The Business Case for Ultrix Acuity

Aaron Char — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 17:30:11 +0000

To understand the economics of Ultrix Acuity, it’s useful to start with your mobile phone – or rather, your mobile phone, camera, MP3 player and a handheld game console. In short, it’s not a phone, it’s multiple devices rolled into one. In a previous blog post, we introduced the Software-Defined Production Engine (SDPE) in Ultrix Acuity. A platform that, like your smartphone, has multiple capabilities. And just as a smartphone costs less than separate standalone devices, deploying Ultrix Acuity will result in both capital and operational cost savings. Let’s look at how Ultrix Acuity can help drive costs down and add value to your productions.

Strategic

Change is constant, and it’s vital that organisations respond swiftly to change with minimal disruptions. But without a functioning crystal ball, there is a limit to anticipating the future.

So, although Ultrix Acuity is by no means “future-proof”, it does provide organizations with the agility to adapt dynamically. Its 12G architecture reduces the uncertainty of meeting future creative or technical requirements, and because it’s a software-defined platform, new functionality or enhanced features can be easily added without costly “forklift” upgrades.

Reduced CapEx

While some market segments are shifting spending from CapEx to OpEx, wholly-owned, on-prem equipment does provide a level of security and peace of mind. Ultrix Acuity provides base hardware that can grow with simple, cost-effective software licenses. Have your production needs grown to require additional multiviewers? Instead of purchasing stand-alone multiviewers that require multiple router outputs and then spending time and resources on cabling, simply activate an Ultrix Acuity multiviewer software license. Done. Our software licenses can be activated at a moment’s notice.

Besides multiviewers, Ultrix Acuity’s software-defined features also include HD/UHD frame synchronisers and an audio mixer, all of which are internal to the frame. Most significantly, Ultrix Acuity can become one node of a larger distributed production environment, which drastically reduces the incremental CapEx cost.

Lower OpEx

It is estimated that if traditional hardware is used in place of Ultrix Acuity, it would occupy at least 5 full-sized racks of equipment. Deploying Ultrix Acuity could easily save over US$10,000* just in electricity costs alone! And that doesn’t include the cost of cooling, rack space and the thousands of cables that would be required to connect all those separate devices.

* Cost savings are estimated based on the average cost of electricity in the United States in January 2021.

On the manpower front, engineering teams will spend less time on deployment and troubleshooting. Because it uses the same control surface as Acuity, operators that are already familiar with the switcher will continue to mostly work as they always have, thus lowering the cost of training and ramp-up time normally associated with new hardware. In fact, over its lifetime, Ultrix Acuity could potentially pay for itself just in OpEx savings alone.

Opportunity Cost – Adding Value

Not only does Ultrix Acuity significantly lower CapEx and OpEx, it dramatically alters the way organisations strategize their production needs and procurement roadmap. The SDPE blade at the core of Ultrix Acuity reduces the challenge of ensuring that equipment can address current and future production needs, and allows teams to focus on solving business problems that can move the organisation forward. That added value is unique to Ultrix Acuity.

Considering the reduced CapEx and OpEx costs and the reduced environmental impact of a smaller, less power-hungry system, the economics of Ultrix Acuity simply make sense. And since the Software-Defined Production Engine continues to innovate and grow, Ultrix Acuity is the platform that keeps on giving!

Learn More

To learn More about Ultrix Acuity, visit our product page.