Turn any HD or 4K camera platform into a SMPTE studio camera – Webinar Recording

Join Jim Jachetta CTO of VidOvation and Jesse Forster Director of Product Development & Western Region Sales at MultiDyne to learn about how you can use fiber-optic camera adapters to incorporate large image sensor digital cinema cameras into live multi-camera production with remote power and bidirectional signal transmission on a single cable. Find out how… To address different formats and signal requirements with a single adapter (Click) Download the User's Guide to Fiber-Optic Video Transmission to choose the right fiber-optic camera adapter for various camera types to use the same tools and workflow implemented by state-of-the-art studios and mobile production units to achieve a unique look and feel. Jim Jachetta: Good morning everyone. Jim Jachetta here from VidOvation. I'm the co-founder and CTO. Today we have a very special guest. My friend Jesse Foster from MultiDyne, he's the director of products in Western sales. He's going to lay some fiber optic knowledge on us, particularly how to use studio cameras in a multi-camera production environment, a live production environment, right, Jesse? Jesse Foster: Correct. That's right. Jim Jachetta: All right. So lay some knowledge on us. Jesse Foster: Okay. So thanks for joining everybody. So I am located in the Los Angeles area and report back to the MultiDyne headquarters in Hauppauge, Long Island, New York. And a little history on the company. We've been around since 1977 and over the years we've focused primarily on these markets and with these applications that are on the right hand side of the screen. For the sake of this presentation, we're going to be focused on these areas of venues and stadiums and live stage events, primarily with the studio signal extension side of things. And touch on what we can do with PTZ and POV operator lease cameras, if that's a real phrase. MultiDyne Video & Fiber Optic Systems Jesse Foster: Other areas of interest that you might see here, follow up with myself or Jim afterwards, we can get into what we do in the military space and streaming and so forth. One of the main through lines that you'll see through this presentation is our leveraging of the SMPTE fiber optic spec in the United States. It's this SMPTE 304M connector. You see it's an international standard. It's an international technology that's been standardized by multiple bodies, that I have listed here. The connector is then utilized with the SMPTE 311M spec of cable, which you can see on the right hand corner of the screen there. It is comprised of two single mode fibers, which means your bandwidth is theoretically, it's limitless to some degree. MultiDyne Company Overview Jesse Foster: There's also two power cables and two low voltage signal wires. So it's a all in one a connection that if you just imagined once you start seeing the breakout of signal IO that we can do on our products, what that would be traditionally in the copper sense, it would just be a very large loom of copper, that's very heavy and is very distance limited. So this technology is, it's streamlining and it enables workflows that are not achievable with copper. And in the cases where we don't have the SMPTE 311 cable, whether or not it's an older stadium or a studio facility, we have techniques to get the payload onto a single fiber optic tactical single mode cable, and inject power at the receive side, or at the camera side. SMPTE Fiber Optic Camera Systems - SMPTE 304M - SMPTE 311M Jesse Foster: So the message of we can turn any camera into a SMPTE camera, it really is applicable to any type of video source that you might have. It could be a VTR that we could hang on the end of our transmission system. So it's a throwback VTR server or something like that. So you'll see that we have a very not platform specific. We're very universal in our solution. So really you guys will probably find some applications that I don't mention here, and we'd be interested to talk to you about those as well. Jim Jachetta: Well, you were telling me yesterday, Jesse, when we were harassing that, that everything you do from the cable to the technology is very standard spaced. Jesse Foster: Correct. Jim Jachetta: And you'll get into that more. Jesse Foster: Correct. And that's how we can be everything to everybody in that sense. Primarily the cameras and the peripheral items in the industry are standards based, whether it's SMPTE or others. And we make sure that we are compliant with those standards. So we're plug and play and we don't introduce any proprietary [inaudible 00:04:42] or anything in this level of product. So to bring the SMPTE studio camera, the message full circle here, this about 20 years I believe since HDTV really was rolled out, that the SMPTE cable spec has been leveraged by the prime camera vendors. And I have that, the ones that we work with listed here. So it's really the who's who, the broadcast cameras traditionally here, Sony, Hitachi, Grass Valley, Panasonic and Ikegami. SMPTE Studio Camera Manufacturers - Sony, Hitachi, GV Grass Valley, Panasonic, Ikegami Jesse Foster: So we actually have product that augments these systems and like I mentioned gets you to the single mode workflow, and allows you to get away from the hybrid cabling where required. So like I mentioned, if there's a studio or a stadium, it doesn't have it, or if there's issues with the electromagnetic interference where the copper in the cable could induct some unwanted interference. That's another reason that, do you get away from the hybrid cabling? Jesse Foster: So to do that, we have a product line called the SMPTE-HUT. So it's a hybrid universal transceiver. On the left hand side is the base station unit. This plugs right onto the back of a CCU. So the studio SMPTE systems from Sony for example, are going to be comprised of two elements. You'll have the camera and you'll have a base station. The base station supplies the power and does all the transceiver thing of the video signals, the Intercom signals, everything. So you'll see that we have the equivalent of that system in our SilverBack line, which we'll get to. But when we're working with these traditional SMPTE systems, this is the type of product we use to get you to that single mode workflow. So the unit on the right is the camera power insertion unit and the unit on the left is the one that goes onto the base station. SMPTE-HUT Systems - Transmission Extenders for SMPTE-Based Camera Chains Jim Jachetta: So Jesse, you would use this tech if you don't have SMPTE conductivity throughout your facility. So it's getting, it's mapping the SMPTE conductivity to more traditional, more generic single mode fiber. Is that correct? Jesse Foster: Correct. Yeah. This is a single mode nine micron fiber, which is the same as that's in the SMPTE cable. But it's unrestrained, it doesn't have the copper around it, the jacketing and everything, but you can get them a tactical is the term. So tech 12 would indicate that it's a tactical fiber that's meant to be used in the field and can be run over by vehicles and it's meant to be resilient. And the 12, it would indicate that there's 12 fibers in it. So there's tech two, so really the number indicates how many fibers are in a given cable. This would be a tech two scenario that you see here. Jesse Foster: The signaling from the camera to the base station and back is bi-directional by nature. So this takes two fibers in this standard application. Another scenario where you'd want to get away from the hybrid fiber is distance limitations that are implied with the hybrid fiber. Nobody really makes really long SMPTE 311 cables. They make them long, but not as long as you do with the single mode fiber because just the weight and the cost and everything, like the reels would be too big, it's just not feasible. SMPTE HUT Applications Jim Jachetta: Well, yeah. Well, so I believe Jesse too the resistance of the copper cable then inhibits how much power you can push through it. Jesse Foster: Correct. That's right. Jim Jachetta: That's part of it as well, right? Yeah. Jesse Foster: Correct. Jim Jachetta: [inaudible 00:08:31]. Single mode, you could go 15, 20 kilometers, you're not going to make a 15 or 20 kilometers SMPTE cable. Jesse Foster: Right. Mostly based on just the cost and weight and everything and it's a waste. Because you're wasting all of the additional copper connectivity that's in there. You're going to utilize the two fibers. You might as well just do something like this with the system like this and go those 20 kilometers and get back to SMPTE at the camera and at the base. So that's what we're showing right here. And our SilverBack V data sheet, which we can send a link out to, it's on our website, has a chart that shows what type of power distance you should be able to expect based on a given type of [inaudible 00:09:11] cable. And it really does come down to the diameter of the copper power conductors that are in there, to your point. Jesse Foster: There's two workflows here. One is active at the camera side. We're actually injecting power depending on the type of cable you're using. We can go up to a kilometer to power the cameras. So down from there if you're using thinner gauge, SMPTE 311 fiber for example. And then the second scenario here is the camera's powered locally using like four pin XLR or traditional camera power. And we're doing this with a passive device and it's really just converting the two STs back into the SMPTE connection to make the connection to the camera. SMPTE HUT Features Jesse Foster: They're typically passive like I just referenced, but we can build these products. And a key point to make at the front end of this presentation is, we do a lot of custom work, when the customer,...