Crystal Vision will be showing its new generation of embedders and down converters on Booth 1304 at HD World 2009, which takes place at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York on 14th and 15th October.
These new products include TANDEM 3G – the first single board solution providing a combined embedder and de-embedder for four groups of audio. Its additional ability to work with 3Gb/s, HD and SD sources makes it an economic and flexible solution for a very wide range of applications. It features eight bi-directional digital audio inputs and outputs on the board which can be configured in stereo pairs, and is most likely to be used for embedding or de-embedding eight AES channels, or for embedding four AES while de-embedding four AES at the same time. When routing the audio TANDEM 3G offers full shuffling and overwriting of the mono channels between all four groups thanks to the powerful 32 x 32 audio router. An audio delay of 80ms will compensate for any video processing, while any of the AES audio can be modified with stereo to mono conversion and gain adjustments and the picture can be optimized with the video proc-amp. It includes extensive Dolby E handling, including a switchable one or two frames video delay to match Dolby E delays. TANDEM 3G is ideal for applications requiring both embedding and de-embedding at the same time, while for those that just need to embed or de-embed there is no price premium to buy one device that can be used as both an embedder or de-embedder as required.
Also on show in New York is the Q-Down Mini down converter – Crystal Vision’s first minibox designed for attaching directly to the back of SD monitors in space-challenged environments with no spare rack space. Q-Down Mini is a down converter with two major advantages: a unique level of image quality in its price range (with its sophisticated two dimensional filtering which avoids aliasing while retaining picture sharpness) and a short processing delay of just 16 lines which eliminates the need to compensate audio signals for the video delay. This customer-requested product was developed because Austrian broadcaster ORF could find no alternative standalone product with the same level of conversion quality or short delay. Q-Down Mini features flexible outputs, with a reclocked loop-through of the HD or SD input, a dedicated SDI output and three Standard Definition outputs individually link selectable between analog (composite, Y/C, YUV and RGB) and digital, and will also deal with any aspect ratio conversion requirements.
Crystal Vision will also be demonstrating some of the most successful existing products from its range. These include the MultiLogo logo keyer – the most feature-packed, space-saving and easy-to-use modular solution to HD or SD station branding, with its three layers of keying, the ability to store up to 500 logos and fast transfer of graphics over 100MBit Ethernet from the PC to the board. The Safire HD 2 High Definition chroma keyer is used by broadcasters both in the US and around the world to create realistic virtual studios and sports graphics programming, and is chosen for the quality of its keying, for being part of a modular system and for its ease-of-use. The CoCo HD color corrector and legalizer allows flexible and easy whole picture adjustments in both the RGB and YUV color spaces, and includes a wide range of color correction tools with independent gain, lift and gamma, as well as advanced correction for gamut errors. Finally, for engineers who need to match any very long delays in their system, ViViD HD-40 provides up to 43 seconds of video delay in HD and 238 seconds in SD, with the delay range adjustable in individual seconds, frames, lines and pixels and with up to 12 video delays fitting into just 2RU of rack space.
Based at Whittlesford near Cambridge in the UK, Crystal Vision provides digital keyers, picture storage modules and a full range of interface equipment including converters, synchronizers, distribution amplifiers and audio embedders to the professional broadcasting industry worldwide.
