FOR-A To Introduce New HD Frame Rate Converter And Audio Function Card At IBC2008

FOR-A, a leading manufacturer of video and audio systems for the broadcast and professional video industries, will introduce the FRC-3000 Frame Rate Converter and a new audio function card for the FRC-7000 and FRC-3000 at IBC2008.
The demonstration of these product enhancements at IBC represents their European introduction, as they were first introduced in the US at NAB 2008 in April.
FOR-A will exhibit in Hall 2, Stand A51/B59 at IBC2008 in Amsterdam from September 12 - 16 2008.
The FRC-3000 was developed to meet additional demand at a price range suitable for smaller operations. And its compact design, fitting into a 1RU frame, makes it ideal for news applications. FOR-A's FRC-3000 features text field automatic detection, which automatically recognises scrolling text superimposed on video. This provides optimal conversion and delivers uncompromised character depiction. A manual setting can be chosen for static field such as date, time and programme titles and logos, allowing for those portions to be treated separately without performing motion compensation processing.
FOR-A's FRC-3000 and FRC-7000 can perform conversions between 1080/59.94i and 1080/50i and between 720/59.94p and 720/50p HD frame rates in real-time. The FRC-3000 has an 8-channel digital audio multiplexer/demultiplexer card as standard, enabling signals of different frequencies to be transmitted within a single channel. The FRC-3000 supports the FRC-70D-D Dolby E/AC-3 decoder options and the FRC-70DE-E Dolby E encoder option.
The new audio option card FRC-70DA 16 for FRC-7000 supports an increased number of channels (16) for digital audio input and output. Delay compensation can now be performed for all audio channels, including international sporting event broadcasts where many audio channels are required, or when HDCAM SR 12-channel audio is being used for recording. The FRC-70DA16 can be equipped with Dolby E encoding and decoding as an option.
A sampling rate converter and individually adjustable delay circuit have now been added as standard functions on the FRC-700. An automatic mapping function for the audio channels is also provided, greatly reducing the setup time for audio environments with mixed Dolby E and PCM signals.
The FRC-7000 and FRC-3000 are ideal for many applications, including converting the frame rate prior to transmitting the international feed of a major sporting event and for converting filmed content for HDTV broadcast.
The FRC-7000 and FRC-3000 use vector motion compensation processing to analyse and determine the pixel movement in each image frame. Both models feature advanced scene cut detection that automatically detects scene changes and turns off motion compensation processing so do not affect the scenes before and after the frames being converted. A complete, new set of frames is then created in the required output standard. Because the frame rate converters automatically recognise similar scene cuts involving the same subject or similar visual content, the resulting frame rate conversion contains minimal judder or artifacts.
The FRC-3000 will begin shipping in September. The audio option card FRC-70DA16 for the FRC-7000 is now shipping.
(KMcA/JM)