LAS VEGAS – Cypress, CA’s FOR-A Corporation of America (www.for-a.com) introduced its HD frame rate converter, the FRC-7000, at NAB 2006. The FRC-7000 uses motion compensation processing by motion vectors to convert field frequencies and enables conversion between different HD frame rates.
“Currently, there are few, purely HD-based frame rate converters in the market,” explains Hiro Tanoue, sales manager, Eastern Region and Central/South America, FOR-A. “The high quality frame rate conversion is achieved thanks to the accumulation of FOR-A’s more than 35 years of signal processing innovations, including signal conversion, digital video effects and video stabilization. Considering the growing proliferation of HD production and the world’s different frame rates, we’re very enthusiastic about the reception this product will receive.”
The FRC-7000 can convert frame rates between 1080/59.94i and 50i, and between 720/59.94p and 50p.
The FRC-7000’s motion compensation processing technology uses motion vectors to reduce judder and video resolution deterioration in field frequency conversion. The frame rate converter has Scene Cut Detection that detects scene cuts automatically to ensure that the conversion is performed without generating a motion compensation image from unrelated cuts in the frames before and after. The unit also provides for genlock. Process control can be performed for the post-conversion video. The video level, chroma level, chroma phase, setup level, and clips can be adjusted to produce the optimal video quality.
The FRC-7000 also supports eight-channel, 48 kHz 24-bit embedded audio signals in sync with the video clock. It includes a delay function for synchronization with video processing.
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.
Dolby E materials can also be converted with the FRC-7000’s multiplexer/de-multiplexer option along with the external Dolby E encoder/decoder.