“The traditional model for video production is shifting,” says Carl Walter Holst, CEO, Appear TV. “Legacy SDI infrastructure is being phased out and gradually replaced by a generic IP infrastructure capable of handling compressed and uncompressed high quality video. The X10/X20 platform is ideal for connecting a local legacy SDI network to a new high capacity IP infrastructure. Combining the X10/X20 platform with our existing XC5000/XC51000 platform, Appear TV provides a complete solution for transporting video from content generation to end viewers.”

The three processing modules currently available allow users to customize a package to meet specific requirements: a high-speed IP card that delivers both compressed and uncompressed video, a high-density SDI card, and a scrambling card for operations that require secure content delivery. Additional functionality such as TICO, JPEG200 and HEVC 10Bit 4:2:2 compression support will be added subsequently.

The IP Card features dual-redundant 10Gbps IP I/O, GUI-configurable bidirectional or unidirectional data ports, seamless input switching and cloned outputs. It supports 10G uncompressed SDI over IP and up to 6Gbps MPEG transport stream processing (de-muxing and re-muxing).

The SDI Card offers eight 3Gbps serial digital video interfaces per module with each supporting up to one 1080p60 service, on-board SDI-to-IP and IP-to-SDI conversion according to SMPTE 2022/6 and 2022/7.

The Scrambling Card supports scrambling of up to 2,000 services at data rates of up to 6Gbps and supports DVB-CSA and AES encryption with a dedicated Simulcrypt interface towards CA servers.

The platform also functions as a video firewall enabling the operators to maintain full security between sites, even if public IP infrastructure is used. All IP ports can be configured to be either unidirectional or bi-directional, depending on what type of traffic is allowed over the port. Security is further enforced on dedicated hardware handling all incoming and outgoing IP video traffic. The X10/X20 maintains strict surveillance on its control layer, which supports many advanced features such as user management and authentication.

The X10 chassis holds up to six processing modules, and the X20, holds 12. Since the X10/X20 option slots are electrically identical, modules can be swapped between them. An IP de-jittering buffer has been added “resulting in the lowest possible delay.”

All modules, including power supplies, switch, fans and option modules, are hot swappable. The chassis units include high-capacity redundant power supplies with AC and DC powering options.