CYPRESS, CA - For-A Corporation of America (www.for-a.com) will be at April’s NAB show with its upgraded FRC-7000 HD frame rate converter. When the FRC-7000 debuted last year, it could convert between 1080/59.94i and 1080/50i, and between 720/59.94p and 720/50p HD frame rates in realtime. The latest release includes advanced scene cut detection and roll/crawl text detection. Later this year, For-A will also offer optional support for frame rates that include 23.98psf, 23.98p, 24psf, 24p, 30p, 30psf, 29.97psf, 29p, 25p and 25psf.

The FRC-7000 uses vector motion compensation processing to analyze and determine the pixel movement in each image frame. This is accomplished by comparing the movement in the frames before and after the ones being converted.
 
The FRC-7000’s advanced scene cut detection automatically detects scene changes and turns off motion compensation processing so as to not affect the scenes before and after the frames being converted. A complete, new set of frames is then created in the required output standard.
 
The FRC-7000 supports eight-channel 48 kHz, 24-bit embedded audio signals in sync with the video clock. There is also a delay function for synchronization with video processing. The system offers an optional embed/de-embed card to allow eight channels of AES/EBU audio to be extracted or inserted into the HD-SDI signals.  

Dolby E materials can be extracted or re-inserted using the FRC-7000’s embed/de-embed option, then passed through or changed using an external Dolby E encoder/decoder. Dolby E is the surround sound compression system introduced by Dolby Laboratories that is becoming increasingly common in the broadcast production pipeline.

The unit also provides for genlock. Process control can be performed for the post-conversion video. For test signals, the unit has a color bar, ramp signals and 1 kHz audio output for signal checking. An alarm tally output indicates power supply, fan and temperature errors. The video level, chroma level, chroma phase, setup level, and clips can be adjusted to produce the optimal video quality.