The Department of Media Arts of the University of North Texas’ College of Arts and Sciences recently purchased 30 Panasonic AG-DVX200 4K large-sensor 4/3” handheld camcorders that will be used in classes including narrative, news, documentary and entertainment acquisition techniques, as well as for news production at the university’s cable television station. The Department also bought a VariCam LT 4K cinema camcorder for advanced narrative film classes.

TVU Networks has announced a new service that it says will transmit live video at a minimum speed of 2Mbps over cellular networks from anywhere as long as there is a cell connection. This service, TVU Cellular Assurance Network (CAN), is integrated with TVU’s Inverse StatMux Plus (IS+) algorithm and requires no additional hardware.

The IP Live Studio in Sony’s Digital Motion Picture Centre Europe is getting a little help from Leader, as the test and measurement technology provider announced it supplied its LV5490 4k/HD/SD waveform monitor to assist with IP-based live productions.

Cine Gear announces the recipients of the 2016 New Technologies Awards as judged by a team of impartial experts at the 2016 Expo event. The esteemed panel reviewed and evaluated nearly 100 entries to determine this year’s honorees.

Sound Devices, LLC, announces that Firmware Version 3.10 for its 6-Series line of mixer/recorders (688, 664, and 633) now offer wireless remote transport control, metadata editing and other enhanced workflow functionality via mobile devices with touchscreen interfaces. With this new release, made possible through partnerships with Timecode Systems and PureBlend Software, as well as Ambient® Recording and Lockit Network GmbH, users now have the ability to display and manage metadata for takes recorded on 6-Series mixers.

ATEME has confirmed that TF1 and M6, private national French television stations, selected ATEME to encode in 4K-UHD HEVC (H.265) eight of the football matches of a major European tournament. ATEME provided a complete video headend, which includes its encoder TITAN Live 4K, as well as all necessary resources that are required for a high-quality and fully secured service. The 4K-encoded matches will be available for Orange fibre customers via the New Livebox on any compatible TV.

Without too much fanfare, Panasonic announced a new entry level Full HD camcorder called the AG-AC30, which isn’t going to set the world afire, but it does offer a few tricks up its sleeve that some of you might find appealing to your style of shooting.

Dalet Digital Media Systems has launched its Dalet xN Standards Converter, available now through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Building off of its AmberFin technology, the Dalet xN Standards Converter brings the highest-quality motion-compensated frame-rate conversion to the cloud, making it the first truly accessible file-based standards conversion tool.

Panasonic has announced a free firmware upgrade for its VariCam 35 4K and VariCam HS camera/recorders that expands recording options and enables several operational and workflow improvements.

Cinegy today announced that ABS BROADCAST, one of the largest independently owned playout and television service providers in Europe, has installed Cinegy Air PRO, Cinegy’s latest real-time playout server and multi-channel broadcast automation software.