NEW YORK: Studio Technologies’ Model 400 SDI-over-Fiber Transport Systems were recently deployed by NEP Broadcasting as a fiber-transport system for its remote trucks covering the NFL’s “Sunday Night Football.” The recently purchased Model 400 units have been integrated into a second production truck covering the national Sunday Night Football broadcast.

“We created an additional production truck for Sunday Night Football because of the space restrictions within existing truck compounds,” said George Hoover, chief technology officer for NEP Broadcasting. “HD video has an effective transport link of about 300 feet on copper, but, for this application, we needed the ability to potentially go several thousand feet away from our main production truck.

“The only option was optical fiber. Based on our positive experience with deploying Studio Technologies’ units on a number of other projects, including almost 60 percent of NFL games, we selected the Model 400 to serve as the video interconnect backbone for this additional trailer. The Model 400 is a highly reliable, versatile tool that gets the job of supplying programming to our clients done. We currently deploy over 30 Studio Technologies systems.”

NEP’s new trailer provides the technology that generates the virtual signage, lines and images that float on the field. It also handles the transport for all of the wireless and RF cameras between where they are received, processed and handed off to the main truck. The trailer also houses all the transmission hardware to get the signal back to the broadcaster. Reliability was extremely important because every camera and the outbound transmission path flowed through this fiber backbone. If the fiber system went down, game over.

The Model 400 SDI-Over-Fiber Transport System is a high-performance, rack-mount system for distributing digital video signals over short and medium distances. The system is compatible with all common broadcast serial digital video formats and is suitable for use in remote trucks, live-event video distribution and fixed links associated with broadcast and production facilities.