Crystal Vision will be showing the industry's most forward-looking frame system on Booth N3919 at the 2016 NAB Show.
Vision 3 is a new 3RU frame suitable not only for SDI video and audio products – including the chroma and linear keyers, up and down converters, synchronizers, embedders, video and audio delays and audio converters all available at launch – but also for future video over IP and 4K products. The company will be discussing its forthcoming SMPTE 2022-based IP gateway products which are protocol agnostic, with Crystal Vision's software-based approach making it easy to configure them for other agreed protocols. Also on show will be the well-established Indigo frame system: better than it has ever been with new software which allows backup and restore of settings and housing a full range of interface and keying boards including the new chroma key news bureau package which brings both financial and operational benefits.
The Vision 3 frame system, shipping this spring, is designed for broadcast engineers planning installations that will include IP and 4K or for those that would benefit from the extra Vision features on their SDI products. Benefits of the Vision frame system include a very high packing density with the ability to house 20 vertical cards in 3RU. The Vision cards provide an increased number of outputs, giving more signals to use and cutting down on the requirement for distribution amplifiers. The Vision frame includes dual syncs distributed to every card for easier wiring and redundant operation – a real advantage for products that take references. Also of benefit are two 1Gb/s Ethernet connections to the outside world for control and file transfer (including facilitating the updating of card software) and powerful remote backup and restore of all card settings and presets for added system security. Features that will benefit future products include the frame’s ability to be used with higher bandwidth signals including 4K and 10Gb/s IP, large storage on the frame CPU along with fast internal communications for easy transfer of big files (allowing sophisticated graphics-based products), and increased power availability allowing more functionality on each card.
Some of the initial Vision cards to ship are those product types that are most popular with Crystal Vision's US customers. Ideal for any bluescreen or greenscreen application, the SAFIRE 3-VF and SAFIRE 3-VF XPRESS modular real-time chroma keyers work with 31 different video standards including 1080p, with the top-end SAFIRE 3-VF version including built-in color correction and video delay for demanding virtual studios. Crystal Vision has always been known for its range of video delays – matching any delays in a system, including profanity delays – with the VIVID-VF and VIVID10S-VF providing up to 40 seconds of delay in SD, ten seconds in HD and five seconds in 3Gb/s. Also available are a range of four up/down/cross converters which continue the Crystal Vision tradition of providing the output picture quality that broadcasters standardize on, with the UP-DOWN-ATX-VF and UP-DOWN-ATXS-VF versions especially useful for the US market due to their ability to transport closed captions between different definitions. Other Vision cards available at launch will be the LKEY-VF linear keyer, the SYN-A-VF and SYNNER-VF synchronizers, the TANDEM10-VF and TANDEM20-VF embedders/de-embedders for AES and analog audio, the ADP-VF audio delay and the DACA20-VF and ADCA20-VF audio converters.
The Vision 3 frame has been designed to handle higher bandwidth signals including video over IP and 4K, and Crystal Vision is currently developing SMPTE 2022-based IP gateway products for converting between SDI and IP signals which are protocol agnostic, with the software-based approach making it easy to configure them for other agreed protocols. Crystal Vision – having developed many of its products following customer consultation – therefore welcomes broadcast engineers to come to Booth N3919 to discuss their own requirements for their transition to an IP video infrastructure. Crystal Vision will be showing its IP development to date at the NAB Show, with control GUIs that visually highlight many of the IP gateways' useful features – including video synchronizers on every stream, ten frames of delay and status reporting of video validity, video standard, black or frozen video and audio silence.
Crystal Vision will also be showing booth visitors the enhancements the company has made to its well-established Indigo frame system, which offers a choice of three frame sizes. Included amongst the 75 interface and keying boards in the Indigo range is the popular MultiLogo three-layer logo keyer for sophisticated video and audio station branding with internal storage for up 500 graphics and the Safe Switch 3G fail-safe 2 x 2 routing switch which uses a full framestore synchronizer on each input and loss of reference protection to guarantee a clean switch – with both these products having been adopted by major US broadcasters in the last year. Indigo's new backup and restore of settings feature – introduced with the latest frame software – makes it easy to duplicate installations, put replacement boards into the correct state and return an installation to a recorded state. When a change is made to the live frame settings these changes will be automatically backed up to the frame CPU and can also be copied to a file on a PC, with the option of restoring settings either manually or automatically.
Part of the Indigo system is the Safire news bureau package – a new chroma keyer and clip store package aimed at news bureaus which provides both financial and operational benefits. The package is ideal for broadcasters who have small single camera studios away from the main station – often located in an office block with no view. To convince the viewers that they are really in that city, the presenter will often sit in front of a green or blue screen, with the city view then chroma keyed on to the backdrop. The components that make up Crystal Vision's integrated package are the Safire 3 Xpress chroma keyer, the Clip N Key V121 clip store (providing 4 GB of storage for up to 250 full frame pictures or video clips) and the Indigo DTSE desk top box. The output from the Clip N Key is fed into the Background input of the Safire 3 Xpress and so provides the required city view – either as a static picture or a video loop. Not only are there cost savings, but the space-saving package also provides a single control interface to set up the chroma keyer and switch between different virtual backgrounds, making it easy to select an appropriate background for the time of day.
Based at Whittlesford near Cambridge in the UK and with an office in the USA, Crystal Vision provides a full range of interface and keyers and helps people transition through a range of technologies – from SD to HD and from HD to IP.
