Sweetwater Digital Productions taps AXON’s Synapse infrastructure for Cobalt

Sweetwater
Digital Productions has chosen several of AXON’s Synapse infrastructure products
for its new 53-foot Cobalt production truck. NVISION, AXON’s global partner,
worked with Sweetwater’s engineering team to outfit the truck with a NV8288
Digital Video Router, a NV9000 Router Control and Panels, and AXON’s Synapse
signal processing equipment.
Sweetwater
is a market-leading provider of mobile production services for the
entertainment industry. They have an extensive resume, including many top shows
in Hollywood. Sweetwater’s
newest 53-foot double-expando HD truck, dubbed
“Cobalt,” had its debut at the Independent Spirit Awards in March,
which was broadcast live from Santa Monica, Calif. Cobalt was also recently
used for shows such as “Last Comic Standing,” and the live 43rd
Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, both in Las Vegas.
With Cobalt
being a mobile production facility, their requirement was a system solution
that would give the Sweetwater clients comparable services to the most advanced
fixed production facilities on the market today.
Sweetwater
chose NV Routers and Synapse equipment as the primary conversion and processing
solution for Cobalt. Several factors were considered in the evaluation process,
including a tight transmission path, functionality, signal quality, and space
efficiency. The NV8288 is only 12 inches deep for a 576 x 576
router, and with the Synapse modules, Sweetwater was able to save a
full rack of space in the Cobalt
design compared to other alternatives.
The basic
building block used in the Synapse system is the 4RU SFR18 frame. Along with standard
network interface and rack control modules, there are 18 slots for Synapse
modules in each frame. The tray height allows for more functions to be laid out
on a single module, as compared to shorter frames which require multiple module
slots to provide the same functionality. This results in significant rack space
savings in the system design.