Snell ties screens and more together

Much new stuff on the way from Snell at the RAI as ever, but two demonstrations – the Kahuna 360 and the Morpheus/Screentoo are the ones that really stand out for the sports market.
Kahuna 360 is, of course, the multiformat (including 1080p) production switcher that the company bills as breaking away from the tradition of fixed M/Es and supporting many simultaneous productions from a single frame. The Morpheus/Screentoo “second screen” application, meanwhile, allows media and broadcast organisations to distribute and monetise their branded applications to iPad tablets and other mobile platforms, and thus will find itself no doubt rather surrounded on the show floor.
Meanwhile, on the router side of things, Snell has leveraged its technical expertise to integrate and optimise audio functionality within its Sirius 800 Series large-scale multi-format routers. Support for embedded audio routing and for audio track swapping on inputs and outputs allow users to route any combination of embedded, discrete, and MADI sources and destinations. The Sirius 800 Series’ re-assignable firmware eliminates the need for external modular cards and, as well as saving space and power, Sirius 800 routers give users the flexibility to configure the type and amount of functionality they need — now and in the future — at the right price.
And being launched for the first time at IBC2011, Snell’s new router control configuration tool Centra Vite is an intuitive solution for fast setup and immediate router use as desired. A Web control panel ensures out-of-the-box operation, and an external snapshot application saves the live status of all or a selection of routes and later recalls those settings. Free with Snell routers, Centra Vite offers a straightforward upgrade path to Snell’s powerful Centra system-wide control and monitoring system without compromising existing user interfaces and fundamental operation.