A British designer and manufacturer of high-quality fiber-optic links for the broadcast, telecommunications, and professional AV industries is set to highlight its latest range of IP-gateway products at the 2017 NAB Show.
Bluebell Opticom will highlight Edgware, designed to serve as a bridge between current 3G-SDI-based broadcast infrastructures and those built on IP technology. Edgware products make it possible to use BNC and XLR technology to transport broadcast signals over IP networks. The user interface remains the same, but the transport technology is new.
“The result is that broadcast facilities can save money by repurposing existing equipment for IP delivery,” the company asserts.
NAB Show visitors will see Bluebell Opticom’s BCX-760 Series 10G Ethernet point-to-point fiber link, which is now in full production. The BCX-760 is a camera-back interface that allows connection and signal transport between a camera and an outside broadcast truck or a base station. A compact and powerful interface that slots neatly between the camera body and the battery, the BCX-760 is designed to convert a basic camcorder into a rackable professional camera channel.
In what the company says is a first for the industry, BCX-760 interfaces map all signals presented at the back of any broadcast camera onto a 10G Ethernet point-to-point link, providing interference-free high-quality transport over longer distances than have been seen in the past.
Also debuting at the 2017 NAB Show will be the BC390, a mux/demux card designed to associate UHD with multiple SDI signals. The BC390 receives four 3G-SDI inputs and serialises them to one 12G-SDI output on both BNC and fiber ports simultaneously, or vice versa. This is the first of a range of modules that will up/down/cross-convert HD-SDI, 3G-SDI, 6G-SDI, and 12G-SDI. The BC390 and its stand-alone counterpart, the BN390, were created for the 12G market, but they can be implemented in multiple ways for multiple applications. For example, if an HD or 3G-SDI CWDM network is running out of wavelengths, the BN390 can put four 3G-SDI signals onto one wavelength.
Additionally, NAB attendees can view the BC365, a set of modular cards from Bluebell’s straight 12G-SDI-to-fiber converter range. Designed for Bluebell’s BC Series 19-inch rack-based system, the BC365 cards provide a dual-channel 12G-SDI link over single-mode fibre. The BC365T converts electrical 12G signals to fibre, while the BC365R converts fibre signals to 12G electrical.
