DekTec is proud to announce the availability of 3G-SDI level B interfacing for the DTA-2174. With equal supporting for level A and level B signals, the DTA-2174 is now compatible with all standard-compliant 3G-SDI equipment in the market, including UHD cameras from leading brands in the broadcast market such as Sony. DTA-2174 - Four 3G-SDI ports and genlock, now with support for level A and B
3G-SDI "Level A" and "Level B" - defined in SMPTE 425-1 - are two schemes to map uncompressed 1080p50/60 TV signals with embedded audio and ancillary data onto a single 3Gbit/s SDI link:
Level A is a direct mapping of video lines, HANC and VANC into the standard serial SDI structure;
Level B, also known as level B-DL (DL=Dual Link), is the somewhat confusing name for embedding two virtual HD-SDI links into a single 3Gbit/s physical signal. The two virtual links are formatted according to SMPTE ST 372M, a standard for transporting 1080p50/60 over two HD-SDI connections.
It is regrettable that two incompatible mappings exist for the same signal, but fortunately the DTA-2174 can handle both signals equally well.
Together with the DekTec Matrix API, the DTA-2174 has become the industry-standard platform for real-time processing of 3G-SDI signals entirely in software. The four SDI ports can be combined into a SMPTE 425-5 quad-3G link for processing 4Kp50/60 UHD signals. In the market, DekTec customers have successfully deployed the DTA-2174 in software-based 4K HEVC encoders and decoders and 4K playout servers.
Level B-DL support is included in DTA-2174 firmware version 3 and the June 2015 DekTec SDK. If you have an older firmware version, you can freely upgrade your DTA-2174 by downloading the latest version of DtInfo and running the firmware-update function. The June 2015 Windows and Linux SDKs, which include the DekTec Matrix API, can be downloaded from the SDK downloads page.
Hilversum, 12 Mar 2015
Multi-Channel Modulation on Single-Channel Hardware
The new multi-channel modulation option enables modulating multiple channels on single-channel hardware. For example, it allows you to generate two DVB-T2 channels with a single DTA-2111. With this option you can create a grid of channels at an attractive price point.
Spectrum of DTA-2111 modulating two DVB-C channels at 6.875MBd.
Applications include:
Generating a network of channels in an R&D or Test & Validation environment
Broadcast/VOD systems for hospitality, hotels, campus, etc.
Multi-channel modulation is currently available for the DTA-2111 and DTA-2115. It allows applications using the DekTec SDK (also known as DTAPI) to generate multiple adjacent channels through one output channel. To support multi-channel modulation, DTAPI adds one new parameter to the Write and GetFifoLoad methods to select the sub-channel. Furthermore, a SetMultiModConfig method has been added to configure multi-channel operation.
This new capability is included in the GOLD-option. It can also be ordered separately as DTC-384-SWMC. On the DTA-2111, multi-modulation only makes sense if it is used in combination with the DTC-380-16MHZ option.
Multi-channel modulation supports all modulation standards used in the VHF/UHF band, but it also has a number of limitations: The sub-channels must use precisely the same modulation settings, the maximum combined bandwidth is about 16MHz (CPU-bound) and it is not available for satellite modulation standards.
