BBC CHOOSE EYEHEIGHT SYSTEMS

BBC Resources have chosen Eyeheight transmission data monitoring systems for use in their extended television services.
Three complete Eyeheight systems will be supplied, each based on four of the many modules in the Eyeheight geNETics range: the VM-2 active format descriptor, SE-1 programme detector, SD-2 subtitler and MD-2 master display.
Eyeheight's VM-2 active format descriptor (AFD) monitoring unit embeds and extracts information on the aspect ratio size of a programme into or from a 270 Mbyte/s serial digital video signal stream. The ITU-601 serial digital signal consists of picture information (meaning the data required to reconstruct a picture pixel by pixel) and along with this goes the synchronisation data. The AFD is encoded as chrominance information onto line 11 of the SDI signal and thence integrated into the multiplex using an MPEG coder. Auxiliary data such as embedded audio can also be inserted and becomes an integral part of the main signal feed.
The Eyeheight SE-1 video and audio detector automatically detects the presence of a video signal and indicates 625 line, 525 line or No-Video.
This is achieved by detecting the sync data information (start and end of ITU-601 active video) and the duration between them to determine the quality of the SDI signal. It also detects audio data headers embedded in an SDI signal stream and indicates which of four audio groups are present and what they are.
The SD-2 video subtitler allows in-vision text to be carried as a service for deaf viewers. Control of font, text colour and location is provided, the text being either superimposed over the programme graphics or on a user-selected background colour.
Eyeheight's MD-2 master display module takes in data from any module in the system and uses icons burnt-into the SDI picture to warn an operator of a potential problem. The MD-2 can handle up to 50 separate and different channels and is configurable to individual customer requirements. A second MD-2 data display module can be used together with a redundant power supply to ensure that the monitoring facility is always available.
All modules in the system are connected via the Eyeheight I-bus networked geNETics ring main. This simplifies system expansion and ensures that an automation system can monitor any failures in the network.
(GB)