tvONE

MARGATE, KENT, UK, 5th February 2016  tvONE (www.tvone.com), a leading designer and manufacturer of cutting-edge video and multimedia processing equipment, has been chosen by Olympus Surgical Technologies Europe to develop a custom video routing system transmitting 2D, 3D and 4K images for its minimal invasive surgery system. 

Olympus provides a complete workflow solution - from camera to screen - for minimally invasive surgery (laparoscopy or keyhole surgery). The company is a leading provider in the field and one of the first to offer 3D and 4K endoscopic cameras. 

"After a comprehensive review of alternative solutions, we choose tvONE due to our already existing strong relationship and very good experience in the past," explained Borg Enders, Senior Product Manager, Systems Integration at Olympus Surgical Technologies Europe. "Due to this we approached them to create a custom solution based on the CORIO®matrix scaling matrix router."

The Olympus solution had some very challenging requirements that would stretch the abilities of a matrix switcher to its limit. Olympus needed to be able to capture and deliver 3D and 4K signals, and route these to the screen for the surgeon to refer to. It also needed to be able to scale, format and route all of the SD and HD images to other systems in the operating theatre. The company uses a specially adapted colour space, and needed its chosen solution to be able to handle that also. The requirements also included support for 3G-SDI Level B signals to handle the 3D signals from the Olympus equipment; support for extended video range, with conversion to limited range; support of 4K resolution and colour gamut (BT 2020); and support for routing of four 3G-SDI signals for 4K. Olympus also requested that the Web UI used to control the CORIOmatrix be adapted to make for easier on-site configuration.

Beyond this, Olympus had chosen to implement four 3G SDI cables as their video transmission format for 4K. The tvONE development R&D team needed to ensure that the switching and routing of those signals was achieved in perfect synchronisation and without delay."

The modularity and flexibility of the tvONE CORIOmatrix lends itself readily to such adaptation for specific - and challenging - requirements, while the fact that the matrix is designed and built by tvONE means that the expertise to do so is readily available.

"We were delighted with the speed and efficiency with which tvONE were able to fulfil all of our requirements," said Borg Enders. "tvONE's expertise has enabled us to develop a system that delivers the outstanding image quality for which Olympus is renowned, is more compact, more user-friendly and more flexible."

"The CORIOmatrix is unique in that it is based on our CORIO®softswitch, which provides an industry-first firmware-based video routing, switching and video conversion platform," said Frithjof Becker, EMEA Sales Director, tvONE. "That gives it enormous flexibility, and provided us with the optimum ability to respond to Olympus's needs. Some modification of the CORIOmatrix chassis was also necessary - but again, this was straightforward for us, such is its design."

"We are delighted to have been chosen by Olympus for this prestigious application, which provides further evidence of tvONE's leadership in image quality, and of our ability to respond to the unique and challenging requirements of a range of customers," he concluded.

The tvONE CORIOmatrix provides high quality modular video matrix switching, allowing connections from various video sources to multiple destinations to be controlled. It is modular in design, and capable of intelligently recognising inserted modules as 3G-SDI, HD-SDI or DVI-U, input or output modules. This allows end users the flexibility to configure the unit to their specific requirements, instead of the router forcing a certain setup and limiting the configuration options. The CORIOmatrix can be simply and cost-effectively upgraded as needs change.