Nomura Banks on AJA To Support ToolsOnAir Installation

KONA and Ki Pro integrated with ToolsOnAir

Global investment bank Nomura International relies on its ability to share critical, time-sensitive data with its vast network of traders to stay ahead of trends in worldwide financial markets. Following its acquisition of the London operations of Lehman Brothers in 2008, in 2010, the company consolidated both businesses into a new site and built a new, full-scale, state-of-the-art HD broadcast production facility. The installation enables daily analyst briefings to be distributed to a wide range of internal clients on every available communication platform, from audio/video conferences to IPTV, webcasts and broadcast channels such as BBC, Bloomberg and CNBC.

Nomura built the facility as part of a massive 120 million pound renovation of a 500,000 square foot building on the banks of the River Thames in The City of London, and chose ToolsOnAir as its media production and distribution platform. To handle a range of ingest and playout tasks for its all-digital workflow, Nomura relies heavily on AJA KONA cards and Ki Pro tapeless video recording devices.

“There is no way we could have deployed such a complex, high-quality, automated system without AJA products,” said Neil Anderson. His company, valued added reseller and broadcast systems integrator NMR, worked closely with AV consultants Mark Johnson Consulting to design and implement the entirely tapeless, all Apple-based, ToolsOnAir HD broadcast production solution at Nomura.

The infrastructure includes ten HD cameras used to conduct interviews from the trading floor and daily analyst interviews from conference rooms. Feeds from those cameras are recorded live, projects are edited on the fly and HD graphics are overlaid in real time for distribution to multiple platforms. In addition to the broadcast production studio, Nomura also has a 200-seat auditorium equipped with four broadcast cameras to record major financial events with ToolsOnAir’s LiveCut EDL recording system.

Nomura uses ToolsOnAir’s multi-ingest recording solution, Just:In, to capture the ISO HD cameras in the auditorium, while an AJA Ki Pro records the line cut from the on-set vision mixer, as an independent backup solution. During editing, AJA KONA LHe cards handle video I/O for two Final Cut Pro systems, and KONA 3 cards provide HD-SDI output of live video, intercut with pre-made content, and real-time animated HD graphics created with ToolsOnAir’s Just:Live real-time graphics application. KONA 3 cards are also integrated into the Just:Play application, an automated scheduling and HD channel playout system, for Nomura’s IPTV network.

About ToolsOnAir
ToolsOnAir is a media production and distribution platform. It provides powerful, intuitive QuickTime-based applications that create a professional, fully functional broadcast production facility using Mac OS X and low-cost, off-the-shelf hardware components. The ToolsOnAir Just: suite is designed with live broadcast production in mind, integrating video, audio and graphics, along with automation, asset management and multiple format capabilities. Full QuickTime and Final Cut compatibility eliminates time-intensive file conversion, and a powerful, intuitive GUI streamlines the workflow from ingest to playout.

About AJA Ki Pro
AJA Ki Pro is a portable, rugged tapeless video recording device that records high-quality Apple ProRes 422 QuickTime files onto computer-friendly media. Because it features SD/HD-SDI, HDMI, and analog inputs, users can interface with virtually any type of camera. Ki Pro’s numerous simultaneous outputs enable flexible monitoring, connecting to both professional and consumer monitors. Intuitive to operate, Ki Pro’s familiar VTR-like buttons provide immediate controls for basic operation. From a distance, users can control operations with a laptop or iPhone web browser via Ethernet or wireless connection. Ki Pro records to removable storage modules including a 250GB hard disk drive (standard), optional 500GB drive, or optional 128GB or 256GB SSD storage modules. When removed, the storage module functions as a standard bus-powered FireWire 800 drive, enabling instant media playback and editing.

About AJA KONA
The KONA family is AJA’s line of 10-bit uncompressed capture and playback cards for video and audio input and output. KONA 3G is AJA’s card for supporting Autodesk Smoke for Mac, featuring 10-bit uncompressed video 3G/HD/SD I/O, HDMI 1.4a output for high quality monitoring, configurable SDI I/O mapping, 16-channel AES digital audio I/O and 16-channel SDI embedded audio I/O, realtime hardware-based conversion to support a range of SD and HD, dual-link HD, even 2K formats, a hardware downstream keyer and more.

About AJA Video Systems, Inc.
Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of high-quality and cost-effective digital video interface, conversion, acquisition and desktop solutions supporting the professional broadcast and post- production markets. With headquarters in Grass Valley, California, AJA maintains an extensive sales channel of dealers and systems integrators around the world. For further information visit www.aja.com.