NewTek shocks NAB with Calibar!

NewTek’s concentration on LightWave 5.5 may have left many Video Toaster and Flyer users feeling left out in the cold at the recent NAB 1997 show. The truth is, however, that the best product at NAB was for Toaster/Flyer users. Best product? Yes and there is proof to back it up. NewTek beat out hundreds of other companies this year by winning the prestigious and coveted award of "NAB Editors Pick of the Show for Advancement in the Art & Science of Television Broadcast".

So what is this product that had the industry buzzing at NAB to the point that NewTek had a separate booth just to display it? The answer is Calibar, a test generator the size of a ball point pen that helps you properly calibrate your equipment!

Before NewTek’s NAB surprise, accurate test generators were approximately the size of a VCR with price tags around $15,000. NewTek, working under the strictest veil of secrecy, changed all that with the $349 Calibar that fits in a shirt pocket and operates on a battery you can buy at Radio Shack! If that’s not enough, the $349 price tag also includes an accessory kit!

The Calibar has a female BNC connection to use with your video equipment to access 24 various test patterns including color bars. While it runs on a simple battery, it also includes an AC adapter that when used with Calibar, allows it to function as a black burst generator! Such testing accuracy at an affordable price is something that television producers, video editors, and Flyer owners have only dreamed of before NewTek introduced it.

"Until now, TV engineers had to drag around rackmount or lunchbox-sized test pattern generation units that cost from many hundreds to thousands of dollars, "said Tim Jenison, NewTek’s Chairman and Founder, in recent press release. "With Calibar the engineers can do everything they needed these big, clunky units to do - but with a battery-operated tool that is small enough to clip onto a pocket and affordable enough for even the lowest-budget studios. It’s no exaggeration to predict that Calibar will revolutionize video signal testing."

NewTek had four fully operational pen-sized units on display and expected to have the product widely available on the marketplace in just over a month. When unveiled at a NewTek dealers meeting at NAB, people were so amazed that they started looking for other cool uses for such a unit.

"Does it come with a Phillips head?" asked one of the dealers.

Another person wanted to know if it would have a red laser-light like most pen-sized pointers.

Jokes aside, everyone was totally amazed as the cheers for Calibar were even louder than those for LightWave 5.5. The product is expected to be a heavy seller. Having completed Calibar, NewTek’s research and development staff has once again gone behind closed doors to make another one of Tim Jenison’s mastermind ideas a reality. What that product is will be a secret sought by many.