The latest member of the Telecast Fiber Systems’ CopperHead family of camera-mounted fibre optic transceiver systems was launched at IBC2011, writes Melanie Dayasena-Lowe.
CopperHead Visa provides a smooth and seamless fibre optic link between remotely deployed HD news gathering cameras and any third-party transmit/receive and audio embedder/de-embedder systems, such as the Evertz Video PassPort.
“Growing numbers of ENG microwave and satellite trucks are outfitted with high-end systems that are rather like ‘Swiss Army Knives’ — performing a wide range of video processing tasks such as audio embedding and de-embedding, up- and down-conversion, frame synchronisation, and fibre transmitting and receiving,” said Jim Hurwitz, director of product marketing and management for Telecast Fibre Systems. “The CopperHead Visa lets new operations get the most from their investment in these systems, enabling them to bring in the absolute highest-quality HD camera signals over a long-distance TAC2 fibre cable and then return HD video and IFB audio back to the camera.”
Unlike other CopperHead transceivers, the CopperHead Visa requires no base station — instead, it provides a direct fibre optic link between the HD camera and the video processing unit installed in the truck. The CopperHead Visa takes the camera’s video and embedded audio signals and transforms them into optical signals, where they are carried on fibre cable across a distance of more than 5,000 feet without any loss of signal quality. A video processing system like the Evertz PassPort in the truck then transforms the optical signals back into video and de-embeds the audio. That same processing device simultaneously sends a return video feed, with embedded IFB audio, back to the CopperHead Visa mounted on the camera, where up to two channels of IFB audio are de-embedded for crew communications.
Stand:10.B39
www.telecast-fiber.com