QampA Security update

Lawrence Wai (Analog Way):Yes, either using our PIPs or multi outputs. All our switchers can seamlessly switch in any security cameras feeds. On the top of that, the Eikos series has a mosaic preview function allowing you to display up to 12 inputs on one screen. However, not all the sources will be live but with a short frame delay on the sources.

Erik Iversen (Barco):Our live switchers do not control security cameras, but Barco has a whole division dedicated to security and monitoring that can assist a church with these requirements.

Richard Lim (Blackmagic Design): Our switchers are live product switchers. They should cater for most requirements that require live switching.

Paul Lara (Broadcast Pix): Yes. Broadcast Pix’s Granite not only supports 22 SD or HD inputs, but it also comes with Fluent Macros that could easily set intervals to switch between each security camera.

Tim Brooksbank (Calibre UK): Modern security cameras are generally IP-based using a computer, so wouldn’t be routed through a projection switcher to the on-stage screen.

Takashi Shiratori (FOR-A): A large number of security cameras output composite or component video. Our HVS-350HS Hanabi video switcher, when fitted with the HVS-30HSAI, can take in any PAL, NTSC or component analogue signals and seamlessly switch them with SDI or other video signals. The HVS-350HS further offers frame synchronising on all inputs, as well as up-converters on up to 20 inputs, making it possible for CCTV signals to be brought directly into HD production!

Chris Merrill (Grass Valley): The most efficient way to use Karrera for security cameras would be to dedicate a Mix Effect bus – this could be a bus partition using DoubleTake or the switcher’s half-M/E – to security cameras. Using the switcher’s keyers, a single output could contain as many as six camera windows. Through the use of E-MEM a single button press could change all or any combination of the windows. Another button press could enlarge a selected window for detailed viewing of the source.

Pham Quang Chi (Datavideo Technologies): Traditionally, a HOW generally requires a video switcher for video mixing and recording and a matrix switcher to display different video sources – live video from cameras, presentation from computer or playback clip from DVD player – on different projection screens. In Datavideo’s SE-3000, users can perform both on a single device by utilising the switcher’s AUX function and its special quick user shot-boxes design. With multiple AUX outputs, the vision mixer can choose to display any input source – be it from video cameras, computers or DVD, media players – to any AUX output while switching and mixing other video sources for recording.

Furthermore, the vision mixer can also use quick user shot-boxes to recall presets on the AUX outputs to instantly change the video display on the projection screens connected to the AUX outputs. Our SE-3000 is purely a video switcher, so unfortunately it cannot control a security camera. However, Datavideo does have a separate product, namely the RMC-180, which can control up to four pan-tilt-zoom cameras of the kind that some HOWs may have.

David Penrose (Kramer Electronics): With some of the models we have, we can switch between four cameras – although this isn’t what the unit was primarily designed to do. Our presentation switchers are more designed to integrate multiple, incompatible formats into a single device.

Les O’Reilly (Ross Video): The CrossOver and Carbonite switchers have built in Frame Sync and Format Converters that allow sources to have mixed resolutions: Vision uses our openGear platform to add Modular Cards for this function. This allows the incorporation of SD sources into the HD production environment. This is particularly useful when doing a system upgrade that will see some or most of the equipment move to HD while still having additional sources that won’t be switched out just yet. A security camera fits this kind of requirement.

With some low-cost, point-of-use conversion – analogue to SDI – that will allow a single SDI link to connect the camera back to the switcher, these sources can be taken as additional sources directly into the production switcher. An alternative workflow to this would be the use of a low-cost analogue router that takes all of the cameras into it and then switches any of the cameras to a single input on the switcher. In many cases the need to switch between two of these cameras may not exist, so only a single input on the switcher would need to be fed and the router would give the operator access to any of them on the fly.

David Tasker (Snell): Kahuna 360 can accept SD, HD or 1080p and be switchable depending on which standard the switcher is set to, so it can easily switch views of security cameras. With up to 120 configurable inputs, a HOW operator can switch from any crosspoint mapped to the panel.