IBC Reflections: Hitachi Kokusai Turkey thinking out of the (OB-)BOX

IBC2015 afforded a further opportunity for Hitachi Kokusai Electric Turkey to present its OB-BOX concept, which has been developed to provide a cost-effective alternative to the traditional OB truck model. The result, says the company, is a solution that delivers “a sophisticated, fully featured and specified OB facility that generates major cost-savings and takes a fraction of the time to design, construct and ship to the customer anywhere in the world with minimum tax and import charges, and fast customs clearance.”

Already showcased at several major events, including CABSAT, OB-BOX vehicles are designed and built (with a standard chassis as the starting point) at the company’s engineering facility in Istanbul, Turkey. They offer a flexible mobile digital production environment complete with advanced digital satellite news gathering (DSNG) capabilities.

A fully configured mobile OB facility, OB-BOX includes camera outputs, Tally connection, audio outputs, intercom connections, RCPs and all necessary control connections. From SD to HD and 4K, OB-BOX supports all broadcast formats and signals, while connectivity options include fiber, satellite and Ethernet.

Three basic OB-BOX configurations provide four, eight and 12-camera production vehicles. Meanwhile, a capability known as Unit Cascading allows users to connect together two units to provide larger integrated OB facilities for major events – thereby allowing as many as 20 cameras to be supported.

Paddy Roache, director and general manager at Hitachi Kokusai Electric Europe, told SVG Europe during the show that the concept had been “receiving a huge amount of interest. I think people grasp how flexible it is and how it can be applied to so many different kinds of OB operation.”

IBC2015 also saw Hitachi highlight a number of individual products, including the SK-UHD4000 4K broadcast camera, the SK-HD1300 HDTV production camera with MOS sensors, the SK-HD1200 3G 1080p HDTV production camera, and the DK-H200 HDTV compact box camera.

“As ever, IBC is a brilliant way of showcasing our latest solutions to the industry at large,” added Roache.