Blackmagic Design Inc. has announced the introduction of the new Mini Converter Optical Fibre that lowers the cost of using optical fibre SDI cabling by simultaneously converting from SDI to Optical Fibre and Optical Fibre to SDI in the one compact low cost design. Mini Converter Optical Fibre instantly switches between all SD, HD and 3 Gb/s SDI video formats and allows cable lengths up to 45 km or 147,000 feet in length. Now for the first time, affordable optical fibre technology is available to all television facilities, no matter how big or small.

Blackmagic Design believes that optical fibre technology allows benefits not possible with conventional copper SDI cabling used today. Optical fibre cable has advantages because it’s commonly available and used in computer networking plus it can be installed by electricians. It also has the benefit of much longer cable lengths, plus when video quality increases in the future and SDI data speeds increase, optical fibre cables will not need to be upgraded as existing cables will easily handle much higher speeds.

“We designed the new Mini Converter Optical Fibre for many of our customers who wanted to build large facilities and needed a way to lower the install cost of cabling plus were tired of replacing cables every time a new video standard was introduced that required higher SDI data speeds. Optical fibre technology can solve this problem which, until now, was way too expensive for most people to consider using,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. www.blackmagic-design.com