Cobalt Digital Receives Trifecta of Awards at NAB 2024

	These additions bring Cobalt's total to 53 awards earned over 27 years.

Cobalt Digital has tipped the scales with another three awards presented at NAB 2024. The designer and manufacturer of award-winning edge devices for live video production and master control, and a founding partner in the openGear initiative received two 2024 NAB Show Product of the Year awards as well as a Best of Show presented by TV Tech. These additions bring Cobalt's total to 53 awards earned over 27 years and include a Technology & Engineering Emmy along with honors and accolades from the industry's premiere publications and organizations.

The 2024 NAB Show Product of the Year Awards is the official awards program that recognizes some of the most significant and promising new products and technologies showcased by exhibitors at NAB. Winners were selected by a panel of industry experts in 15 categories and announced in a live awards ceremony at NAB Show on April 16.

The COBALT ARIA AUD4-DANTE was selected as a winner in the Create category, which includes Audio Production, Processing and Networking. The COBALT ARIA OG-AUD4-DANTE, a DANTE card in openGear form factor, offers quad-channel units with up to 12G DANTE/AES/MADI/Embed and De-Embed functions with Frame Sync capabilities. The card features two gigabit Ethernet ports, a 64x64 configuration, and a full audio router mixer.

The COBALT PACIFIC ULL-DEC was tapped as a winner in the Remote Production category. The PACIFIC ULL-DEC is an openGear card capable of decoding H.262 (MPEG-2), H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC) and 4K with less than 10 milliseconds of latency (for properly encoded streams). The card can either decode one stream up to 4K, or two streams up to 3G and supports an extensive set of audio CODECs and network protocols, including RIST.

"NAB Show is the ultimate marketplace showcasing the latest trends and technology spanning creation, distribution and monetization in the broadcast, media and entertainment industry," says senior vice president and chief customer success officer Eric Trabb, NAB Global Connections and Events. "Congratulations to Cobalt Digital for winning two prestigious 2024 NAB Show Product of the Year Awards, a testament to the groundbreaking innovation embodied in both these products. Their profound impact on the content lifecycle underscores their pivotal role in empowering storytellers to navigate present challenges and embrace the opportunities of tomorrow."

Cobalt also took home a Best of Show 2024 award at NAB in the TV Tech category for its PACIFIC 9992-ENC-INDIGO. Hundreds of entries were reviewed by a panel of industry experts, speakers and editors, and awards recognized the very best products and solutions on display. Criteria included how diverse and comprehensive the product's features are; ease-of-use; how it integrates with other products; and how innovative and unique it is within the market.

The COBALT PACIFIC 9992-ENC-INDIGO is Cobalt's new factory installed SMPTE ST 2110 option for a software definable encoding platform in the existing PACIFIC 9992-ENC openGear card. This option supports up to 4 inputs at 3G and lower resolutions, or one input at 4K resolution, with full NMOS support. Each encoder channel can be individually configured for SDI or ST 2110 operation. This platform is capable of handling up to 4 channels of 1080p encoding with additional +AVC licenses. The +AVC licenses can be upgraded to HEVC with the +HEVC license. The combination of the award-winning PACIFIC 9992-ENC with the ST 2110 input interface option creates a very powerful integrated solution that can be directly deployed in a ST 2110 facility for local encoding, low-latency transport over the Internet using RIST, or to drive a traditional ASI workflow, without having to deploy separate gateway devices. The ability to mix traditional SDI and ST 2110 feeds in the same device and support for IPMX provides even greater flexibility, the company says.

The awards' editorial team have said that "we had to bring our largest team of judges to this year's show to keep up with the record number of entries, this just highlights how fiercely competitive the awards are and how difficult it can be to stand out at a show like NAB." They continued to say "every winner should be immensely proud of their achievement, the quality throughout the field was extremely impressive and all our judges left the show full of praise for the entrants they visited. Well done to all our Best of Show 2024 winners at NAB!"

"We're thrilled to add another three awards to our collection from these prestigious organizations," says Suzana Brady, svp worldwide marketing and sales. "We are constantly adding tools to our platform that not only keep our customers competitive in the present but prepare them for success in the future. We're delighted that our efforts are acknowledged and rewarded by industry experts!"