PyeongChang 2018: Variety Of FOR-A Products Uses For 4K Production of Winter Games
FOR-A announced that several of its 4K supported solutions are being used for production of the 2018 Winter Games, including video and routing switchers as well as multi-viewer and video conversion technologies. Broadcasters in a number of countries, including the United States, Japan, and Korea, are using FOR-A solutions for coverage of the Winter Games, which take place Feb. 8-25 in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“FOR-A is proud to say that its products have been relied on for production of every Winter and Summer Games since the 1998 Nagano Winter Games,” said Hiroaki Tanoue, Senior General Manager of FOR-A Planning/Marketing Division.
“We pride ourselves on providing efficient, innovative technology that our customers can rely on, and we’re confident that our products will help broadcasters execute seamless operations in their coverage of this month’s Winter Games.”
FOR-A’s frame rate convert technologies have been used in all recent Games, and one solution that will be used in PyeongChang is the FRC-9000 unit. The FRC-9000 frame rate converter features 4K/3G/HD/SD multi-format support and conversion with motion compensation processing, and offers the option to upgrade to dual channel conversion in 3G/HD-SDI and store up to two Dolby E encoder/decoder optional modules. 
FOR-A products that will be used in 4K production systems include both the HVS-490 and HVS-2000 video switchers. Thanks to its compact size, the HVS-490 production switcher enables more affordable 4K production and is suitable for mobile production and live event venues where space is limited but production quality is critical.
The HVS-2000 switcher offers unique capabilities that set it apart from other switchers in its class, including MELite, which allows a traditional AUX bus to transform into a functional M/E with cut, mix, wipe and key control, FLEXaKEY, which enables operators to tailor their production needs by adding and moving key and DVE layers to traditional M/E resources or to MELite resources, and its panel memory system, P-MEM, which includes simple panel snap shot recall or events, sequence and macro memory recalls.
Other FOR-A solutions that are being used in 4K production systems during the Winter Games include the USF-1044UDC 4K up/down/cross converter, MFR-8000 routing switcher and MV-4210 multi viewer – all of which offer multi-format support and simplify 4K workflows. The company’s ESG-8000 8K/4K/HD test signal generator and DSK-400 4K/HD keyer, which includes 12 inputs and 8 outputs for 3G-SDI, are also being used for broadcasting events.