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Video Bellwethers

Mar 27, 2007 12:00 AM

Debuts of the smaller, better, and faster send pulses racing.

           

I/O Hardware

By Dan Ochiva

NAB has always been good for turning up new gear that might solve production problems. Take the latest displays featuring the new HDMI interconnects, for example. HDMI is threatening to become the de facto standard for monitor connections, and most small-format HD camcorders introduced in the last six months feature an HDMI out, which allows shooters to work with an uncompressed signal. That’s only the case, however, if you have the right type of converter hardware.

Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink HD Studio, introduced at January’s Macworld, does just that. The capture and playback card usefully supports both HDMI and analog component video. (The company’s Intensity card–a Digital Content Producer Vanguard Award winner in 2006–works solely as an HDMI capture/playback card.)

DeckLink HD Studio allows capture from HDMI-enabled cameras or decks, as well as analog decks and set-top boxes. HDMI playback and analog playback allows connection to a wide range of video monitors, large-screen televisions, and video projectors. HD Studio features include 10-bit capture and playback, and 14-bit digital-to-analog conversion.

HD is on Broadcast Pix’s plate too. Its new HD-SD I/O board is the third such input/output board for the Slate switcher/all-in-one production unit, joining an SD-SDI digital board and an analog board. The new board supports HD-SDI in 1080i or 720p, as well as SD-SDI, and provides four inputs and one output, each of which can be HD or SD.

Broadcast Pix says the new HD board takes advantage of unique EDTV architecture to create an HD production with very good picture quality. (EDTV, or enhanced-digital television, has twice the data rate of DTV, because EDTV is progressive 480p). Here’s how the company figures it: Unlike external HD converters added to a conventional standard-definition SDI switcher, which compresses an HD signal all the way to DTV, the new Broadcast Pix HD board needs to only convert to EDTV, where all switcher motion processing occurs at 10-bit precision.

Flexibility is the word at Dayang. The company's new RedBridge series plug-in cards (there are 10 in all) enable video signal interfacing with the latest generation of PCs. RedBridge 100, for example, has a CVBS/S-Video I/O stereo analog audio I/O, microphone input, and stereo headphone output. RedBridge 2100K incorporates a CVBS input, SDI input, CVBS output plus key channel, SDI output plus one SDI key channel, an independent CVBS output for preview, independent SDI output for preview, four SDI embedded audio inputs and outputs, genlock input, and loopthrough output.

For continuing NAB news, see blog.digitalcontentproducer.com/briefingroom/category/2007-nab-newslink and tune into our annual NABlog at blog.digitalcontentproducer.com/nab with live updates from the show April 15 to 19.