Smart Digital Video Interfaces Solve the Problem of Multiple Standards

Recent introduction of many new digital high definition video standards has created a challenge for interfacing various types of video equipment. On the same physical interconnections a variety of different video and audio formats can be transported. There are already over 57 new different video formats standardized, and the number will likely continue to grow. — The formats may have any combination of the following parameters: • active raster size (display resolution), • progressive or not, • different vertical rates, • RGB or YUV color space, • different synchronization references, • ancillary data presence and type, • multiple transport links (auto-adjustment of phase) • timing reference signals — Future digital video equipment will incorporate smart interfaces to relief users from the burden of “running around” and manually switching modes of different “boxes”. Smart interfaces will increase productivity of video studios, video databases and such. — This paper describes a computer system (with storage) employing a smart video interface to automate system interaction with the outside video equipment. The paper also explores detailed technical solutions to the smart video interface challenge. Example of “High Definition Video I/O” card from SGI (former Silicon Graphics) is used to illustrate how the right architecture can allow for implementation of various circuits for automatic recognition of video formats. The card received two awards (“NAB 99 editors' pick of show”, and “The Tommy Award” from Millimeter magazine“) and great applause from the video post-production community.

Published

1999-11

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M00334

ISBN

978-1-61482-931-7