New DSC958 video switcher overview.

TV industry professionals will have no difficulties with the new DSC958 video switcher. It’s designed in accordance with de-facto standard principles for such equipment,
regarding both internal structure and controls. Following long standing tradition we even retained the T-bar, though it’s very rarely used in practice.
However we are still using high quality digital T-bar sensor despite the fact that it’s relatively expensive to manufacture.

In all our products we pay great attention to find best components and best schematics that provide optimal price/quality ratio and keep reliability high.
Equally we pay attention to the following topics that distinguish video switchers in above-average category:

• Control panel buttons should provide good tactile feedback and be very reliable. We have spent a lot of time and effort choosing buttons for our control panels.
• Optional re-assignment of button functions adds flexibility and allows operators to use control panel more comfortably.
• Cooling and temperature monitoring of the base unit.
• Noise level of the base unit.
• Fast start function allows our switcher to be ready in 5 seconds after powering on. We believe this feature to be critical for broadcasting equipment;
• Compliance with quality standards.
• Almost all modern video switchers have built-in frame synchronizers but not all include audio synchronization. Frame synchronizer removes temporal distortions in the video signal, but this is also required for the audio track. Our switcher maintains video and audio synchronization during long-term operation even with non-synchronous input signals.

Some of the original features of DSC958 video switcher:

• Dynamic video intros. Built-in video player with intra-frame compression allows playback of two independent channels (with audio) from the SD Card.
• Instant Replay (often used for sport broadcasts). Recording and simultaneous playback (with optional slow-motion) is performed using off-the-shelf Samsung M2/SATA SSD which is relatively inexpensive and provide high performance and low delay.
• IP Streaming. DSC958 switcher can record and stream to PC via Gigabit Ethernet connection. Ethernet port for streaming is separate from management Ethernet port, advanced users will appreciate that little feature that is only found in professional equipment.
• 250GB SSD can hold more than 3 hours of video which is enough for most broadcasts. However, it’s possible to replace the SSD with 500GB or 1TB model and increase recording time two or four times.
• Stinger transitions. These are short full-screen video animations that are often used in sport broadcasts when switching camera angles or showing instant replays. Stinger transitions are pre-recorded to the SD Card using bundled PC software.
• Another important feature for some customers is the ability to mix different input video formats (1080p50, 1080i50, etc.) and also output different formats, including 576i50.
• In addition to all source windows, multi-viewer allows to see output of the Chroma Key and PiP on Preview before switching it to Program output. There are two Chroma Keyers in the switcher so two channels can be mixed together.