Building Your Encoding Hardware - A Practical Guide to Video and Audio Compression - page 450

they have been around awhile and any bugs and shortcomings they might have had when
new have usually been solved.

29.3.2 Good Deals on Software

The same trick works for software, as long as the purchase works on your version of the
OS you select. Waiting for version 8 (Creative Suite) of Photoshop to come out and then
buying a copy of version 7 on a closeout deal saves several hundred dollars. Sometimes
you get deals where the upgrade to the current version is free or at least at a reduced cost.
The old version's price plus the cost of an upgrade is still likely to be less than the cost of
the new version. So you have to install it and then put in an upgrade. That is a half-hour's
worth of inconvenience versus a couple of hundred dollars of extra cost. What's more,
maybe that later version has features you don't even need.

29.3.3 More Information on Suppliers

For a list of compression-hardware manufacturers, consult Appendix B. Software manu-
facturers and products are listed in Appendix C.

29.4 Video Connectivity

There is a variety of different video-hardware interfaces you will often encounter when
connecting your system together. Each interface has advantages and disadvantages.
The connectors on the back of your equipment are specific to each one. They are either pro-
fessional or consumer oriented, although some professional equipment such as the Sony
DSR DR 1000P hard disk recorder supports both kinds. Higher-spec connectivity implies
more expensive equipment.

29.4.1 Serial Digital Interface

A serial digital interface (SDI) is a digitized version of the analog component signals.
Virtually all of the video connections within a studio environment will take place with SDI
signals. Beware of the specifics of the SDI interfaces on your equipment, because there are
differences between the American and European bit structures and the hardware may sup-
port one or more of a variety of SDI-based protocols. The SMPTE 259M standard specifies
four basic variants:

Composite NTSC transferred at 143 Mbps.

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Composite PAL transferred at 177 Mbps.

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Rec 601 4:2:2 component video transferred at 270 Mbps.

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Rec 601 4:2:2 component video (16:9 format) transferred at 360 Mbps.

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Connections are made with 75-Ohm coaxial cable fitted with BNC plugs/sockets. Some
equipment allows tee splitters to be inserted, while other equipment may be extremely