By Staff, November 12, 2005
Now broadcasters can trade in any analog or digital standards converter and receive a trade-in allowance on a new Kudos Plus Mach1 M.Sc, a motion-compensated converter from Snell & Wilcox.
Priced in the same range as a four-field converter, the Mach1 M.Sc delivers motion-compensated conversion quality and -- with integrated aspect ratio conversion and both analog and digital I/Os -- facilitates a smooth transition to digital broadcasting. Under the trade-in program, Snell & Wilcox will offer a credit greater than the second-hand value of the customer's old converter toward the purchase of a new Mach1.
Broadcast companies that have recently added Mach1 systems to their facilities include Globecast and Eutel in France, DirecTV and EchoStar in the United States, and Gearhouse in the United Kingdom, as well as sportscasters LA Turf and ESPN, newscasters ABC and Reuters, and music broadcaster MTV.
While older converters are likely to have only analog interfaces, the 1-RU
Mach1 handles either analog or digital signals and can convert video to and from PAL, NTSC, and SECAM, as well as 10-bit SDI signals, while also handling AES audio
. In addition to built-in aspect ratio conversion, a key capability for DTV broadcasting, the system also boasts an all-10-bit data path.
Snell & Wilcox M.Sc motion vectors enable motion-compensated conversion for excellent image quality, which is in turn enhanced through noise reduction featuring recursive and median filtering. The Mach1's clean motion portrayal of frame-rate conversion produces video that is not just good to look at, but is also compression-friendly, helping to minimize unnecessary motion data in MPEG-2 bitstreams.
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