The industry's most forward-looking frame system will be making its UK debut on Booth N01 at BVE 2016 with the launch of Vision 3 from Crystal Vision – a 3RU frame equally suitable for adapted variants of the company's existing SDI video and audio products as well as for future IP and 4K products.
The initial Vision cards – due to ship in early 2016 – are chroma and linear keyers, up and down converters, synchronizers, embedders, video and audio delays and audio converters that all benefit from features only available in the Vision frame – including higher packing density, extra outputs and dual syncs distributed from the frame. At BVE Crystal Vision will also be discussing its video over IP solutions for converting between SDI and IP signals, due for release in summer 2016. For those who need the biggest range of products and a choice of frame sizes, the Indigo frame system is better than it has ever been with new frame software released in November 2015 which allows backup and restore of settings – ideal for the UK market where Crystal Vision has sold many big Indigo systems.
The new Vision 3 frame system is perfect 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.
The Vision frame takes the numerous strengths of the well-established Indigo system – such as the ability to house different signals together, a choice of outputs via changeable rear modules, excellent cooling and flexible control options – and extends them further. Immediate 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 extra outputs (for example, three outputs rather than two on the Vision synchronizers and embedders) giving more signals to use and cutting down on the requirement for DAs. 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 (perfect for sophisticated graphics-based products), and increased power availability allowing more functionality on each card.
The Vision video products all work with 3Gb/s, HD and SD sources, making them a flexible option for any environment. The keying products in the Vision range are the SAFIRE 3-VF and SAFIRE 3-VF XPRESS real-time chroma keyers (with the top-end SAFIRE 3-VF version including built-in color correction and video delay for demanding virtual studios) and the LKEY-VF linear keyer for the simple keying of one graphic over video streams. The initial cards in the Vision video interface range are the UP-DOWN-A-VF, UP-DOWN-ATX-VF, UP-DOWN-AS-VF and UP-DOWN-ATXS-VF up/down/cross converters (each offering a different set of features – from AFD insertion to downstream video synchronizers), the SYN-A-VF and SYNNER-VF synchronizers and the VIVID-VF and VIVID10S-VF video delays for up to 40 seconds of delay in SD, ten seconds in HD and five seconds in 3Gb/s.
The Vision audio interface range includes the TANDEM10-VF embedder/de-embedder for AES and analog audio, the TANDEM20-VF dual channel embedder/de-embedder for space sensitive or price sensitive applications, the ADP-VF audio delay and processor for analog or digital audio, the DACA20-VF digital to analog audio converter and the ADCA20-VF analog to digital audio converter.
One of the advantages of the Vision 3 frame is its ability to handle higher bandwidth signals and later in 2016 Crystal Vision will be introducing gateway and firewall products to help broadcasters make the transition to an IP video infrastructure. Converting between SDI and IP signals and offering wide protocol support, the gateway products all have a fully functioning software-based IP stack providing support for ARP, IEEE802.1g (VLAN), IGMP (Multicasting), ICMP and ping. Multiple IP addresses can be used for each connection to allow access to multiple VLANs from the same physical connection. An IP-only version of the product allows changing of the IP addresses and other network settings to provide firewall capability. The useful features include video synchronizers on every stream and up to ten frames of delay – plus status reporting of video validity, video standard, black or frozen video and audio silence.
The Indigo frame system will continue its popularity in the UK, with the biggest range of products and a choice of three frame sizes, with recent additions to this range including the Safire 3 Xpress real-time chroma keyer, LKEY-SQZ squeeze back keyer and MADDA105 and MADDA111 MADI distribution amplifiers. BVE visitors will be able to try out a new Indigo frame feature providing enhanced security and convenience. Especially useful for big systems, the new backup and restore of settings feature introduced with frame software version 5.3 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.
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.
