In Broadcast - October/November 2011 - 80

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InTECH

Sirius Change: Snell Systems Redefine the Router
By Norman Rouse, Snell Market Development Manager

The motto that long guided the purchase of a router was “Buy big.” Broadcasters bought larger routers than were strictly necessary for a number of reasons.
With a large router, a media company never had to turn down a job because its facility – be it a truck, edit booth, or playout centre – wasn’t big enough. Larger routers were also valuable in conventional workflows in which many separate electronic “boxes” were required to do all the tasks performed by just one box today. (Channel-in-abox systems, for example, manage playout from a single box rather than four or five). Finally, some shopping around could get the facility a larger router at a reduced price. Offsetting these considerations and benefits, however, was the fact that larger routers use more power, more air conditioning, and more rack space, all for the sake of added headroom. The inefficiency of this approach grew glaringly obvious, and as end users of broadcast and production equipment became for mid-sized applications and for users who require slightly more functionality than is available in Snell’s cost-effective Sirius 830 288x288 router, but less than is offered by the Sirius 850 576x1152 system. The self-contained OB truck and small/medium studio has been the primary market sector driving development of the Sirius 840. Such users demand a high standard of performance, but their plans for growth are limited. They must have the capacity to manage a variety of inputs and outputs, but the volume of those inputs and outputs will change very little – both due to space constraints and the far more accurate planning that has become the norm. While buying big is no longer a logical or economical choice, flexibility still remains a priority. Equipped with high-performance crosspoint modules, the Sirius 840 supports video, as well as embedded and discrete audio routing. The router’s multiformat video cards can handle 3Gbps as well as SD, HD, and ASI over 24 input and output channels, enabling users to handle current and future formats and signal types. Broadcasters can mix and match different signal formats – 3Gbps and 1.5Gbps for HD, SD, and ASI over either coax or fibre, AES and MADI audio signals, and embedded audio routing – in the same Sirius 840 frame. Each input and output card is also a powerful processing engine that allows, for example, every input video channel to have all audio channels de-embedded, individual channel gain adjusted, tracks shuffled, and mono or stereo downmixes made. Multiple nonsynchronous audio signals can be routed and all outputs either sample rate converted or passed transparently at the original data rate, so users can accommodate multiple audio data rates within the frame. Support for embedded audio routing and for audio track swapping on inputs and outputs allow users to route any combination of embedded, discrete, and MADI sources and destinations. As a family, the Sirius 830, 840, and 850 routers feature a unique approach to redundant c r o s s p o i n t protection. A single redundant crosspoint card protects against failures on multiple crosspoints, providing the highest level of resilience. Optional redundant crosspoints use intelligent path monitoring that, in the event of a failure, can automatically switch to the redundant path and issue a user alarm through Snell’s systemwide Centra control and monitoring Sirius 800 family – the cost-effective Sirius 840 application. The Sirius 800 Series’ or coax (copper) connectivity. Any reassignable firmware eliminates port can be configured as either an the need for external modular input or output. Complementing cards, thereby saving space and Snell’s Sirius 800 line of large-scale power while giving users the routers, the Vega platform serves flexibility to configure the type and as the industry’s most flexible amount of functionality they need asymmetric routing solution within at the right price. a space-saving 96-port router. In terms of configuration As media companies seek flexibility, Snell has raised the bar out solutions that meet their even farther with its new Vega requirements and offer the routing platform. The Vega platform, greatest boost to the bottom also announced at IBC2011, line, Snell routing systems offer empowers users to configure any unprecedented versatility and signal port independently for fibre exceptional value.

Snell’s new Vega

more and more accurate in their planning, the market for routing changed. Today, broadcasters want to know where every cent is being spent, and they want to maximize their profits. These joint goals have caused broadcast facilities, post houses, OB companies, and other technology “users” to demand dedicated yet state-of-the-art routers that are the right size for their applications. In response to this demand, Snell developed first the Sirius 830 router and next the Sirius 840, recently launched at IBC2011. The newest member of the Sirius 800 family of multi-format routers, the Sirius 840 provides 576x576 video in a space-efficient 27RU chassis. The router is engineered

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In Broadcast - October/November 2011

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