Headquartered in Osaka, Japan, Asahi Television Broadcasting Corporation
 (ATBC) has broadcast live TV and radio programming to the Kansai region since 1964. For production and post, the station uses a wide variety of AJA gear, including Io XT Thunderbolt™ equipped audio/video I/O boxes, KONA 4 desktop capture/playback cards, Io 4K Thunderbolt 2 equipped audio/video I/O solutions and several AJA Mini-Converters. 

When upgrading its edit suites with the latest Apple® Mac Pro®, ATBC introduced Io XT into its post workflow. 25 Io XTs currently power I/O for ATBC production and post, from the evening news to sports programming.

“A stable editing environment is necessary for the success of any content creation, and having used AJA KONA cards and other gear for many years, we knew that the Io XT wouldn’t disappoint. It’s been a reliable audio/video I/O device that gives our editors more flexibility,” shared Satoshi Yamamura, Technology Bureau Production Technology Center, ATBC. “Whether Io XT, KONA 4 or Hi5, our AJA kit withstands the test of time, so when we need new equipment, there’s no reason to look elsewhere.” 

Footage for most of ATBC’s programming is shot using SONY XDCAMs or GoPros attached to drones. It is then copied to a shared storage system and captured with CATDV via Io XTs, and encoded to ProRes 422 simultaneously. Recordings are made available on an Mac Pro running Apple Final Cut Pro® and Io XT. For “NETTOH KOSHIEN,” a popular TV program following the summer National High School Baseball Championship games that ATBC produces in collaboration with TV Asahi, live camera outputs are sent from the stadium via line connection and ingested directly into shared storage as ProRes LT. Edit suites housing Apple Final Cut Pro and Io XT are then used to cut the material. “Io XT makes it easy for our production staff to make simultaneous edits to footage and see the edits across nine screens,” shared Yamamura.

KONA 4 and Io 4K were introduced into ATBC’s pipeline when the station began preparations to upgrade to 4K/UltraHD a few years ago. Io 4K is currently used by ATBC’s development department, primarily for capture and playout for 4K tests. AJA Hi5 Mini-Converters also serve various SDI to HDMI conversion needs across the facility. 

About AJA Video Systems, Inc.
Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of video interface technologies, converters, digital video recording solutions and professional cameras, bringing high quality, cost effective products to the professional broadcast, video and postproduction markets. AJA products are designed and assembled at our facilities in Grass Valley, California, and sold through an extensive sales channel of resellers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website at www.aja.com.