Tiny but Mighty: Why the Makito X1 Rugged is a Perfect Fit for the Media and Entertainment Industry

When we released the Makito X1 Rugged we knew it would be an instant hit with defense and ISR users. The fact that it was extremely small, lightweight, low power but powerful, and able to withstand even the most extreme conditions ensured its successful deployment amongst thousands of mission-critical video applications. What we hadn’t quite anticipated was how successful the Makito X1 Rugged would be as a reliable video encoding solution for the media and entertainment industry.

Compact, Quiet, and Energy Efficient

Its small size, roughly the size of a deck of cards, makes it ideal for encoding video from places where space, load, and power consumption are at a premium. Its ruggedized and weatherized design enables it to be used for capturing live video in extreme conditions. Fanless, the Makito X1 Rugged is also completely silent making it ideal for use in tight quarters such as commentary booths where noise has to be kept at a minimum. Its low power consumption, only 5.5 watts, makes it the perfect choice for portable applications such as travel packs and airborne platforms. With all of these advantages in mind, it’s no wonder that the Makito X1 Rugged has found its place among all sorts of video production and television broadcast workflows.

New Features for Broadcasters

In order to better cater to filmmakers, news gatherers, and sports broadcasters, we’ve added some important and exciting new features in our recent Makito X1 Rugged software update.

Pristine Quality Video

The new Makito X1 Rugged broadcast features include support for the 10-bit BT.2020 (or Rec. 2020) wide color gamut which greatly widens the number of colors that can be encoded from 16.78 million with 8-bit (rec. 709) to over 1 billion.

With 10-bit color and broadcasters in mind, we’ve gone a step further and added high dynamic range (HDR) encoding to the Makito X1 Rugged. As with the Makito X4, the Makito X1 Rugged now supports PQ and HLG for HDR in addition to standard dynamic range (SDR). This means that the Makito X1 Rugged can encode from an HDR camera and include the PQ or HLG transfer function signaling needed for HDR workflows. Once decoded, Makito X1 Rugged video streams with PQ can then be processed by HDR broadcast production systems that then add the required metadata needed for HDR10 and Dolby vision, while HLG can be viewed without metadata unless converted to PQ.

Synchronized for Cloud

As more and more broadcasters rely on cloud-based live production solutions, such as Grass Valley’s AAMP, we’ve also added the ability to choose between UTC and SMPTE 12M timecodes. This enables syncing of multiple streams from multiple sources based on the timecode generated by the Makito X1 Rugged as well as the Makito X4.

Increased Reliability

Other new broadcast features for the Makito X1 Rugged include hitless failover, the ability to stream a single video source over redundant network paths for uninterrupted streaming. Haivision EMS has also been updated to enable remote control of streams generated from a Makito X1 Rugged.

With all of these broadcast features now available for the Makito X1 Rugged, we are seeing some interesting use for film production, news gathering, and extreme sports coverage. One example is the specialized equipment rental company, Team5 Aerial, which is using Makito X1 encoders aboard helicopters for providing live video assist streams to film directors on the ground making big budget blockbuster movies for major Hollywood Studios.

From Team5 manager Ryan Ruel: “In the brief time that Team5 has been using Haivision solutions on our shoots, we have already moved past proving reliability. Our clients have been super impressed with the quality that we are delivering on set. As a company, we are very excited about where this solution will take our business in the future.”

The low latency of the Makito X1 Rugged makes it possible for sports commentators and broadcast engineers to react to incoming video streams in real-time. The OEM board version of the Makito X1 can also be integrated as part of a portable kit for streaming broadcast video, whether it be live interviews, field reporting, or remote events coverage. The possibilities are endless.