Booth N3010 at the 2017 NAB Show will be showing Crystal Vision's forward-looking Vision frame system – suitable for SDI, IP and 4K – which is now shipping, along with its core interface cards including up and down converters, synchronizers, fiber optic transmitters and receivers, audio embedders/de-embedders and distribution amplifiers for analog and digital video and audio. Crystal Vision will be discussing its future-proof IP gateways: initially supporting the SMPTE 2022-6 and SMPTE 2022-7 protocols and including PTP as a timing source option, they can be easily reconfigured via a software upgrade for the new standards as they emerge. Crystal Vision will also be showing its well-established Indigo frame system with its popular chroma keyers, logo keyers, video delays and fail-safe routing switches.
The Vision frame system is now shipping and 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. With the ability to handle high bandwidth signals including 10GbE IP and 4K (as well as SDI), the Vision 3 frame offers a very high packing density with the ability to house 20 vertical cards in 3U. The Vision cards provide more outputs than Crystal Vision has ever offered before (thanks to the long frame rear modules), giving more signals to use and cutting down on the requirement for distribution amplifiers. The Vision 3 frame also includes a common dual reference distributed to every card – resulting in easier wiring and extra outputs (the reference just needs to be connected to the frame rather than to each card), a reduction in system cost (no need to put in analog video DAs to supply multiple reference signals) and a backup syncs feed which can be automatically switched to should the main syncs fail. Other useful frame features include complimentary SNMP, powerful remote backup and restore of all card settings and presets for added system security and two 1Gb/s Ethernet connections to the outside world for control and file transfer.
The initial 12 interface products from the Vision frame system – all shipping now – will be available for demonstration on Booth N3010. The UP-DOWN-A-VF, UP-DOWN-ATX-VF, UP-DOWN-AS-VF and UP-DOWN-ATXS-VF up and down converters can perform two different conversions between SD, 720p, 1080i and 1080p simultaneously while offering an outstanding picture quality and features such as four group embedded audio handling, AFD insertion and reading, audio routing, timecode conversion, teletext and closed captions handling and downstream video synchronizers. Working with 3Gb/s, HD and SD sources and both AES and analog audio, SYNNER-VF combines a video synchronizer, tracking audio delay and embedder/de-embedder. TANDEM10-VF is an audio embedder/de-embedder with the ability to embed and de-embed a mixture of up to four groups of AES and two groups of analog audio at the same time. The FTX-VF dual channel 3G/HD/SD to fiber transmitter and FRX-VF dual channel fiber to 3G/HD/SD receiver are ideal for transporting 3Gb/s, HD, SD and DVB-ASI signals over large distances. Finally the Vision frame system includes four distribution amplifiers for the distribution of digital video (the 3GDA-VF), analog video (the VDA-VF), digital audio (the DADA-VF) and analog audio (the AADA-VF).
With future-proofing at their core, Crystal Vision's range of IP gateway products embrace the correct approach to integrating SDI into an IP environment. Housed in the Vision 3 frame, the modular gateways are robust, include all the required features at a competitive price, can be connected to a wide range of other manufacturers' equipment and can be easily upgraded with new software. The company avoids future hardware limitations with a software based approach to processing SDI to IP, IP to SDI and IP to IP. The products will launch shortly featuring initial support for the SMPTE 2022-6 and SMPTE 2022-7 protocols, with their flexible platform allowing them to be reconfigured (via a software upgrade) for the new standards as they emerge. The SDI6-IP-VF converts six HD/SD or three 3Gb/s input connections to one output 10GbE link. The IP-SDI6-VF converts one 10GbE link to up to six HD/SD or three 3Gb/s output connections. The IP-IP-VF features four network ports each carrying up to six HD/SD or three 3Gb/s streams – allowing network address translation from input to output and providing firewall capability. With clean switching between streams and sophisticated synchronizer features, the IP gateways support Precision Time Protocol (PTP) in addition to analog references or SDI inputs as a timing source, with user configurable options for timing source priority and redundancy.
Crystal Vision's 'niche' products are always popular with NAB visitors, and the company will therefore also be showing product highlights from its well-established Indigo frame system, which offers a choice of three frame sizes and 75 interface and keying boards. These include the Safire 3 real-time chroma keyer for all virtual applications, the MultiLogo three-layer logo keyer for sophisticated video and audio station branding with internal storage for up 500 graphics, the Safe Switch 3G fail-safe 2 x 2 routing switch which uses a full framestore synchronizer on each input to guarantee a clean switch, and the ViViD video delays which provide up to ten seconds of delay in 3Gb/s, 43 seconds in HD and four minutes in SD.
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.
