Grass Valley™ introduces the new T2™ Intelligent Digital Disk Recorder (iDDR), the next generation of its popular iDDR family of playout and record devices for file-based SD/HD production and A/V presentation environments.

The new T2 iDDR brings improved efficiencies for live and staged production and expanded I/O support for all of the most common production formats. This allows the new T2 to operate seamlessly within any type of tapeless or baseband environment: as a standalone device or as part of a large multi-camera production.

“The original Turbo™ iDDR was designed as a file-based VTR replacement device and it literally took the industry by storm,” said Jeff Rosica, Senior Vice President of Grass Valley. “The new T2 takes the experiences learned from the first generation and adds new features and functionality customers requested most. We now have a multi-purpose device that can do more and enables users to utilize it in ways they never could before to make their operations more productive. This has been the goal of our product engineers since the beginning.”

T2 sets a new higher picture quality standard for the professional DDR landscape. This is possible because of the internally developed HQ codec which provides up to 1920 x 1080 resolution, 4:2:2 color space, and up to 200Mbps I-frame. T2 is the ideal choice for those customers who need very high picture quality on large format screens.

T2 is a complete and self-contained SD and HD audio/video playout center, equipped with one recorder and two player channels. The front-panel transport controls are designed to look and feel very much like those of traditional VTRs and its two output channels support SD or full resolution HD (1080p24/25/30, 1080i50/60, 720p50/60) content.

The crisp, clear seven inch LCD front touchscreen (the largest in the industry for a playback device) can display high-quality images and is complemented by a software application suite for managing and selecting media clips, clip editing and trimming, and playout-including playlist creation with transition effects. The T2 can record one channel while simultaneously playing out two others in full HD. Two player channels can also be locked together for synchronized playback.

I/O types include SD/HD-SDI, DVI-I (with support of HDMI and analog component), and composite video. Each record and playback channel includes 8 channels of embedded audio, as well as 2 channels of AES/EBU and two XLR connectors. The T2 iDDR can be controlled via integrated RS- 422 ports and GPI inputs. The T2 can also exchange content at high speed over a standard gigabit Ethernet network or via removable media, such as a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) via USB, FireWire (IEEE 1394), or by using the optional 2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot.

The T2 accepts media formats created in other applications, including HQAVI, MPEG-2, QuickTime, and Windows Media Video HD files. This generous I/O support allows users to hook up a camera or projector directly into the T2 for live recording and instant playback. Pre-recorded segments can be called up immediately or added to a playlist for scheduled display.

The T2 can be used as the heart of an efficient and smooth tapeless production workflow that includes Grass Valley EDIUS® nonlinear editing software and the Grass Valley Indigo™ A/V mixer.

Pricing and Availability
The new Grass Valley T2 iDDR will be available in October 2009 with a list price starting at $12,980.