ABC's Bandwidth Independent Fiber Optic HD Central Switching Center

This paper presents the design and construction concepts for ABC's new HD Central Switching Center, which is the first 3 Gig HD-SDI television switching and transmission plant capable of support 1080p/60 and the emerging 3D TV standards implemented on a fully-fiber based infrastructure. The paper focuses on key decision processes, technology choices and, the desire to implement a future proof format and bandwidth independent television broadcast facility and illustrates the challenges that were faced in designing a completely fiber based plant including the analysis of technical limitations and constraints to a traditional coax-based plant. The paper will also address the novel methods needed to design the fiber cable infrastructure and the new terminal equipment needed to satisfy TV operations. A discussion is included on the implementation of an alternative routing methodology that utilizes advanced tie-line management to essentially create a signal routing cloud that permits users from any destination to access any source on any router within the ABC campus. Finally, an improved approach to transmission operations will be discussed. This approach employs universal routing control, integrated monitor control and alarming, and a single work-surface panel to improve workflow efficiency.

Published

2009-10

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M001327

ISBN

978-1-61482-943-0