Tektronix will introduce the WVR600 series of rasterizers at NAB, offering the smaller size that the company says video professionals are requesting in monitoring devices.
A rasterizer is a waveform monitor—except that it doesn't have the monitor part and thus is available in a 1RU size. It is connected via VGA to the user's choice of monitor, and, according to Tom Tucker, Tektronix video marketing manager, Americas region, can accommodate anything from flat-panel monitors to projectors, suiting all applications.
A particularly useful aspect of the system, according to Tucker, is the FlexVu display, which gives the user four quadrants to display different views of an incoming signal and makes it easier for a technician to debug problems. And any of the four quadrants can be displayed at full-screen at the push of a button.
"Users can configure them any way they want," he says. "That's important because someone in broadcast may want to set it up differently than someone in post-production. This makes it more useful and applicable to more needs."
Another feature is three types of gamut monitoring: Diamond, showing how a component signal fits into a legal RGB color space; Split Diamond, used for clearer resolution of Black gamut errors, and Arrowhead, used to show how a component SD signal fits into a legal composite color space.
Also new is audio-monitoring capability for the WFM700 waveform monitor. "We're introducing a plug-in board that upgrades the WFM700 so it can monitor up to eight channels of audio plus HD and SD video in a single box," says Tucker.
Firmware enhancements to the WFM700 add six new capabilities, including status display and alarm. "With the alarm feature, customers can configure the systems the way they want, eliminating the need for an engineer to sit in front of a product and stare at a display all day long."
Pricing for the WFM700 upgrades starts at $2,995, for the WVR600 at $5,995.
