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Need advice for setting up house reference in HD/SD facility
In a few months we’re about to rebuild our machine room. We’re going to attempt to remove 7 of 14 racks and move them to a different room while keeping the main infrastructure in place while we do most of the rebuild. Thus far, I’ve figured out what I want to do about routing, what decks I need to keep, what to get rid of. The next step is to figure out what to do about house reference. I want to be able to run one cable for reference to each edit room and several assist stations. This would amount to about 11 rooms in total. I want to be able to switch between 3 different tri-level sync frequencies. Recently, in an auction I picked up two ESE DV-321s. One will send 1080psf23.98 and black and the other will send any arbitrary frequency that is needed at any given time. The challenge is to be able to switch between the three different frequencies and send it to a room or deck when needed. This is my plan thus far and I’m wondering if there is a better way to do this. I will need the two tri-level generators, three composite distribution amplifiers 1×20, and two patch bays. The first tri-level will send 1080psf23.98 to a patch bay that is “normaled” to my rooms/decks. The first tri-level will also send black to the 2nd patch bay that is *not* normaled. The second tri-level will send an arbitrary frequency to the 2nd half of that 2nd patchbay.
Does this make sense? or is there a better way to do this?
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6 Replies
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You could do what you have there, or you could do what we did at my facility. I have a master sync generator with multiple configurable outputs. I have programmed this to output three different types of reference signal: NTSC, PAL, and 1080/23.98sF. I feed those three outputs into a composite video router like this:
It’s a 16×16 router, and I’m using three inputs and 12 outputs. Each input can feed multiple outputs, and with the control panel (sold separately), it’s simply a matter of pushing an output button (destination) and then the corresponding input button (source). Put all your rooms and decks as destinations and just punch up what ref goes where. Signal routed, no need for a separate DA or patchbay. You can get a larger router (32×32), or chain multiple routers together for a larger install. But this is very elegant and simple for anyone to use. You can even “lock” destinations if you have multiple persons changing ref in and out and want to make sure nothing gets punched accidentally.
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Hi Scott –
I know that your boss would never buy a router (certainly not an NVision) for a temporary move. What you are doing is correct (kind of) – Tri Level to the analog DA, DA outs to the patch bays, and normal to the reference inputs. Then patch what you need.If you do this on a router, you need an ANALOG router, not a SDI router to route these reference signals.
But you are doing the move incorrectly. You should not have disconnected any equipment. You put in a couple of NEW racks in your new facility with NEW patch bays (and perhaps your new router), and you PREWIRE for all the racks, and all the 11 edit rooms. You make sure that everything is labeled and harnessed, and all prewired. And then one weekend, you move everything – everything just plugs in and works. This way your facility suffers no downtime. What do you lose – your old cabling a few redundant patch bays, and a couple of racks – so you lose about $2000 – $3000, and you never go down (so you can make this money back in a couple of days from keeping all of your rooms up).
Bob Zelin
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Mark-
If I were to go with your suggestion all I would need to do is go with an analog router. I think both of my reference generators (2x ESE DV-321s) would cover the three different frequencies that are required. The patchbay workflow would cost nothing and your method would run us $3k. I think the best approach is to go with the patchbay workflow and when we get some extra cash then we’ll put in an analog router in the patchbay’s place later on.
Bob-
I didn’t suggest that we were going to pull our whole machine room apart. The 7 racks that are being pulled were no longer in use anyway. We’re going to move those, set everything up, and move equipment when everyone is down for a week during Xmas.
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Bob~
I know I’m digging this one up but I just want to make sure before buy a few DAs, which ones are acceptable for the job. I see there are options for HDSDI/SDI DAs as well as Analog/SDI DAs. Which one will properly do the trick?
https://tinyurl.com/7beh8my
or
https://tinyurl.com/8554lx5Thanks,
Scotty -
Scotty,
All video reference signals (bi-level, tri-level) are composite video, not SDI. Any composite video distribution amplifier should be fine.
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Mark~
Thanks for the clarification.
Regards,
Scott
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