KAIROS is an IT/IP Platform for live production that gives professionals the ability to deliver rich content for broadcast, large screen displays and live streams. KAIROS adds ST 2110 to its standard baseband and streaming connectivity for input/output flexibility that pairs perfectly with the content creation flexibility of its GPU/CPU processing.  User will see an intuitive layer-based interface, and powerful content creation with a quick learning curve, says NETGEAR.

NETGEAR M4250, M4300, M4350 and M4500 series managed switches are unique in the industry with an AV-oriented interface. Removing all the complex menus filled with arduous IT network jargon, the NETGEAR AV OS provides a AV-friendly, template-based approach to switch configurations, says NETGEAR. This streamlined workflow enables broadcast and Pro AV integrators and installers to dive right into projects with the confidence that all the network settings are correct for their desired workflow. This eliminates the steep learning curve and cumbersome setup normally associated with network switch configurations.

NETGEAR M4350 Series Integrates with Panasonic KAIROS

The M4350 series incorporates this simplicity into enterprise-class hardware with redundant power supplies, Power over Ethernet (PoE), up to 90W per port, ultra-quiet fans and easy setup managed by the NETGEAR Engage Controller. The NETGEAR AV OS contains pre-configured profiles for all major audio, video, and lighting protocols including: AVB, Dante, AES67, NDI4/NDI5, NVX, AMX, Q-SYS, ZeeVee, Aurora Multimedia, Kramer, Atlona, LibAV, Visionary, SDVoE and others. SMPTE ST 2110 is supported on the VSM4320C (copper) and XSM4344C (fiber) M4350 models with 10G to 100G ports and PTP synchronization.

“NETGEAR has pioneered an easy configuration process to help Broadcast Pro AV engineers migrate from legacy workflows to IP workflows with more confidence,” says Tod Musgrave, senior broadcast BDM at NETGEAR. “There is no better platform to prove our interop capabilities than the Panasonic KAIROS system.”

“We are pleased to announce that we have added NETGEAR as our KAIROS alliance partner,” says Kageyuki (Kenny) Fujimoto, lead manager of KAIROS Alliance Partners. “We believe that the user-friendly design of the M4350 series with its template-based configurations will open up new opportunities for SMPTE ST 2110 in the video production market through our collaboration.”

Shop and compare the latest NETGEAR solutions on our sister-site AV-iQ here.

Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site Commercial Integrator on February 13, 2024. It has since been updated for My TechDecisions’ audience.

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The pandemic has changed people’s relationship with video in both their professional lives and their personal lives. With in-person gatherings becoming fewer, organizations have turned to videoconferencing to optimize collaboration and pick up the non-verbal cues that ensure effective communication. But beyond meetings, continuing enhancements of video-production technology have made it easier for more people in organizations to create their own video deliverables.

User-Generated Content

As a result, we have seen a rise in user-generated content within organizations, and this content supports a wide array of objectives. These include external-engagement initiatives that leverage compelling video for marketing and sales. They also include internal communications activities that are designed for onboarding, training and career development. This video activity has significantly added to the amount of information that enterprise networks must carry.

These factors are creating new pressures on IT staff, who have already struggled to keep up with a rising deluge of structured, unstructured and, now, Internet of Things (IoT) data. A recent survey revealed that most data centers currently utilize 60% of their resources solely for video processing. The flood of video traffic can hamper how other day-to-day business applications access enterprise technologies.

According to VITEC’s BTR-100 survey, 93% of enterprise technology executives report the need for capacity upgrades to meet end-user demand for video. This trend raises questions about how this bandwidth-intensive workload category can be deployed efficiently without swamping enterprise resources.

As organizations become increasingly dependent on video applications to achieve mission-critical objectives, sustained success will depend on technology developers and implementers’ ability to build on underlying standards that support interoperability. This will require business and technology leaders to reconsider the role that video plays in generating important outcomes, while assessing the impact that ever-increasing video traffic will have on enterprise infrastructure.

Opportunities for Innovation

One of the key opportunities to improve performance, while reducing the impact on IT resources, is to limit the number of channels used to distribute video to different users. For instance, organizations can save on bandwidth if they can stream each channel once, regardless of the number of viewers. IP multicast streaming technology delivers on this value proposition. It makes it easier to deliver live, on-demand video — up to 4K — to an unlimited number of endpoints across multiple sites. In addition to preserving bandwidth, IPTV multicast technology provides reliable and energy-efficient power consumption per channel.

Another innovation opportunity revolves around deploying technologies that can scale from both a cost and a performance perspective. One of the major benefits of IPTV technology is that it can scale to support any number of channels with high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) compression technologies. Properly deployed, it can support 4K ultra-HD and multiple end-user devices without compromising system performance, flexibility or network availability.

Security Remains Vital

Although security is always important, it is especially vital in the enterprise, where critical content is increasingly produced in video formats. The good news is that strong standards, such as high-bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP), have emerged to protect video traffic from source to display.

Integrating live TV streams from a wide range of sources (e.g., terrestrial, satellite, IP or cable, internal channels) will also be critical to optimizing the distribution of video across the enterprise. It’s important to understand how the content is distributed across heterogeneous networks — wired local-area networks (LANs), wireless LANs and wide-area networks (WANs), as well as the internet and mobile devices.

In short, although standards are in place to support a variety of discrete functions and are constantly evolving, the ability to mix and match these standards intuitively within integrated solutions is where the biggest innovation opportunities lie.

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In absence of tradeshows, sales team summits, all-hands meetings, in-person training and product demonstrations, and face-to-face client meetings, video has become the tip of the spear for marketing, training, branding, sales and employee relations.

This elevated emphasis on video communications is here to stay. Not only is hybrid and remote work a persistent reality, but the past two years have seen video communication platforms, including virtual events, livestreams via YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and snackable marketing content on TikTok and Instagram Reels rise in prominence.

Video production has become a non-optional corporate messaging activity. This shift was perhaps inevitable, but it couldn’t be coming at a better time for corporate technology managers around the video production industry, costs, technological hurdles, access to expertise, and other barriers to entry are crashing down.

Video Production on the Rise

In the past, in-house video production has often been a matter of “champagne wishes, beer budget.” Executives may have wanted broadcast-quality content, but they weren’t necessarily willing to pay for a large video production crew with multiple camera operators for every shoot.

See Related: What is NDI?

They were also limited by locality; an enterprise might be able to outfit one broadcast studio and video production suite, but multiple spaces or mobile capabilities were a tall ask. Many larger enterprises wound up with a tiered system: high-quality production capabilities in one or two spaces, very basic video conferencing or capture capabilities in others.

Over the next year or two, I expect the rollout of remote production protocols like NDI Bridge and Medialooks to bring a sea of change, allowing enterprises to dramatically increase the quality and quantity of their video communications without spending millions on staff and gear.

Locality Production Issues are Over 

Remote production technology breaks the traditional workflow of video production where a producer must be alongside the camera or in a half-million-dollar production suite to capture and edit broadcast-quality content.

Using network-connected robotic cameras, producers will be able to control a production or live stream, switching between cameras and presets, activating tally lights so the subject knows which camera is live, tracking subjects, and adding production effects, from anywhere.

And I do mean anywhere. The producer could be in an enterprise’s video production suite if they have one, operating cameras anywhere in the world – or they could be at home, working on a standard PC.

The locality issue is over: even in locations with terrible internet, like a tradeshow floor, producers will have the ability to push content via NDI Bridge to a second location with stronger internet and livestream from there. Conferences, sales meetings and all-hands events will be able to capture and livestream content without having to build out a production suite on-site – a potential six figure per-event savings.

Affordable Remote Production Technology

More sophisticated and affordable capture technology is making remote production even more plausible. Cameras with auto-framing or auto-tracking capabilities give a remote producer moving shot options without needing to manually change the camera’s position.

Control devices and joysticks with programmable camera groups and presets make it quick and easy to call up the right shot. More affordable tally lights systems, compatible with PTZ cameras, help talent know where to look even if there’s no one else in the room. Programmable macros allow a producer to call synchronized effects – lights, camera, action – with a single button push.

These remote video production capabilities will facilitate expertise sharing among the passionate and highly collaborative video production community.

With the rise of “anyone, anywhere,” video production, fledgling content producers will be able to reach out to already active message boards, Discord channels, and social communities for not just tips and best practices, but direct collaboration. This technology will unlock peer-to-peer learning in a globally dispersed group of people who got into video during the pandemic, and are now on a path to becoming video pros.

The quality of video content no longer needs to depend so heavy on where it’s captured. With network-connected robotic cameras and remote production capabilities, technology managers will soon be able to enable any room to act as a studio. With the ability to apply video production expertise from anywhere to any space, corporate video communications can graduate from “good enough,” to “great.”

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