VBrick Systems VB6000, VB4000 SDI Configuration, Introduction, Chapter, Topics in this chapter

Chapter 3

SDI Configuration

Topics in this chapter

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

SDI Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

SDI Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Introduction

Serial Digital Interface, or SDI, is mainly used in the professional industry and is based on the principal standard for broadcast television and the motion picture industries. Reliable, flexible and cost-effective video transport is critical to the video transmission industry, which provides state-of-the-art transport services for broadcast networks, content producers, entertainment programmers, news agencies and sportscasters throughout the world. SDI provides users the best available video quality with virtually no latency.

The Serial Digital Interface version of the WM Encoder includes an extra hardware module that plugs into the encoder card, allowing the broadcast industry standard 270 Mbps serial signal to be converted to Windows Media. The Serial Digital Interface input module accepts the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers industry-standard, SMPTE 259M-C compliant signals at 270 Mbps. The standard specifies a Serial Digital Interface (SDI) for digital video equipment operating at either the 525-line, 60 Hz or 625-line, 50 Hz video standard. After VBrick's Windows Media conversion, the compressed video can be transported and utilized over a standard IP network.

The SDI module extracts AES/EBU or non-AES/EBU audio from Group 1 channels 1–4 from the incoming 270 Mbps data stream. These audio channels are embedded into the SDI video stream and occupy space in the horizontal and vertical blanking interval. These four channels are extracted into two SDI stereo streams of audio. SDI 1-2contains the stereo channels 1 and 2 from Group 1 of the embedded audio. SDI 3-4contains the stereo channels 3 and 4 from Group 1 of the embedded audio. The VBrick's SDI module can capture and encode either channels 1 and 2, or channels 3 and 4 from the SDI stream. Audio embedded in Groups 2, 3, and 4 of the SDI stream cannot be utilized by the VBrick. If desired, the VBrick can be configured to ignore any embedded SDI audio and instead encode audio from its analog audio inputs at the same time it encodes video from SDI.

SDI Configuration

WM SDI encoders have nearly identical configuration parameters and IWS pages as standard WM encoders (see Configuration: Encoder on page 23) except that the WM SDI encoder has an additional Video Input Type selection for SDI and it has additional Audio Input selections

for SDI 1-2 and SDI 3-4.

VBrick WM Appliance Admin Guide 89