In Broadcast - September 2013 - 34

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

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 23 - SEPTEMBER 2013

N E W S

InTECH
Switchers & Routers To The Rescue Cont.

xSwitch is Axia’s new zero-conﬁguration IP-Audio router

Pesa’s Cattrex Router Interface

34

Of Engineering explained. “There
was no way we could have done
this installation alone on a system
that came with a steep learning
curve for us. The control system
was one of the deﬁning reasons for
choosing PESA for this installation.
It has an interface which is familiar,
intuitive, yet powerful enough for all
our needs,” Duncan added. “Every
one of our EICs is familiar with the
interface and can feel comfortable
with the control system.”

Grass Valley
Grass Valley’s Trinix NXT multiformat routing switchers feature fully
integrated multiviewer monitoring
capabilities. The technology
supports infrastructures up to 3
Gb/s while providing up to eight
SDI multiviewer monitor outputs per
card–including the ability to monitor
audio for each source.
The Trinix multiviewer was adopted
by South Africa’s Dimension
Television Facilities

The Harris Family

(DTF), which provides mobile
broadcast services to local and
international markets in Africa. The
deal sees Grass Valley supplying
a Trinix NXT routing switcher with
multiviewer, an Apex Plus digital
audio routing switcher, two Kayak
HD video production switchers,
and four HD LDK 8000 EliteSeries
cameras. DTF plans to use the truck
for live events, including rugby,
football, cricket, golf and motocross.
The multiviewer router solution
saves rack space by eliminating
the need for secondary external
components and connections –
essential in vans and small studios.
Despite its compact size, the system
claims to work in conﬁgurations of
up to 2,048 inputs or outputs.

Harris Broadcast
On a larger scale, South African
satellite broadcaster SuperSport
is moving into a new state-ofthe-art HD playout center, with
signals managed and monitored
by a Platinum IP3 router from
Harris Broadcast.
The router offers triple-path routing,
allowing data, video

and audio to be contained in the
same device without losing signal
paths. The internal architecture
allows expansion at any time
without taking the router out
of service: cards can be
added, and additional chassis
connected, without affecting
on-air performance, a potentially
critical factor for playout facilities.
“Our new playout center will
initially operate 32 HD channels,
but we have an eye on the future,
which sees continuing growth
and consequently a huge rise in
the number of signals we need to
monitor and route,” said Ian Peacock,
Systems Architect Specialist at
SuperSport Media Solutions. “We
chose the Harris Broadcast Platinum
IP3 not just because it gives us
the integrated routing and multiviewer functionality we need today,
but because it will be able to grow
as our facility grows, without any
interruption to the services our
viewers expect.”
Platinum IP3 has also been
adopted by the Riga broadcast
centre in Latvia that provides
direct-to-home satellite and Pay
TV operator Viasat. It has installed
a new 512x1024 Platinum IP3 router
to run in tandem with its Platinum
router. Combined, the two routers
will support more than 1500 outputs
to accommodate future expansion.
“No one expects a router to just
be a simple switch anymore,” said
Mathias Eckert, Vice President,
Sales And Services, Europe &
Africa for Harris Broadcast. “Users

count on them to handle multiple
signal types and levels, and add
functionality such as timing and
clocking, format conversion and
multiview monitoring.”

Axia Audio
There has also been considerable
progress in the audio switching
world. Axia allows broadcasters
to quickly and easily build audio
networks using switched Ethernet
to connect a few rooms, or an
entire facility. Axia networks have
a total system capacity of more
than 10,000 audio streams, and
can carry hundreds of digital stereo
channels (plus machine logic and
PAD) over a single CAT-6 cable.
Axia’s new zero-configuration
IP-Audio router, xSwitch, is said to
require almost no setup. xSwitch
allows broadcasters to place eight
Livewire device ports and dual
network trunking ports into a unit
that only takes half a rack space.
Four of xSwitch’s Livewire ports
supply Power over Ethernet to
run Axia xNode AoIP interfaces,
Telos VSet phones, or other PoEcapable equipment.
This month, Axia updated the
IP-Audio Driver for Windows. The
IP-Audio Driver for Windows helps
broadcasters reduce cost and
cabling in-studio by eliminating
the PC soundcards used in delivery
system PCs, editing workstations
and other playout systems. It
enables users to connect audio
workstations and playout PCs to
their Axia networks over Ethernet.

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In Broadcast - September 2013

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