#broadcast engineering

[commodorez]

October 2022 rack update: now with an openGear DFR 8321 terminal equipment frame!

[commodorez]

commodorez, will you show off that home setup you mentioned in that reblog

Gladly! Buckle up!

Here's the breakdown:

The main rack of equipment contains the following (from the top):

Knox RS16x16 composite video/audio router

Blackmagic Design Smart Videohub 20x20 3G-SDI video router (3G -SDI is equivalent to 1080p60)

Kramer VP-501XL UXGA (VGA at 1600x1200) to composite converter

CQ-900 Real Time Color Quad (allows 4 video composite video signals to be combined into one, spaced into 4 quadrants)

Extron AVT-100 tuner (for demodulating RF on old game systems)

Extron DVS-304 Scan Converter/Scaler (DVI version with SDI input option)

Videotek VSG-201D 601 Digital Sync Generator (barely used)

Digital Processing Systems Inc. DPS-220 TBC/Frame Synchronizer

Ubiquity Unifi 24 port gigabit switch (unrelated to video stuff)

Hidden behind the rack are a pair of Blackmagic Design signal converters: one SDI to Analog, and one Analog to SDI.

The RS16x16 takes center stage, since most standard definition signals and all of the audio routes through it. Here's the current router chart:

Video and audio on this router can be sent as a pair, or separately as I so choose. I control it via the front panel keypad and watch the status on the LED matrix, but I can also run it via RS232 in a terminal. I've been thinking of making my own control panel for it modeled after the NV9601.

Many of these sources are audio from my various computers, video and audio from vintage computers, connections for a game system or two, and some other oddities. The destinations are a few vintage computer monitors and some video encoder devices on my various desktops, which I control mostly from OBS.

The last 4 destinations are the CQ-900 Quad's inputs for video, and 4 faders on my AM500 Stereo Mixer for audio. This means I can pick 4 things and give each one a fader on the mixer:

This is my Atus AM500 stereo mixer. The output of which runs to the Scott Integrated Amplifier 480A below, which runs to two sets of speakers in my workshop. I can have a video game running on one fader, audio from a voice chat on another, and music on a third. Works great for co-op games or streaming stuff.

Source/Destination #10 is labeled Bench, which is my workbench across the room:

On the workbench I have a Knox RS8x8 composite video router hooked to a bidirectional tie line to the main RX16x16 router. This means I can send a signal over to the test equipment, or send something being tested on the bench over to the main router, and then to an encoder device. There's also an SDI line to carry the HD feed from one of my bench cameras over to the SDI router, but I don't always use that.

The workbench router doesn't have too much wired to it, so I haven't written up a chart. I've got two bench cameras, a small monochrome monitor, and a TV, plus the ability to run video cables directly to an oscilloscope.

Here's what it looks like behind the main rack:

Yeah. It's a mess, but it's always in flux, so I don't bother arranging the cables too neatly. I try to use BNC terminated cables whenever possible, but occasionally I have to use RCA adapters. Right now the TBC and the Sync Generator aren't wired up because I don't need them. I unplug the SDI router when I'm not using it because it's loud and obnoxious.

Most of this is surplus gear I got for cheap, mixed in with inexpensive new bits and pieces of things I scored online. I've got other equipment scattered about that I connect as needed. There are also video adapters you don't see here, and this doesn't even cover all of the various encoding hardware I have installed in my desktop computers.

So, that's my setup (as of right now). It will be different in a month, I'm sure.

[commodorez]

Master Control

[commodorez]

Why do I have 3 of these Knox 8x8′s, and a Knox Chameleon 48x48?

I don’t need 4 composite video routing switchers, and yet here we are...

[commodorez]

Oh yeah, 4 autohybrids in a rack!  Maximum analog broadcast telephony!

What the fuck am I going to do with these?

[commodorez]

VTR Maintenance

[commodorez]

What the hell am I going to do with a Knox Chameleon 48x48 composite video & audio routing switcher?

I could bolt on every single video game system and computer I own, along with every monitor, and even my Kaleido K2 multiviewer and composite quad box, and I would still have I/O to spare.  It’s nice to have surplus broadcast equipment.  I wonder if this thing can secretly handle SDI frequencies, like Knox’s 8x8 switchers...

[commodorez]

Another 43 cables removed.  Network, telephone, coax, audio, intercom,