Sony & GE a healthy relationship that brings image quality to Arab Health 2005

A 20 minute high definition (HD) quality program featuring the highlights of Arab Health has been televised on a daily basis throughout the duration of the show every morning at three locations in Dubai; the Holiday Inn, Grand Hyatt and the Shangri-la.

GE wanted to share with customers their latest technology offering for the medical industry as well as highlights of the show on a daily basis through visual means. As a result, GE joined forces with Sony B&P who created an integrated end-to-end solution combining Sony, Digital Rapids, MVS and Canopus technologies to achieve a first. This is the first time that HD is used to show the results of a day's show. It's an example of how HD can be taken to the standard screen with no compromises on image quality.

"We wanted to televise a daily GE 'News Bulletin' that features the highlights of the show to a standard synonymous with GE," said John O'Connell, CT Modality Business Manager, GE Healthcare. "Image quality is paramount for us and who better to ensure that we deliver on this, than Sony, a company that understands our needs and expectations and went beyond them. With the Sony team we have effectively put in place a unique system that enables us to communicate with delegates including our customers who are attending the show."

"Both GE & Sony share a common objective, to provide users with high quality imaging. It is imperative within the Medical industry to have extremely accurate images, given importance of a surgeon's work and emphasis on fast decision-making based on solid and reliable information. This was the objective that we set out to achieve for GE, the result is a customized integrated and highly scalable solution that meets and indeed exceeds our customer's objectives," said David Castle, Marketing Manager, HD, Sony B&P. "This latest venture, one of its kind presents a great opportunity for GE in communicating their imaging solutions to a wider audience in an innovative way. At the same time, this is an opportunity for Sony to convey the unique functionalities of this integrated solution to the medical profession. Sony's goal is to establish HD as the working standard across vertical industries including the medical industry."

The customized technology was designed and built specifically for this GE activity and is a first for the region and globally, with the final broadcasted program comprising of a digital file converted directly from Sony High Definition HDCAM format - bringing Cinema quality to the standard TV screen.

The integrated solution combines Sony's leading XPRI (non-linear editing system) and VTR systems, Digital Rapids HD Server - a newly launched product that converts files in tape format to smaller digital files that are PC compatible and Edius, from a Canopus which mixes HDV, HDCAM and Standard DV formats into a universal format. With this solution, users are able to edit HDCAM, HDV and Standard DV files simultaneously, for the first time and convert to a universal format. Combined high-end Video & Graphic files are now a possibility. The Sony team involved in this project includes industry experts David Castle, Sunil Krishnani, Dave Shapton and Darren Mostyn with support from Peter Davies, The Eyes Production.

This unique Sony solution can be scaled down or up to meet the communication needs for any vertical industry no matter what their budget is without compromising on image quality.