NASA, America's space agency, recently equipped its largest research facility, the Goddard Space Flight Center, with live HD capabilities by adding For-A's Hanabi HVS-3800HS switcher. GSFC has become the first of 10 NASA research centers to receive the switcher and other HD equipment.
The extra details afforded by HD have occasionally helped NASA search for potential problems with spacecraft, such as loose tiles and other factors not readily noticeable with typical SD images, the firm said in a statement.
NASA officials said the installation of the switcher is timely for other reasons, too, since scientists at GSFC also manage the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble has already recorded more than 700,000 images in the 17 years it has been in space, and the next servicing mission to the Hubble was announced last fall. At that press briefing, the For-A switcher was used to record the proceedings in HD, and then it was downconverted to SD for media distribution on its cable channel, NASA-TV.
The HVS-3800HS configures up to five control panels and has 32 standard inputs and outputs. It supports all major HD and SD formats and is about to celebrate its second birthday. The switcher first debuted at NAB2005.
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