Ultimatte Newsmatte Video Compositing System Chroma Key Petro Vlahos BNC

Ultimatte Newsmatte Video Compositing System Chroma Key Petro Vlahos BNC

The Ultimatte Newsmatte is an analog hardware chroma key compositing processor designed by Petro Vlahos — the optical effects pioneer credited with developing the modern traveling matte / chroma key process. Built by Ultimatte Corp. in Reseda, California, the Newsmatte is a 1U rackmount unit that performs real-time blue/green screen compositing by electronically separating a foreground subject from a color-key background and replacing it with a live or recorded background signal. It accepts separate RGB, background, key, sync, blanking, and frame ground inputs via BNC connectors and outputs a composited matte signal plus two composite video outputs.

Specifications & What's Included

• Manufacturer: Ultimatte Corp., Reseda, California, USA
• Product: Newsmatte — designed by Petro Vlahos
• Form factor: 1U rackmount with rack ears installed
• Power: 117/230V AC, 50/60Hz, 20W
• Video signal: Analog composite
• BNC inputs (rear panel): FG, BLNK, SYNC, BG, KEY IN, BLU, GRN, RED
• BNC outputs (rear panel): Matte, Video 1, Video 2
• Remote interface: DIN connector (rear panel)
• Front panel toggle switches: MATTE, CLEAN-UP, HUE (with indicator LEDs)
• Front panel trim pot controls: FLARE, WHITE BAL, MATTE DENSITY, BLACK GLOSS, CLEAN-UP, BAL, PRINT THRU
• Patents: U.S. 3,595,987 / 4,007,487 / 4,100,569 / 4,344,085 and corresponding foreign patents
• Unit only — no cables or accessories included

Applications

The Ultimatte Newsmatte was developed specifically for the broadcast news and television production market as a compact, affordable chroma key solution. Ultimatte's compositing technology became the broadcast industry standard for blue-screen and green-screen work from the late 1970s through the analog video era, used in network news studios, local television stations, and video production facilities worldwide. The Newsmatte variant was aimed at smaller stations and news operations that needed reliable, real-time matte compositing in a 1U rackmount footprint — delivering the same core Vlahos matte algorithm as Ultimatte's larger systems. This class of hardware chroma key processor predates software compositing and represents the era when dedicated analog hardware was required for any real-time background replacement. Today these units are sought by collectors of broadcast history, vintage video artists, and analog video enthusiasts working with period-correct equipment. The unit accepts separate RGB component inputs, making it compatible with the component analog video infrastructure common in broadcast facilities of the 1980s and early 1990s.