New rugged boards provide versatile video signal conversion solutions

Advanced Micro Peripherals (AMP) has announced their new Scanverter range of video signal converter boards. These boards convert between a wide variety of otherwise incompatible video formats and interface standards. Scanverters help systems designers who are now often confronted with a need to interconnect one or more incompatible display devices and video signal sources. This demand is growing as highly functional electronic systems are appearing in ever more diverse applications, and increasingly using multiple displays.

The Scanverter boards greatly simplify video system design, cutting time to market. Built as stand-alone plug-and-go devices, these versatile boards are rugged, compact and dependable. The Scanverters have a 3.6×3.8inch PCI-104 form factor, operate from a single +5 V supply and are easy to integrate mechanically into space-constrained embedded systems. With their own on-board CPU, they provide their conversion function without loading the main system processor. The boards are operating system neutral and do not require any software drivers. Signals originating from any number of disparate sources including display generators, mission computers, FLIRs, radar, STANAG3350 and video cameras can be scan converted to produce highly stable outputs to different video display standards.

Five Scanverter family members are currently on offer, with more planned for future release. The available products can convert STANAG to VGA, VGA to PAL/NTSC/RS-170, HDMI/DVI to VGA, STANAG to HDMI/DVI and STANAG to PAL/NTSC/RS-170 respectively. The boards perform high speed analog signal digitization where necessary, video scaling, frame rate conversion and timing generation. This provides seamless and automatic conversion from the source to the output signal.

Applications for the Scanverter series include aerospace instrumentation, instrument panels, multi-function displays, Situation Awareness systems, remote video surveillance, naval and marine instrumentation, border security, traffic monitoring and control, and video acquisition and analysis.

“We believe our systems customers from military, industrial and other sectors will greatly value the Scanverters” commented Lee Foss, CEO of Advanced Micro Peripherals, “Video Signal conversion may not always be seen as central to a system’s role, yet it’s an issue that must increasingly be resolved. These boards eliminate the delay, cost and integration problems that would otherwise arise on many projects.”

Click here to view the Scanverter range.