Screen Subtitling Systems‘ new Polistream 2Power unit has gone into full production, making reliable power redundancy available for its Polistream transmission systems, writes David Fox.
Despite the occasional need to take down a power feed and any associated UPS units for maintenance, Screen has resisted adding an internal redundant power supply to its Polistream transmission equipment.
“Internal redundant power supplies clearly have an important role in uninterruptible kit but adding them in every individual unit can add unnecessary cost and complexity,” explained Screen’s Sales and Marketing Director, Gary Glover (pictured).
“We’ve taken a different approach with our Polistream system, which we feel is much more suited to a multi-platform architecture.”
With two individually-fused power inputs, Screen’s separate 2Power box can provide power feeds to up to eight Polistream units or any other equipment.
It is claimed to provide a fast and non-disruptive switchover from the primary to the secondary power feed, allowing any units connected to the eight outputs to continue to function whilst the main power feed is out of service.
Once any maintenance is completed and the power or UPS is reconnected, the primary feed is re-established and the Polistream units are smoothly and seamlessly reverted back to this source.
Each of its two banks of four power outputs has effective surge suppression protection with power switchovers only producing a minimal and safe 8ms power spike.
“A major benefit of offering power redundancy for Polistream through 2Power as opposed to having twin internal power supplies in each unit is the one-to-many principle it uses,” said Glover.
It is common for Polistream users to have multiple units racked together, so if each unit contained its own redundant power supply, the switchover would inevitably have to be carried out on each of those units, but each 2Power can switch eight units over simultaneously.
