Having the right cable and connector in the right place – an essential choice for broadcasters
Debates on whether to be using fibre or copper cables have been going on for decades. Although at first glance the cost of fibre seems to be a serious barrier, many users have started looking seriously at the advantages in choosing fibre over copper. The biggest advantage of fibre optics vs copper is that fibre covers longer distances than copper without the need for expensive repeaters. This is essential for broadcasters that need to cover a long distance from the camera to the OB van, for example in a sports stadium or formula one racing facilities. Fibre also offers larger bandwidth; this means that rather than using ten coax cables to send information, a unique fibre cable will be able to transmit the same information, and sometimes even more. This means that it will be easier for broadcasters to lay out lightweight cables on the venue requiring long distance cables. Finally, optical fibre is immune to electromagnetic interference, and hence, the TV signals will not deteriorate by other power cables used to supply the camera.
LEMO offers the 3K.93C connector, a hybrid fibre optic HD camera interconnection system that, by using fibre optics, allows transmission over longer distances and at higher levels of definition. The 3K.93C has a compact design with two single-mode fibre contacts, two power contacts and two signal contacts. New generation camera manufacturers have been incorporating the 3K.93C connector into their HDTV products. The 3K.93C as created by LEMO for more then 10 years ago, is not only the first HDTV connector of it’s kind, but it is also now, the only connector to be AINSI/ SMPTE (USA), ARIB (Japan) and EBU (Europe) compliant.
To meet the growing demand, a number of LEMO companies & partners are now, fully equipped to manufacture high quality fibre and hybrid cable assemblies. Kestronics (S) Pte Ltd, for instance, has just completed a 1 day HDTV seminar on 14-Mar-2007 for potential users and will continue to invest in this technology as well as education in this region.
And with a wide distribution network, we can all look forward to more of such faultless live coverage of major events around the world. Even in Singapore, who knows, S-League matches or live coverage of speeches (say, Budget Day) or even our daily news may all be using HDTV one day?
For existing copper broadcast solutions, LEMO continues to offer its wide range of high performance high quality triax connectors, such as the 4A, 4E, 4M or 3T series.
