Unveiled at IBC2016 and now shipping, ENCO's ClipFire provides an easier and more cost-effective playout solution without sacrificing reliability and flexibility. ClipFire’s streamlined, fully-graphical user interface is optimized for high-speed, touch-screen operation, putting professional media playout right at operators’ fingertips without the need for keyboard or mouse input. The interface offers an array of active buttons, each displaying a visual thumbnail with clip information and ready to fire playback of video, audio or graphics upon a single click or tap. The result is an affordable, versatile and intuitive playback solution that doubles down on simplicity, giving operators of virtually any expertise level an uncomplicated way to quickly deliver engaging content.

ClipFire is ideal for a wide range of television and live event production applications, from studio-based news broadcasts and visual radio to concerts and sports coverage. Buttons can be assigned to play individual clips, overlay graphics, send commands to external devices, or trigger multiple clips simultaneously. Support for multiple pages and layouts enables users to customize their button setup for different productions without limiting the number of available clips.

The robust durability of the ClipFire appliance also makes it well-suited to a variety of demanding environments, including mobile production trucks, stadiums and temporary venues.

ClipFire brings additional value to users through its multi-format flexibility, offering support for SD, HD and UHD resolutions with built-in up, down and cross-conversion. Clips can be played from local storage or across a network, while native support for multiple codecs and file formats eliminates the need to transcode content before playback.

ClipFire supports video compression and container standards including H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC), MPEG-2, MOV, MP4, AVI and more, alongside audio formats such as WAV, MP3 and MP2. ClipFire appliances feature SDI, HDMI and XLR outputs, while support for NewTek’s Network Device Interface (NDI) IP technology for live production workflows enables real-time playout from ClipFire to other NDI-enabled systems over an IP network.

ClipFire also features the same intuitive and powerful library system as ENCO’s Automated Television Playout system, MOM, making it easy for users to manage their media assets. Operators can organize clips by any criteria, modify metadata, and synchronize ClipFire’s library with other ENCO solutions over a network. ENCO provides a user-programmable, bi-directional interface for integration with third-party systems, while built-in ‘as-run’ logging provides details of content playout for program and advertising tracking.

ENCO will demonstrate ClipFire alongside its other playout and automation solutions for TV and radio in at the 2017 NAB Show.