Ross Video: Environmental Workflow
Posted on May 5, 2024 by FEED Staff
It’s a win-win
Ross Video’s Hyperconverged Solutions offer customers the best of both worlds – efficient workflows and equipment built with the environment in mind
Sponsored editorial
‘Hyperconverged’ is an elegant word which essentially means ‘all-in-one’. For Ross Video, its Hyperconverged Solutions take the capabilities of multiple products and merge them into a single unit, simplifying production workflows and offering a slew of other benefits – sustainability chief among them.
The Ultrix platform – Ross Video’s Hyperconverged all-star – is an environmentally friendly gadget, reducing both physical waste and energy consumption. “With Hyperconverged Solutions, there’s less equipment, less power needed, it’s greener – it’s a win-win,” summarises Alun Fryer, Ross Video’s technical marketing lead for Hyperconverged Solutions.
Ultrix offers a flexible approach to materials management – in other words, “how much raw material goes in, and how much waste there is at the end of the cycle,” as per Fryer. “With that less-is-more philosophy, we’re reducing the amount of raw materials we use.”
Long live
By extending Ultrix’s life cycle, users minimise waste while reaping the product’s rewards for much longer. “It’s software-upgradable, so we can continue to make it relevant,” explains Fryer. “It’s modular, so if we get to a point where a software upgrade alone can’t meet an emerging need, we can build a new module rather than replacing the whole thing. For example, if we want to add more processing or accommodate new interfaces, we have flexibility in the platform to grow and meet those new needs. ”
In an era of rapid, continual technological growth, ‘broadcast equipment doesn’t fail; it expires,’ Fryer quotes. “I’ll point out that what we’re trying to do with Ultrix and our Hyperconverged approach is to extend that time before it expires. How can we allow somebody to install the system and keep it for as long as possible and still have it meet their production goals?”
“That software upgradability, that hardware upgradability, that flexible approach where we can put all these things into one system are extending that life considerably.”
Upgradability becomes irrelevant in the face of poor product design and shoddy engineering.
Fortunately, Ross Video designed Ultrix for its serviceability, making repairs and replacements less frustrating – and less wasteful. “The common things that break in broadcast equipment are typically fans, power supplies and anything that people touch – knobs, buttons, that sort of thing,” relays Fryer. “We make sure that those are all easily serviceable. If there’s something that has a higher likelihood of needing to be replaced, we make sure you can, so that you don’t have to end up disposing of a large piece of equipment.”
Hyperconverged Solutions play into the larger environmental focus at Ross Video.
On a corporate level, “we are motivated to incorporate greener practices into our operations,” reveals Fryer. “We look at local sourcing of materials wherever we can – dealing with local shops. Our factory’s in Ontario, Canada,” he details, recognising that although semiconductors are often only available from certain regions, Ross Video sources locally other materials like fabricated metals and packaging.
“For our packaging,” Fryer goes on, “we try to maximise replaceable materials and recyclable materials sourced from local suppliers – there’s a lot of cardboard, very little foam, very little plastic. We’re ultimately minimising what gets sent to landfill.
Ever-evolving
A relatively recent launch for Ross Video, “new additions to the Ultrix family are expanding what you can do in the Hyperconverged platform,” Fryer reveals. Specifically, “new I/O will make it fit in more places, reducing the number of extra boxes you may have had to use in the past.”
Ross Video is making Ultrix ‘more accessible’ and focusing on leveraging the ‘hyperconverged’ aspect of the product, “rather than dealing with processing and routing elements as entirely separate things.”
Despite a gradual shift towards remote production, Fryer expects Hyperconverged products to become more commonplace. “There are still situations where you may be doing a bunch of production in the cloud, but you still have cameras on-premises. You still have a studio; you still have a physical thing,” he states. Ultrix can support these hybrid environments and help broadcasters solve their production needs, he concludes.
Hyperconverged Solutions will be on display at NAB 2024. Visit Ross Video at booth SL2005.
rossvideo.com/use-cases/hyperconverged
This sponsored editorial was first published in the Spring 2024 issue of FEED.
