Virtex-5 FPGA accelerates development of multi-definition keyer

The folks at Xilinx say that their Virtex-5 field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) played a key role in the development of the Multi-Definition Keyer (MDK) digital production switch that was recently debuted by Ross Video Ltd.

Virtex-5 FPGAs provided a highly integrated system platform with logic-optimized silicon features, built-in digital signal processing (DSP) building blocks, and ample on-chip memory that enabled Ross Video developers to accelerate time to market of its new MDK system.

Ross Video designs, markets, manufactures, and supports a wide range of innovative products for use in broadcast, distribution, live event, and production applications. The company's new offering is the first standard definition/high definition (SD/HD) video MDK implemented on a single industry-standard OpenGear card. Virtex-5 LXT FPGAs were deployed to perform digital video processing in the new MDK system, which is targeted for broadcast television studios.

Higher system integration, reduced development cycle
Reprogrammability and reconfigurability are the flagship advantages of programmable logic solutions as well as the hallmark features for Ross Video products, including the company's open-platform line of video and audio rack mount terminal equipment. All of Ross Video's OpenGear offerings are field upgradeable through the industry-standard OpenGear Dashboard graphical user interface software running on a networked PC. With this capability, the folks at Ross Video say that they can respond rapidly to broad market changes as well as customer-specific application requirements.

With the introduction of its MDK system to its product portfolio, Ross Video adds an excellent solution for keying external devices such as character generators, graphic systems and EAS devices into a program feed. The MDK offers full key control with shaped and unshaped keying, self key or alpha key, transparency, gain and clip control, mask and matte fill.

In order to achieve the level of system integration required for the new MDK design, Ross Video developers turned to the Virtex-5 LX110T FPGA, which offers 64 dedicated DSP blocks delivering 35 GMACS performance, more than 5 Mb of on-chip blockRAM, and 16 low-power multi-gigabit transceivers (MGT), in addition to a logic capacity of 110K "logic cells". The Virtex-5 LX110T device, in combination with the SD/HD SDI video IP available as part of Xilinx broadcast video solutions, enabled developers to get the gigabit serial IO up and running quickly, so they could focus on their own video processing core.