A Totally Digital Camera System Using Digital Triaxial Transmission

A fully digital broadcast camera system has been developed at Hitachi, in which all signal processing and transmission are accomplished in the digital domain. The newly developed digital transmission for this system utilizes time division multiplexing and video compression to provide bidirectional serial digital transmission over standard triaxial cable. These compression methods allow all video, audio, and control signals between the camera head and the camera control unit (CCU) to be combined into a single bidirectional 360 Mbit/sec serial digital signal for transmission. At the CCU, the received digital video signals are digitally rate converted into either an SMPTE 259M composite digital output or a SMPTE 259M component digital output for direct interface to digital studio equipment.