Telecast Fiber Systems' New Coax-to-Fiber Converter Replaces Three or Four Coax Cables with Fiber Line

In its continuing quest to reduce the amount of cabling necessary for on set and remote production, Telecast Fiber Systems, based in Worcester, MA, has come up with a new coax-to-fiber conversion box that sits between a dual-link camera and its battery, and replaces three or four coax cables with one lightweight, “mil-spec” battlefield-rated fiber optic cable.
The new CopperHead DLV3X1 was shown at NAB in the Telecast booth mounted on a Grass Valley Viper camera; although it can work with any dual-link 4:4:4 camera, including those from Arri, Dalsa, Red Digital, and Sony. It moves uncompressed HD video and 4:4:4 data signals between the camera head and a recording device typically sitting in the video village And because the signals are converted to fiber, the distance signals can travel is greatly increased from a limit of hundreds of feet to about nine miles.

The CopperHead DLV3X1 mounts to any dual-link camera and takes the camera’s three 1.5 Gbps digital signals (dual link A and B, as well as a monitoring output, in the form of an HD-SDI 4:2:2 stream) coming to and from the camera and converts them to fiber. The DLV3X1 box also includes a built-in fiber-optic HD receiver that allows an HD stream from the on-set video village or video rack to go back up to the camera as an uncompressed HD signal. This is often used when applying LUTs to the video image or when previewing green-screen composites.

The box is field-tested, having been used recently by ESPN’s Original Productions division on a new TV series (8 one-hour episodes) called The Bronx Is Burning. The series, directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik (The Avengers, Benny & Joon), with Douglas Koch serving as director of photography, was shot primarily at Sonalyst Studios, in Waterford, Conn., with some exterior scenes shot around New England and New York City. In order to cover the live action reenactments of 1977 Major League baseball scenes, the crew used two Viper cameras fitted with the DLV3X1 boxes, which proved to be a great time-saver, as it allowed the cameras to roam more freely around the stadium than they otherwise would have been able to.

[The ESPN series is based on the book Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning, by Jonathon Mahler. It depicts the behind-the-scenes turmoil and triumph of the New York Yankees and their march to the World Series championship in 1977.]

The compact box (3.7″ x 5.5″ x 1.75") is available now for $10,000.

For more information, visit http://www.telecast-fiber.com/.