In Broadcast - May 2013 - 30


I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 19 - MAY 2013

N E W S

InREPLY

IO Industries’ View Of The Action
IO Industries’ Global Sales Manager, Andrew Searle, discusses
sensors, lenses, the 2KSDI camera and customer favourites…

Andrew
Searle
from IO
Industries

30

InBroadcast: Tell us about your
company and what you’re bringing
to the market.
Andrew Searle: IO Industries
is a relatively new company in
the broadcast video equipment
market, but what most people
don’t know is that we’ve been in
business since 1991. Until recently
we’ve been focused on designing
advanced imaging products for
researchers and engineers to use in
high-end video-based experiments
and testing applications. I’m
proud to say our products are
used everywhere from deep-sea
explorations to research pods on the
International Space Station. We had
been building mini-cameras with
industrial video interfaces when
we started to see the need for a
camera with a standardised highdeﬁnition video output. We decided
on the 3G/HD-SDI interface and
immediately saw that our camera
would stand apart from the current
HD-SDI mini-cameras being used
for broadcast TV and cinema use.
Since then we’ve been working with
broadcasters and video production
groups to identify what features they
need in a camera, and merging that
with our knowledge and experience

from our history in advanced
imaging. What we’ve come up with
is pretty exciting.
InBroadcast: As you’ve said,
we’ve seen miniature video
cameras before; what sets yours
apart from the others?
AS: The sensor we use really makes
the camera stand out because it
is the same size as standard
broadcasting cameras – 2/3” – but
also because it has a global shutter.
The alternative is a rolling shutter,
which is used in most other CMOS
sensors, and thus is prevalent
in many DSLRs and the small
commercial ‘action cams’ that have
become so popular. Rolling shutter
sensors have inherent limitations
and artifacts when it comes to
capturing fast-moving objects, so
the ideal is to use a global shutter
sensor. Apart from that, our wide
format support (720p23.98 – 2Kp60),
low video latency, tri-level sync input
and handheld remote control are
deﬁnitely customer favourites. And it
has an interchangeable lens mount,
so you’re not restricted to using a
built-in lens.
InB: What type of lenses can
you use with the camera?
AS: Our camera has a C-mount lens
interface so that really opens up a
lot of options for attaching different
types of glass. C-mount lenses are
low-cost, small and typically rugged.
Most are manually-adjusted prime
or zoom lenses, but some remotelycontrollable motorised lenses are
available as well. What’s nice is that
you can usually lock the focus and

iris with set-screws, which is perfect
for when you mount the camera
in a high-vibration environment.
There’s a large range of available
C-mount lenses, originally designed
for use with security cameras or
industrial machine vision systems.
However, many of these lenses
are meant for image sensors either
physically smaller or having lower
resolutions than the one we have
in our camera. As a result, despite
being able to physically install any
C-mount lens on our camera, not
all C-mount lenses are suitable.
To help our customers, we’ve
put a list of some recommended
C-mount lenses on our website.
Aside from C-mount lenses,
there’s several lens mount adapters
that can be used too, allowing DSLR,
broadcast and even cinema lenses
to be mounted on our camera. We
sell an EF mount adapter kit that
allows us to use EF or EF-S lenses
(from Canon, Zeiss, Tokina, etc.) and
electrically control the focus and iris
settings inside the lens. This is great
for a lot of customers using different
types of cameras, as they generally
have a wide selection of lenses and
are happy to hear they can use them
with a mini-camera. There’s also
usually no concern about whether
these lenses will ﬁt our sensor, as

The 2KSDI camera is used in television
and commercial productions, 3D
cinema and live sports broadcasting

they’re all designed for larger-sized
photography or cinema camera
sensors.
InB: Where are you seeing your
2KSDI camera in action?
AS: It’s been really wide-ranging
so far. We’ve had the camera
available for just about a year now
and it’s been used in television and
commercial productions, 3D cinema
and live sports broadcasting. I think
this medley of applications is due to
the fact that the camera supports so
many 2K and HD output formats and
not just the live broadcast standards
(720p/1080i). The greatest potential
for the camera lies in live events and
sports games, where broadcasters
are always looking to add more
camera angles, preferably at an
affordable price. Since our camera
can produce video that looks like it
came from a much more expensive
camera, the broadcasters are ﬁnding
they can put more cameras in more
places and give the audience at
home a more immersive view of
the action.
InB: Thank you for taking timeout
to answer our questions.

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In Broadcast - May 2013

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