Friday, January 13, 2012

LiveU LU40i - Mobile Broadcasting takes a big step further

EDITED - Go to End to see changes


Mobile broadcasting got quiet a bit more versatile with the new mobile broadcast unit announced and shown off by LiveU.


Up till now most of the mobile uplink solutions which work over cellular from LiveU, Teradek, Mushroom Networks, etc have been bulky, with the smallest at least requiring a backpack size unit to be usable on the move.


The new unit , the LU40i however blows them all away when you consider what you get in such a compact package.



Now here is the Previous flagship product from LiveU, the LU60. Notice the Size of the pack. The weight of the fully loaded pack with batteries and all is if I remember correctly is around 26 pounds / 12 Kg.

Now compare it to the LU40i. It weights 1000g / 35.2oz with the 3hr battery attached.





Now we've seen the size, lets consider what you get in this package. Its a 4G LTE/3G, WiMAX device with Wi-Fi (802.11 a, b, g & n with MIMO) and LAN, supporting a total of six connections, 4 cellular along with Wifi and Ethernet. The Cellular connections are just USB modems which means that people can swap them out as needed when moving from market to market, or when new technology comes along.


It allows you to connect any camera using either HD-SDI, HDMI or Component connections (interchangeable cards) and transmit at either 1080p or 720p.


This is probably going to revolutionise mobile broadcast even more then the original pack did as now its actually possible for a single operator to carry a camera, tripod and transmitter and be able to move quickly to respond to changing situations.

In markets with good 3G and 4G coverage News organisation and independent outfits are probably going to be able to cover more then if they were tied to the traditional satellite trucks or even the briefcase transmitters as they still require you to be standing in one place.

It was possible to see it in real use at CES where the TWIT.TV team were using it for the first time. (image from LiveU)





A Quick video overview is also available from Revision3's Hak5





To Read more about it Go Here.




EDIT -


A Commentator (Alberto D) rightly pointed out that another company Aviwest Had a similar and some ways more feature rich product nearly 2 years ago called the IBIS DMNG.

I had vaguely memories of hearing about it but had misremembered the specs so did not include it earlier.

So Here is a quick look by the Pixelcore from IBC 2010


IBIS DMNG review PixelCorps @ IBC 2010 by AVIWEST









Wednesday, January 11, 2012

It's CES time again

It's that time of year when every gadget hound who can heads to Las Vegas to CES and those that can't are following the coverage online.

The coverage has kept on getting better and better each year with outlets like TWITRevision3CNET,  Pixelcorps,  etc. providing a ton of coverage.

I'll be posting short posts about what looks interesting from the show as it goes along,  which should come in handy later in the year to see what sticks and what flops.