Essential Guide to Fiber Optics in Live Production

June 21st 2016 - 11:00 AM
By Michael Grotticelli

There was a time when the use of fiber optic cable struck fear in hearts of live production crews because it was difficult to work with and there was a certain black magic associated with distributing optical signals that had to be done right in order for multiple paths of video and audio to cleanly pass through tiny strands of glass. Today, the technology has advanced to include military-grade tactical cable and fiber/copper hybrid cabling that is much more robust to work with. Along with better equipment, there is a better understanding across the industry of how to deploy fiber cable and hardware with the least amount of effort and on-site field problems.

This Essential Guide, sponsored by Bexel Global Broadcast Solutions, describes the key issues around the use of fiber optic cabling for live production infrastructure. What's inside:

  • Single and multi-mode fiber
  • SMPTE hybrid And tactical cable 
  • How much fiber do you need?
  • Keep it clean
  • Fiber networking

You might also like...

Audio For Broadcast: Cloud Based Audio

With several industry leading audio vendors demonstrating milestone product releases based on new technology at the 2024 NAB Show, the evolution of cloud-based audio took a significant step forward. In light of these developments the article below replaces previously published content…

An Introduction To Network Observability

The more complex and intricate IP networks and cloud infrastructures become, the greater the potential for unwelcome dynamics in the system, and the greater the need for rich, reliable, real-time data about performance and error rates.

Next-Gen 5G Contribution: Part 2 - MEC & The Disruptive Potential Of 5G

The migration of the core network functionality of 5G to virtualized or cloud-native infrastructure opens up new capabilities like MEC which have the potential to disrupt current approaches to remote production contribution networks.

Designing IP Broadcast Systems: Addressing & Packet Delivery

How layer-3 and layer-2 addresses work together to deliver data link layer packets and frames across networks to improve efficiency and reduce congestion.

The Business Cost Of Poor Streaming Quality

Poor quality streaming loses viewers at an alarming rate especially when we consider the unintended consequences of poor error reporting on streaming players.