News

New High-Speed Digital Signal Processing SuperCore for Euphonix Broadcast and Audio Post Mixing Consoles (20/9/2006)

DF66 DSP SuperCore capable of supporting over 1,000 channels of digital audio with MADI I/O and router

Euphonix today launched the new DF66 DSP SuperCore for the Euphonix range of broadcast and audio post mixing systems. The new digital processing engine works with both Max Air and System 5-B/BP broadcast consoles and is also available for the System 5-F/P audio post models.

The new DSP SuperCore is an extremely powerful and modular DSP system, which supports dual-redundant power supplies, and an optional 100% redundant DSP SuperCore system. This failover redundancy system allows for a completely redundant, backup DF66 DSP core to run in parallel with a primary DSP core. In the event of a failure, the entire DF66 audio path, including all I/O devices and router, is switched over to the backup system.

The DF66 DSP Core is a 4U chassis, and provides the primary signal-processing engine for the System 5 and Max Air digital-audio mixing consoles. It is comprised of a system board and up to six plug-in SP662 DSP cards. Although the DF66 design is optimized for typical audio mixing applications, the hardware itself is actually a highly flexible platform for real-time DSP, signal I/O, and routing between these functions. This technology will enable a wide variety of potential future applications. Key aspects of the design are scalability, modularity, serviceability, reliability, and of course, outstanding audio performance. Expansion beyond the capacity of a single chassis can be achieved by linking multiple chassis together. This is accomplished with a proprietary audio link design, which maintains full floating-point resolution throughout the signal path.

SP266 DSP SuperCore Card

Each of the DSP SuperCore cards features 8 Analog Devices SHARC DSPs and an FPGA based 4K (4096) channel audio router. With up to six cards in a single chassis there are nearly 25,000 discreet signal paths available within the DF66 DSP SuperCore that can be controlled from the console's PatchNet software. With each SP-662 card added to the DF66 core there are also four MADI inputs and four MADI outputs available for connecting I/O devices and other external devices such as DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations). Up to twenty-four MADI inputs and outputs are available from a single DSP SuperCore chassis. At 48KHz that equates to 1,536 audio channels in and out of the DSP SuperCore, 768 channels at 96kHz and 384 channels at 192kHz. The DSP SuperCore can operate with any AES10 MADI compatible converters including the Euphonix range of multi-channel analog and digital converters supporting a wide variety of formats including AES/EBU (75ohm and 110ohm), plus SDI.

The DSP SuperCore supports all current Euphonix broadcast mixer models, including the 106 channel base model, and has the capability of supporting much larger configurations simply by adding extra DSP cards. As well as the standard Euphonix mixing functions the DSP SuperCore also supports new features including, larger channel counts per core, increased channel delays of up to 2 seconds, enhanced dynamics with compressor and expander/gate per channel, built-in 4096x4096 router bus processing, and SNMP monitoring. All this in a smaller form factor and less weight! The small 4RU size is good news for installations in both mobile trucks and today's crowded machine rooms. The new DSP SuperCore will work with any Euphonix Max Air or System 5 control surface allowing an upgrade path for existing clients.

"The new DSP SuperCore is a very powerful and flexible DSP solution that can be scaled up to meet any task, both in the broadcast and audio post world." explains Euphonix CEO, Martin Kloiber. "We are one of the only manufacturers to use a mixture of DSP and FPGA processing which allows us to support 40 bit floating point and gives our design engineers the ability to maintain audio quality and provide a wider range of features. The full 100% redundancy option provides broadcasters with an absolute rock solid solution that can react to any adverse failure. It also gives us enough processing power to expand console features beyond their current limits, extending the life of all our digital mixing systems."

www.euphonix.com

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