Hitachi Kokusai Electric Europe’s new 16-bit SK-HD1200 1080P/3G production camera is shipping in Europe. The SK-HD1200 is Hitachi’s fourth generation HDTV camera that employs progressive scan CCD image sensors and 16-bit digital signal processing technologies. The camera has 50Hz or 60Hz AC line power and both analogue and digital signal outputs. The SK-HD1200 is capable of simultaneous SD and HD outputs and supports 1080p, 1080i and 720p HD signal formats. “Already, we have cameras in use with customers and the feedback we are receiving is very encouraging,” commented Paddy Roache, director and general manager of Hitachi Kokusai Electric Europe. The 4.4Kg camera is a two-piece dockable design. It is the smallest and most power efficient (22W camera head power consumption) Hitachi HDTV camera ever. With the integration of new 2.3 million pixel, micro-lens array, native 1080p CCDs, the SK-HD1200 provides significantly higher performance than all prior models. The SK-HD1200 uses integrated16-bit analogue-to-digital converters (ADC). These high speed ADCs are the bridge between the analogue output of the CCDs and the advanced Hitachi digital signal processor (DSP). All major components of the Hitachi SK-HD1200 camera system possess their own DSP processor. Different DSP ICs are used independently for the HDTV camera head processing, the transmission system and the Camera Control Unit (CCU) processing. The new power-efficient digital signal processor LSI’s are designed under the 40nm rule with dynamic processing capability in excess of 38-bits per pixel, per RGB channel. Hitachi has brought to market the first 3Gbps, fully digital optical transmission system in an HDTV production camera. All command audio and video signals to and from the camera are digitally transmitted. Camera power and cable condition supervision is enabled using standard SMPTE311-type Hybrid Fiber Cable. The maximum HFOC length with applied camera power and fully operational facilities is 4,000m (13,200 feet) with no utility power. Optical power meters are at the camera head (via engineering menu) and on the front of the CU-HD1200 camera control unit. These meters indicate the optical condition of both the receive and transmit signals independently to accurately depict the proximity to the ‘digital cliff’, maximum cable distance or provide basic fibre cable diagnostics in the field.11.E30
