ITV Studios, producer of British soap opera "Coronation Street," has chosen Crystal Vision equipment to upgrade to HD.
The 39 Crystal Vision interface products were purchased and installed by UK systems integrator AVC, who recommended the use of Crystal Vision. The project was to upgrade two studios from SD to HD and to build two new two-camera OB vans (to replace the existing SD OB vehicles) in just 10 weeks. The studio upgrades were carried out in the existing apparatus areas and control rooms, which made the project extremely challenging.
Eighteen of the Q-Down short-delay broadcast downconverters are being used in the studios and OB vans to provide both source distribution and PAL monitoring from a single board. The Q-Down183, with its eight input loop-throughs, was selected for use in the studios because additional HD outputs were required there. A useful feature for this project was Q-Down's ability to swap between SDI and PAL outputs for monitoring, and Q-Down provides three SD outputs, which are individually link-selectable between analog (composite, Y/C, YUV and RGB) and digital.
Twelve TANDEM HD-21s are being used to embed and de-embed audio for the servers. The TANDEM HD-21 can be configured in many different ways, allowing it to be used as an embedder or de-embedder for one or two groups of AES or analog audio, or even to embed one audio group and de-embed the other.
Various distribution amplifiers are also in use. A 3GDA105N, which can distribute 3Gb/s, HD or SD sources and gives five non-reclocked outputs, is providing the HD distribution in the studio. Four VDA110M HD analog video distribution amplifiers are being used to distribute the black and burst analogue reference. Finally, analog audio and time code distribution in the OB vans is being done using four AADA416FM quad-channel analog audio distribution amplifiers, with the inputs and outputs configurable in five different ways.
The products are all housed together in three Indigo 2 2RU frames, which hold up to 12 boards in each. ITV Studios is also using its existing Crystal Vision kit, which was previously running in SD and has now been switched over to HD operation.
