The protection switch is a critical part of implementing fault tolerance through redundancy. When done well, the protection switch ensures the integrity of its output video even when faced with a catastrophic error. When video sources arrive on redundant paths, a protection switch chooses the best one as the source for the facility.
The 7800R2x2-ACS-3G is a protection switch that performs this task with excellence. A configurable set of advanced Audio Video Monitoring (AVM) parameters are used to determine an input's validity. The Advanced Clean Switch (ACS) uses this information to choose a valid input video source for the output. This determination is done on each frame and the ACS ensures a change between input sources is not detectable.
These monitoring capabilities include the ability to detect SDI errors. The AVM parameters include frozen picture detection, black picture detection, picture and audio level monitoring as well as Ancillary Data monitoring. Many of these AVM metrics have user-adjustable thresholds and time periods to suit any application.
The 7800R2x2-ACS-3G's delay buffers make it possible to completely avoid allowing an error through. The delay for each input is also independent, allowing the video content to be temporally aligned before switching. Once aligned, a change in the output video source will happen without a temporal "slip" in the content, making the switch visually undetectable. Additionally, Evertz SoftSwitch technology ensures "popless" switching of embedded audio, making the switch audibly undetectable.
In many of today's systems, main and backup paths could go through different networks and communication technologies, and so the skew between signals cannot be assumed to be fixed. The +TCA option enables the module to use the embedded time code information (ATC) to automatically adjust internal delay buffers so that there is no skew between the inputs to the 7800R2x2-ACS-3G's crosspoint. With this powerful feature, all input video signals are both synchronized in phase and aligned in time.
The 7800R2x2-ACS-3G can also pass time-sensitive GPI information across the switch. The GPIs are delayed and aligned to ensure that the GPO state during a particular output frame matches the state of the GPI when that frame arrived at the input.
Advanced features like these allow for the ultimate in protection for important content. When downtime is costly, the 7800R2x2-ACS-3G ensures
