Snell Alchemist Brings Converter Magic to Teleports, Earth Stations

The Alchemist Ph.C-HD TX motion compensated frame-rate standards converter has been released by Snell & Wilcox. It is optimized specifically for teleports, earth stations, and telcos and is capable of providing simultaneous SD and HD conversion in one compact 3-RU mainframe.
The goal is to give transmission facilities a convenient and cost-effective means of entering the international HD program exchange market and delivering top-quality news, live event, and sports programming via fixed services or ad hoc links.
“The Alchemist Ph.C-HD has become the industry’s ‘gold standard’ for transparent HD standards conversion, and the Alchemist Ph.C – HD TX makes this exceptional conversion quality available to the transmission market in an intuitive, easy-to-use design,” said Joe Zaller, vice president of corporate development at Snell & Wilcox. “The strong brand recognition associated with Alchemist Ph.C systems will give teleports, earth stations, and telcos an advantage in drawing new business, and the performance of the system will ensure client satisfaction by delivering outstanding images time after time.”
The Alchemist Ph.C – HD TX leverages Snell & Wilcox’s proprietary Ph.C motion compensation technology to provide virtually transparent, HD frame-rate conversion between 50-Hz and 60-Hz HD standards for both 1080i and 720p formats, as well as SD frame-rate conversion between 50-Hz and 60-Hz material. The converter accepts any input (525, 625, 720P50, 720P59, 1080i50, and 1080i59) and features built-in aspect ratio conversion capability to handle SD 4:3/HD 16:9 issues smoothly. The Dolby E-capable system handles 16 channels of audio, both AES and embedded, and is designed to accommodate all foreseeable audio needs without requiring outboard decoders and encoders.
Two variants of the Alchemist Ph.C – HD TX are available. The TX50 is designed for applications in which the desired outputs are 625, 720P50, and 1080i50. The TX60 is designed for applications requiring outputs in 525, 720P59, and 1080i59.
Optional extras for the standards converter include an active front panel for local control of the unit, as well as a secondary output that enables simultaneous SD/HD output and eliminates the need for an external up/down/crossconverter.