Continuing to support professionals looking to cost-effectively achieve their postproduction goals, Grass Valley is introducing a new HD/SD-SDI output card for its EDIUS editing software that gives editors high-quality video and audio monitoring capability at an affordable price point. The new Grass Valley HDSPARK Pro is a PCI Express-based card that helps streamline HD editing workflows by providing constant full-resolution, full-quality monitor output directly from the EDIUS timeline.

The new Grass Valley HDSPARK Pro card is targeted at the most demanding video professional, high-end postproduction facility and broadcast production operation.

Professionals working within a file-based, networked environment often don’t need to ingest baseband video or audio, but still want to preview projects at the same quality level as the final, delivered output. The HDSPARK Pro hardware card provides the means to do this.

Based on the PCI Express (PCIe) form factor and fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems, HDSPARK Pro comes with a full version of Grass Valley’s EDIUS nonlinear editing software. It also features both AES/EBU digital and unbalanced analog audio outputs (via separate BNC connector and stereo RCA jacks, respectively), for high-quality audio monitoring.

“HDSPARK Pro supports the increasing number of video professionals who are using tapeless acquisition and simply need to see their projects output in real-time, using HD-SDI or SD-SDI monitors,” said Jeff Rosica, Senior Vice President of Grass Valley. “Grass Valley’s extensive experience in ADVC technology ensures that the audio and video are perfectly in sync at all times during editing. We’re making this technology accessible to a wider range of users and the best part is that the full version of our EDIUS nonlinear software is already included.”

HDTHUNDER, which will also be on display at IBC, is a PCIe board that features I/O support for HD/SD SDI signals, sync input (via robust BNC terminals), HDMI output and RS-422 remote control. An optional board adds independent timecode (LTC) in and a sync generator function.

Both HDSPARK Pro and HDTHUNDER are part of the next generation of Grass Valley’s digital editing peripherals family that streamline HD editing workflows and provide constant full-resolution, full-quality output from the EDIUS timeline.

Price and Availability
The cost for the HDSPARK Pro board is $999 (including EDIUS 5.1 software), while HDTHUNDER is listed at $2,499 (including EDIUS software). The optional timecode/sync generation board is $799. All three are available now.