PHABRIX At BVE London

With BVE, the UK's premiere home market exposition for all things broadcast opening 23rd February, PHABRIX is attending with its latest technological release – the PHABRIX Qx for UHDTV1 and UHDTV2 test and measurement, Stand MO1.

Designed as a complete solution for testing the new UHDTV formats, the PHABRIX Qx features the very latest technology in a new 'future-proof' platform targeted at broadcasters and manufacturers looking for a comprehensive test and measurement solution. The key differentiator of this new instrument is its ability to provide simultaneous generation and analysis tools on signals with up to 48Gbps payloads offering both video and audio instrumentation.

The Qx comes complete with support for HD-SDI, 3G-SDI, 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI as standard. Two base models are available: one complete with physical layer analysis and one without.

Incorporating PHABRIX 'real-time eye' technology RTETM the 12G-SDI capable physical layer analysis tool-set enables comprehensive testing of both UHDTV1/4K and UHDTV2/8K infrastructures. Importantly the PHABRIX Qx can present automatic measurements for both overshoot and undershoot along with eye height, rise time and fall time – compulsory when verifying SMPTE compliance and a key differentiator with Qx technology. With an analogue front end bandwidth in excess of 30 GHz, the Qx is perfect for 12G-SDI eye and jitter testing.

The PHABRIX Qx supports both generation and analysis of UHDTV signals simultaneously – a must have for closed loop testing and a standard feature on the Qx. The low noise floor of the Qx generator sets a benchmark standard for quality testing of the new standards.

With 4 x 12Gbps BNC inputs and 4 x 12Gbps BNC outputs the platform is able to support UHDTV standards up to 4320P60. In addition, two fully connected SFP+ cages provide support for both 12Gbps optical SDI SFPs and 10GbE SFPs for the testing of IP based infrastructures. A range of format options will be available in the near future including SMPTE 2022-6.

The Qx is controlled using an intuitive user interface consisting of mouse, keyboard and 1920x1080 HDMI and SDI instrument outputs. The all new client/server based Qx GUI provides up to 16 simultaneous scalable instrument windows backed by a powerful preset mechanism.

The Qx provides instruments including scaled picture view, zoomed pixel view, video status, data view, ancillary data display, timing analyser, video generator and eye and jitter displays.

A later software option will provide comprehensive tools for stress testing SDI interfaces with generator controls for jitter injection, eye amplitude and eye pre-emphasis control plus system jitter susceptibility and jitter transfer measurements including jitter FFT.

Support for HDR (High Dynamic Range), WCG (Wide Colour Gamut), HFR (High Frame Rate) and the advanced object based audio formats will be provided as the standards develop.

Phil Adams, Managing director of PHABRIX, commented: "It is an exciting time to be involved with technology particularly in broadcasting. The Qx is our flagship product and despite the technological challenges of making a true hybrid solution for SDI and IP infrastructure, the implementation of the Qx enables us to respond to the needs of customers now and in the future."

The company has not stopped developing its other products and at BVE this year, visitors will see enhancements on the TAG which include new power saving mode for more than 2 hours un-tethered portability of this very capable multi interface instrument. Support for a new HDMI SFP allows engineers to test monitors and HDMI specific interfaces around the broadcast station adding to its copper and fibre support.

At BVE this year, PHABRIX will also be promoting V9.04 on its increasingly popular PHABRIX Rx rack mount products.

Paul Nicholls, marketing director, added: "The Rx series including the Rx2000, Rx1000 and Rx500 have developed into very capable rack mount instruments. We already have some major installations around the world with over 30 Rx's in one site. The key to its success is its versatility with both video and audio support. Where installations might normally have a separate rasterizer for video and a separate instrument for audio, the Rx provides both in one unit.

"It is particularly powerful in supporting Dolby with a dual Dolby decode module supporting Dolby E, Dolby D and Dolby D plus formats. The use of pre-sets allows separate Dolby channels to be checked instantly using the down mix facility and the on-board stereo speakers incorporated on the Rx2000 although audio can be easily routed from the Rx to speakers or to an HDMI monitor supporting 8 channels of audio. Each Rx can display instruments at 1920 x 1080 via HDMI or SDI outputs and it also has a free generator as part of the package."

PHABRIX is close to the BVE's main entrance this year so be sure to find Stand MO1 as you enter the show.

www.phabrix.com

(JP/LM)