In Broadcast - October/November 2011 - 77

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011 | WWW.INBROADCAST.COM

InTECH
On An Ever More Demanding Path – Routers And Switchers Cont.
all kinds of equipment, both highend SDI equipment and modern high quality consumer equipment like HDTV’s that have HDMI. Second is the number of Mix/ Effects banks (M/E’s) and the number of keyers (does it have a chromakeyer, etc.), and the power of a switcher is measured by the number of banks and keys that it has. years, rather seems to have hit a roof, or even decreased.” To simplify monitoring and signal management in production studios and trucks, Miranda has enhanced the integration between its NVISION 8500 Hybrid routers with audio processing and its Kaleido multi-viewers, as well as with third party switchers. “By using advanced integration software, these combined multiviewer and router systems behave like a single solution to reduce studio complexity, and also increase system flexibility, redundancy and scalability,” said Miranda’s Neil Sharpe. 3Gbps SDI signals inherently don’t travel as far as HD SDI signals, and this poses unique challenges for facilities that are new, or which were built with fixed distances around HD standards. To address this issue, Miranda is introducing input cards that can equalise much longer coaxial cable runs to the router to assist with management of all 3Gbps/HD/SD signals. Last, but not least, optical infrastructure is becoming more and more common. Routing switchers are supposed to meet this requirement. It makes it easier to meet signal quality specifications over longer distances, at increasing bitrates, and it makes cable infrastructure lighter and less space consuming. As broadcasters continue to migrate to full-on HD operations, we’ll continue to see plenty of mixed-format environments where SD and HD (both 1080p and 1808i) coexist. The bottom line is that switcher and router technology needs to offer the flexibility to support any format, both today and tomorrow.

IP Remotes
Remote control, via IP (the cloud) is creating new opportunities for the industry, both in terms of design, applications and operations, he says. This also creates opportunities for distributed routing, where smaller routers on remote sites can take the role that the large, central router played before. “The large central router, however, has not outplayed its role although the size doesn’t have to be that big any more,” says Heinzer. “We also see that the maximum size required in new projects has not increased the last couple of

ATEM’s software control panel

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In Broadcast - October/November 2011

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