Television and Broadcast over Fiber applications

Television production and broadcast engineers have always sought out the best technology for media events such as the Olympics. In the mid-1980s, fiber optic transmission was introduced into the television industry. Since that time there has been no looking back. Fiber optics are used in all aspects of production and distribution of video and audio signals. The state of the art for the transport of analog video is to use 10-Bit Digitally Encoded. The serial digital bit rate can vary from about 144 to 300 Mbps.

With the introduction of digital video in the 1990s, fiber optic transmission systems continued to enjoy growth in the broadcast industry. Digital video was encoded into data rates ranging from 144 to 360 Mbps. These high bit rate video signals could only travel over copper up to about 300 meters. Transmission distance beyond 300 meters required fiber.

The transition to 100% DTV/HDTV has created a need to transport signals with a bit rate as high as 3 Gbps. HDTV using an SDI interface (HD-SDI), in its native or uncompressed form, is 2.97 Gbps. HD-SDI can only reach about 150 meters over a coax. Once again, fiber is the only choice to reach distances beyond 150 meters.

Systems can be designed using many of the technologies described above. Analog and digital signal transmission can be mixed. Time-division and optical multiplexing can be combined. A broadcast television station may typically reside in a downtown metropolitan area. The television transmitter and satellite up and down links may be on a distant mountaintop outside the city. This situation is a perfect application for fiber transmission. The system may require both analog video and digital video since the station may be in the midst of their conversion from analog to digital broadcast. Signals in both directions will be required to support downlink satellite video.

Another typical application is that of back-haul feeds, where many channels of video and audio are trunked together over one fiber. Such a system can use TDM to combine groups of eight channels of video with audio into single wavelengths. The optical multiplexing or CWDM technology is used to combine the wavelengths with groups of eight videos onto one fiber. The combined technique of TDM and CWDM provides a fiber transport capacity of more than 144 video channels on one fiber.

Typical applications:
• Real-time studio monitoring for editing/demonstration
• General Broadcast (News/Sports/Events)
• Broadcast Remote DVB Drop Distribution
• Post Production (Point-to-Point)
• Station Networking
• Uncompressed Transport (Post-Editing and Pre-Compression/Distribution)
• Multi-Channel Distribution

Model (PDF File)	Description (HTTP File)	Fiber	Video	Audio	Data
VOS-1SDI	1 SDI/ASI 270 Mbps	1		--	--
VOS-2SDI	2 SDI/ASI 270 Mbps	1
VOS-4SDI	4 SDI/ASI 270 Mbps	1
VOS-1SDI-2AA	1 SDI 270 Mbps & 2 Analog Audio	1			--
VOS-1SDI-2DA	1 SDI 270 Mbps & 2 Digital AES/EBU	1			--
VOS-1HD	1 HD-SDI 270-1485 Mbps w/Loopback	1		--	--
VOS-1HD-2DA	1 HD-SDI 270-1485 Mbps & 2 AES/EBU	1			--
VOS-1000FT/R-10B	10-Bit, 1-Channel Video	1		--	--
VOS-2000FT/R-10B	10-Bit, 2-Channel Video	1		--	--
VOS-4000FT/R-10B	10-Bit, 4-Channel Video	1		--	--
VOS-8000FT/R-10B	10-Bit, 8-Channel Video	1		--	--
VOS-1200FFT/R-10B	10-Bit 1 Video, 24-Bit 2 Audio	1			--
VOS-2400FFT/R-10B	10-Bit 2 Video, 24-Bit 4 Audio	1			--
VOS-4800FFT/R-10B	10-Bit 4 Video, 24-Bit 8 Audio	1			--
VOS-81600FFT/R-10B	10-Bit 8 Video, 24-Bit 16 Audio	1			--
Related Links
• CCTV Camera Video over Fiber - For Fixed Cameras
• CCTV Camera Video over Fiber - For PTZ Cameras
• Fiber Optic Video & Audio Transmission series
• 10-Bit Digitally Encoded Fiber Optic Video Transmission series

Note:
The above models are commonly used models, if you need other types of fiber optic transmitter equipments, please consult us for others, we can supply camera video over fiber, audio over fiber, data, IP ethernet, contact closure, telephone...etc.