation for engineers focused on electronic design, manufacturing, and advanced technology development. Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, Tektronix serves customers worldwide and offers award-winning service and support. Stay on the leading edge at www.tektronix.com .