Panasonic Connect North America has announced the next generation of KAIROS, its state-of-the-art live production platform.

The release expands the KAIROS ecosystem, adding two new Core mainframes (the KC200 and KC2000), and software enhancements that will increase the platform’s scalability to support larger and more complex productions.

The proliferation of streaming workflows has challenged production teams to create more dynamic content that delivers high volumes of quality video and graphics to multiple screens, but the specific scale, budget, and production requirements may vary significantly. Panasonic Connect’s KAIROS platform is designed to scale to meet the needs of any production. The latest release will expand the ecosystem, including:

• The KC2000 will offer the most capacity yet, boasting 200% of input and output capacity compared to current Cores—along with more video processing power and a much larger 900 GB internal clip player.
• Both new Cores can support 2022-7 network redundancy when connected to two 100Gb ST 2110 networks.
• The 4RU Chassis for both the KC200 and KC2000 offer significantly reduced noise levels appropriate to run in venue or studio.

“With this release, Panasonic is demonstrating our customer-focused commitment to expand KAIROS’ already broad range of functionality,” explained Brad Rochon, KAIROS group manager.

As media and broadcast studios transition to IP and cloud workflows, they are finding themselves in need of new technology solutions to maintain efficiency. In addition to streaming workflows, KAIROS natively supports ST 2110 IP connectivity. This simplifies connections to Panasonic’s latest ST 2110 compatible cameras—the AW-UE160 PTZ and the AK-PLV100 Cinelive studio camera—allowing for much more streamlined multi-camera productions.

“KAIROS is the ideal solution for broadcast and media professionals looking to move to a next-generation IT/IP centric platform for unlimited production creativity, regardless of format or content destination,” added Rochon.

KAIROS is a live production platform developed with CPU/GPU architecture and software to maximize video processing capacity and utilization with just one frame processing delay. Deployed across a variety of productions—ranging from broadcast studios to remote production and streaming of live sports and concert events—KAIROS virtualizes traditional switcher functions and uses the innovative multi-format Agile I/O, eliminating the one-to-one input constraints of legacy SDI-only switchers, according to the company.

Panasonic Connect says it continues to work closely with its customers to innovate and evolve the platform’s capabilities, including recent announcements to develop a Cloud native version, increased third party alliances and integrations, and the release of new KAIROS software control modules. The next generation of KAIROS hardware will be shown at the 2023 NAB Show in April, with the hardware and software becoming available in the latter half of 2023.

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