Black Box Emerald ® Deep-Dive

Originally written in Japanese for PRONEWS | PR

The Current Role of KVM Switches in Broadcasting

Modern broadcast workflows have shifted from purpose-built hardware to fleets of personal computers running specialized software. As a result, the number of PCs required on a single production keeps climbing. Running multiple applications on one machine is possible, but most facilities distribute critical tasks across several PCs to guarantee stability and redundancy. Typical examples include:

• Ingest: captures camera feeds
• Storage: network NAS for media archiving
• Metadata: manages clip information
• Edit: non-linear editing workstation
• Graphics: titling/CG generation
• Audio Post: narration and sweetening
• Promotion: digest editing / social posts
• Transcode: final deliverables conversion
• Playback: live playout
• Scheduling: rundown management
• Studio Control: device monitoring and control

Large broadcasters now juggle dozens—sometimes hundreds—of machines. Add cloud servers to the mix and the number only grows. Physically placing a keyboard, mouse and monitor at every PC is simply impossible. That is where KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switching comes in: operators toggle one set of peripherals between multiple computers. In server rooms this is routine; broadcasting is catching up fast. Black Box is a veteran in KVM and extension gear. Their new KVM-over-IP platform, Emerald, is designed with remote media operations in mind—and that’s what we put to the test.

Meet the Black Box Emerald IP-KVM Family

The system combines compact transmitters (dongle-style or small boxes that live in the rack) with receive units that sit on the operator’s desk. Plug them into an existing LAN and you have pixel-perfect 4K 60p video plus full-speed USB with virtually no latency.

At the heart of our review is the DESKVUE receiver. It drives up to four monitors and lets you arrange as many as 16 resizable windows—“tiles”—anywhere across those screens. Glide the mouse from one tile to another and control instantly follows; Black Box calls the behaviour “Mouse Hop.”

Key advantages at a glance:

In short, operators no longer need to walk into a loud server room; they can drive ingest, edit or playout PCs from a quiet desk right beside the studio—cutting both downtime and noise.

Hands-On Demo: What Makes It Stand Out

Multi-Monitor Freedom

Unlike one-screen receivers, DESKVUE’s quad-head output feels liberating. Layout templates make it easy to flip between a 16-way multiview, a two-by-two grid or a full-screen takeover with a single keystroke. Spot an issue on the multiview? Slide the cursor onto that tile, click once, and you’re now operating that PC.

Secure Peripheral Switching

Need more than a mouse? The single-screen Black Box Emerald SE receiver (often paired with DESKVUE) passes tablets, macro keyboards and USB drives—complete with whitelist/blacklist policies for security-sensitive rooms.

Black Box Speaks: Strengths and Future Plans

Masato Yamamoto, Sales Director, Black Box Japan

“We’re seeing strong uptake in broadcast. Operators value the ability to monitor mixed FHD and 4K sources and control them all with just one set of peripherals—vital in space-constrained Japanese facilities.

Beyond broadcasting, large-scale infrastructure—gas, power, transport—faces the same need to supervise many servers from a few seats. Because we design both hardware and software in-house, user feedback quickly shapes the GUI and feature set.

Our goal is to make Black Box Emerald the default IP-KVM in broadcast while expanding into critical monitoring sectors. We want it to be a product that ‘grows with the people who use it.’”

Author’s Takeaways

I’ve used traditional point-to-point KVM extenders, RDP, NDI screen capture, and even the built-in KVM of TriCaster. Emerald® offers markedly cleaner pictures, lower latency, and an intuitive multi-screen workflow anyone can master in minutes. Its openness—handling on-prem PCs, cloud VDIs (RDP/XRDP/PCoIP) and H.264/H.265 monitoring feeds—makes it future-proof.

As remote production scales up, software-only KVMs can become a single point of failure. A stand-alone hardware platform like Black Box Emerald adds a welcome layer of resilience. From remote media asset management to cloud switcher control and large-scale simultaneous event graphics, the use cases keep expanding.

For full specifications, visit the Black Box Emerald product page.