Arbalest Earns Applause, Orders at NAB 2006

System Now Includes Support for All Current Distribution Formats: HD, SD and More

East Petersburg, PA, May5, 2006 – Kudos from every corner of the broadcast television community have been received by Sigma Electronics with the NAB 2006 showing of its Arbalest digital audio-to-video synchronization system.

Following the NAB 2005 proof-of-concept demonstration of the Arbalest equipment, which earned best-of-show awards from both Broadcast Engineering and TV Technology trade magazines, the introduction of the production model at NAB 2006 in Las Vegas earned high marks for the innovative system.

“Quite literally, we received worldwide congratulations from every corner of the broadcast community,” said Bill Swilley, president of Sigma Electronics. “In my 30 years in broadcasting technology, I have never seen such universal acclaim for a single product.”

A number of major communications organizations are currently vying to be the first to bring the Arbalest system on line, Swilley noted. The company expects to announce its first customers shortly. Systems will be ready for delivery by June 1.

Arbalest systems provide flawless recovery from synchronization errors created by divergent video and audio transmission paths. Uniquely, it captures an exact frame-by-frame “fingerprint” of a live broadcast, and enables that “fingerprint” to stay with the transmission all the way to the final local transmission point. Having an Arbalest unit at the reception point rectifies any misalignment of the audio or video during transmission by satellite or landline feeds. The system works equally well in broadcasting and streaming media environments.

In its production model, the Arbalest system processes multiple simultaneous multi-format feeds. Available video formats include high definition and standard definition; audio formats include AES audio, Dolby E and AC3.

Arbalest automatically detects and compensates any transmission delay (+/- 5 seconds) between a video signal and a corresponding audio. The process is totally transparent to viewers, and uses a patent-pending processing system that is absolutely transparent/non-destructive to the video and audio, and accurately identifies the time relationship between video and audio signals.