Carbonite HyperMax’s Resource Pool lets newsrooms share production capacity across studios and concentrate resources for peak events without temporary buildouts or idle hardware.
News production infrastructure is under immense strain. Daily operations require a certain baseline of switching, routing, and processing capacity. Peak coverage events like elections, the Olympics, or major breaking stories require three to four times that baseline. And the traditional production hardware sitting in most news control rooms can’t flex between those two realities.
The result is an industry that either over-provisions for peaks that occupy a handful of nights per year, or scrambles to assemble temporary capacity every time a major event arrives. As news operations continue to expand across more platforms and produce more content than ever before, scalable workflows have become essential. Traditional approaches, however, were never designed for this level of flexibility and growth.
Ross Video built Carbonite HyperMax around a more flexible architectural model for news production. Its physical switching and processing resources can be configured, licensed, and reallocated through software, allowing capacity to be shared more effectively across control rooms and productions.
This article will explore how that works, and what it means for news organizations that need to scale for peak events without building infrastructure that sits idle the rest of the year.
A production switcher where capacity is configured through software
Traditional production switchers are fixed-configuration systems. A two M/E switcher ships as a two M/E switcher and stays that way for the life of the product. If a show needs more capability, the answer is a bigger switcher or a second frame.
HyperMax separates processing from fixed configurations. The platform is built on Ross Video’s Ultrix routing infrastructure, combining production switching and routing in a single hyperconverged frame.
Processing is delivered by modular SDPE blades that can each be configured as a MaxME, MaxMini, or MaxScene—and reconfigured when the production changes. A single frame supports up to eight SDPE blades, and the system is available in two Ultrix frame sizes (FR5 and FR12) to match different facility footprints.
The practical difference is that a HyperMax system does not have a permanently fixed M/E configuration. During normal operations, a news broadcaster could use one set of processing resources for a two M/E live newscast while another supports a one M/E digital stream or regional bulletin at the same time.
When election night or a major breaking story requires a larger production, those same resources can be reconfigured to support a single four M/E show without repatching or physically rebuilding the system.
That alone is a meaningful shift from traditional switching. But at NAB 2026, Ross Video took it a step further.
The HyperMax Resource Pool turns multiple systems into one shared production environment
Nigel Spratling, Ross Video’s VP of Production Switchers, framed the problem facing newsrooms in his NAB 2026 keynote address like this:
The HyperMax Resource Pool, announced at NAB 2026, addresses this directly. Instead of each HyperMax system operating independently, multiple systems across multiple control rooms can now share a unified pool of production resources. Each production draws what it needs from the pool when it needs it. When demand drops, those resources become available to other productions.
Spratling described the shift as moving from fixed, dedicated resources to shared, dynamically allocated capacity. The Resource Pool operates on three levels.
- At the ecosystem level, HyperMax systems work alongside other Ross Video production platforms—Carbonite Ultra, Ultra 60, Carbonite Code, and Graphite—across on-premises and cloud environments to form the physical infrastructure.
- At the production system level, processing is no longer tied to a single production instance. M/E banks, keyers, and processing capacity move dynamically between productions in real time.
- At the orchestration level, Ross Platform Manager allocates capabilities and licenses across the pool based on demand. This is the enterprise management layer that decides which production gets which resources, and when.
The power of it HyperMax is that multiple systems operate as a single, unified production environment rather than a collection of independent switchers.
What the Resource Pool looks like inside a news operation
Consider a news operation producing its main newscast while simultaneously supporting a digital stream or regional bulletin. The flagship production might use three M/Es, while the secondary production draws one M/E from the same HyperMax Resource Pool. Instead of leaving unused capacity tied to the primary control room, the organization can allocate it to another production running at the same time.
When election night arrives, a news broadcaster may need to support one large production spanning multiple studios, anchor positions, remote feeds, and digital outputs. With the HyperMax Resource Pool, available processing resources from a second control room can be combined with the primary production to provide the additional M/Es, keyers, and processing capacity the event requires, without repatching or adding temporary switching hardware.
For station groups operating hub-and-spoke production models, software licensing provides another layer of flexibility. A centralized production hub can reassign licensed capabilities across available HyperMax hardware based on the day’s coverage needs. A station covering a competitive local election could activate additional M/Es or production capabilities, while licenses assigned to a station with lighter demand could be made available elsewhere in the operation.
This reflects a similar operational principle to the EBU’s Dynamic Media Facility architecture:
HyperMax and the Resource Pool apply that principle to the production switching layer through a unified, hardware-based Ross Video platform.
Higher utilization, lower capital cost, and no more temporary buildouts
The financial case for the Resource Pool follows directly from the utilization problem. When three control rooms each carry their own peak-ready switching infrastructure independently, the aggregate utilization across the operation is low. Most of that processing power sits idle most of the time, waiting for a peak that may arrive a few times a year.
A shared pool changes the math. The same aggregate processing capacity serves the operation’s combined demand, and idle capacity in one production is immediately available to another. The total infrastructure investment is lower because the operation isn’t duplicating peak-ready resources across every studio. And the effective capability is higher because resources aren’t stranded behind the wall of a single control room.
HyperMax’s dynamic licensing model reinforces this. Capabilities like additional M/Es, keyers, or processing capacity are activated through software licenses managed by Ross Platform Manager, not through hardware purchases. A news organization can scale up for a peak event by activating licenses that expand the pool’s capability, then reallocate those licenses when the event ends. The infrastructure adapts to the calendar rather than the calendar being constrained by the infrastructure.
The most immediate operational benefit may be the simplest one. Peak events no longer require temporary control rooms, rented trucks, or borrowed equipment. The existing infrastructure flexes to meet the moment and returns to its normal configuration the next day.
Keep Reading: How Carbonite HyperMax solves the problem of underutilized production equipment
A control surface built for shared production environments
A shared resource pool requires a control surface that can keep pace. If a technical director is controlling multiple production instances drawing from shared infrastructure, the panel needs to accommodate that complexity without forcing operators to work across disconnected interfaces.
Ross Video addressed this at NAB 2026 with the new 5 M/E TouchDrive panel—the largest production switcher panel ever built. It gives operators control over multiple switchers from a single position, with panel mapping that can be reconfigured to match whatever the current production requires from the pool.
For news operations where technical directors already juggle complex multi-source shows with demanding switching requirements, the 5 M/E panel provides the physical control surface to match the Resource Pool’s processing flexibility. The technology under the hood is meaningless if the operator can’t get to it intuitively, and the panel was designed with that principle in mind.
Ross Video's TDx5L TouchDrive panel
HyperMax is new, but its foundation and market traction are not
HyperMax was introduced at NAB 2025 and sold at twice the rate Ross Video anticipated in its first year. The Resource Pool, announced at NAB 2026, extends a platform that’s already demonstrating commercial traction.
And we’re starting to see real deployments in the wild. Ross Production Services’ new HyperMax 1 production truck: a 48-foot unit built around a Carbonite HyperMax 4 M/E switcher, dual Ultrix routers, five replay servers, and four XPression graphics engines. HyperMax 1 went directly from NAB 2026 to producing a California gubernatorial debate for CBS and women’s lacrosse for ESPN. As of May 2026, the truck is booked through the end of September.
Part of a broader production ecosystem, not a standalone box
HyperMax doesn’t operate in isolation. It’s part of a connected Ross Video production ecosystem that includes DashBoard for control and monitoring, OverDrive for production automation, XPression for real-time graphics, and the Ultrix routing platform that serves as its physical foundation. For news operations already running Ross technology in their control rooms, HyperMax extends a familiar environment with new capability rather than introducing an unfamiliar one.
For operations running a mix of signal transport types, HyperMax integrates into hybrid SDI, IP, and NDI signal environments. The platform supports SMPTE ST 2110 alongside SDI and can be deployed into existing facilities without requiring a wholesale infrastructure replacement. News organizations can adopt HyperMax as part of a planned technology refresh and expand the Resource Pool as additional systems come online.
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Scale for the peak without paying for it every other day
The production capacity a newsroom needs on its biggest night shouldn’t sit idle the other 364 days of the year. That’s the premise behind HyperMax and the Resource Pool. Shared production switching resources that flex for peak events, operate efficiently during daily operations, and adapt through software licensing rather than hardware replacement.
For news production leaders weighing their next infrastructure investment, the timing aligns. The industry’s IP transition is accelerating. More news organizations are evaluating IP and hybrid infrastructure as part of their long-term technology plans, while hub-and-spoke production models continue to gain traction among station groups.. And the peak events on the calendar—2026 FIFA World Cup, 2028 LA Olympics, and the next election cycle—aren’t getting any smaller.
Contact Ross Video to discuss how Carbonite HyperMax and the Resource Pool fit your production environment.