Vista Systems will unveil its new Spyder product line at NAB 2004 (Booth SL1270). The small and flexible Spyder offers producers of audio-visual presentations and rental and staging companies a cost-effective powerful realtime compositing and windowing environment, plus the superb image quality and processing capabilities for which Vista Systems’ Montage is known.
"The Spyder family of products makes video processing accessible to more types of events," says Vista Systems president Clark Williams. "The Spyder has a lot of the same features and benefits as Montage at a drastically-reduced price. In addition to these economies, the Spyder is capable of handling high-resolution HD-SDI and DVI formats and has extensive expansion capabilities."
The Spyder 200 and 300 series build on the Montage system introduced last year. Vista Systems’ Montage was designed to offer an uncompromising solution for seamless widescreen and multi-display applications. It uses an advanced architecture that creates "virtual displays" inside the system processor that are higher resolution than any single display device can handle.
The new Spyder 200 and 300 series provide the same key benefits as Montage–flexibility for mixing sources in multiple windows, greater clarity of signal processing, seamless widescreen displays–plus realtime compositing for high-resolution applications in a modular, scaleable package. Each series features five different models; users can integrate any model from the 200 series with the 300 series to accommodate any application from a small plasma screen to multiple projection screens, including support for the 2048x1080 projectors. Additionally, Spyder supports edgeblending.
"The Spyder products act as building blocks," Williams explains. "The 300-series models are stand-alone boxes which may be combined for large shows. The 200-series models are designed for smaller applications requiring less I/O. They offer rental and staging companies great flexibility: One week they may deploy individual small Spyder systems across the country, and the next week they may need to combine the models into one large system for a big show."
Input and Output Formats
All of the Spyder products support 24p, NTSC, PAL and SECAM frame rates for inputs and outputs. Standard input and output formats are Analog RGB (SOG, Composite or Separate Sync), Analog YUV, SDI, HD-SDI, DVI and DVI-Dual. Optional input formats are Analog Composite and S-Video. Optional output formats are DVI-Twin (10-bit DVI), Analog Composite and S-Video.
The output format is user selectable, and all applicable connectors for the user-selected format will be active simultaneously. For example, if Standard Definition is selected, the Composite, S-Video, HD-15 and SDI connections will all be active simultaneously.
Pixel Space and Image Files
All of the Spyder products support a total pixel space of 6 million pixels. They can store up to 100 image files that can be used as background images for large pixel spaces and single output backgrounds for letterboxing purposes. Input sources can be captured to an image file for use in computer applications; image files can also be loaded to an input channel so any input channel can operate as a full-featured still store and frame-grabber in addition to its powerful image-processing functions.
Processing
The Spyder products have a 10-bit processing path including A/D, D/A, scaling, motion adaptive de-interlacing and output formatting (if supported by the output standard). The maximum delay introduced by the system is between 1 and 1.5 interlaced frames. All windowing products support borders, shadows, smooth window motion and all Montage-based windowing features with the exception of alpha-masking of video inputs.
User Interface Control
Products in the Spyder line incorporate an integrated user interface that allow for all control and set up functions. External control is also provided via RS-232 and 100BaseT Ethernet. All of the models support control of external routing switchers and source machines; additional hardware may be required to utilize these features.
Expansion Capabilities
Many Spyder products are expandable: They can be used with other expandable Spyder products to create larger systems. For instance, an 8i input expansion processor, which contains 8 layers (inputs), can be added to a 4x4 windowing processor to provide a total of 12 layers (inputs) and 4 outputs.
Spyder Models
The Spyder 200 series features a maximum of 4 I/Os. Spyder 213 has a 1-input/3-output processor. Each output can output at a user-defined resolution which allows a single format in and multiple formats out. In addition, Spyder’s background bitmap capability allows letterboxing on some or all outputs. The 213 can also be used to display a single source across multiple display devices, blended or butted.
Spyder 222 has a 2-input/2-output processor. It can be used as a multi-format Dual Scaler Dissolver for discrete screen applications. The unit is compatible with ScreenMaster III 3216 and 1608 controllers. The Spyder 231 has a 3-input/1-output processor.
Each of these models may be used with the 200X Expansion Option. The 200C Composite S-Video option is also available. Also in the series are Spyder 240, a 4-input expansion processor, and Spyder 204, a 4-output expansion processor.
The Spyder 300 series features a maximum of 8 I/Os. Models include Spyder 344 with a 4-input/4-output processor; Spyder 353 with a 5-input/3-output processor; and Spyder 362 with a 6-input/2-output processor. Each may be used with the 300X Expansion Option. The 300C Composite S-Video option is also available. Also in the series are Spyder 380, an 8-input expansion processor, and Spyder 308, an 8-output expansion processor.