Video: An Introduction to fibre optic cabling

Many of us take fibre optics for granted but how much about the basics do we actually know…or remember? You may be lucky enough to work in a company that only uses one type of fibre and connector, but in an job interview, it pays to know what happens in the wider world. Fortunately, Phil Crawley is here to explain fibre optics from scratch.

This introduction to fibre looks at the uses for fibre in broadcast. Simply put, we can consider that they’re used in high-speed networking and long-distance cabling of baseband signals such as SDI, audio or RF. The meat of the topic is that there are two types of fibre, multimode and single mode. It’s really important to know which one you’re going to be using; Phil explains why showing the two ways they manage to get light to keep moving down the glass and get to the other end.

The talk looks at the history of mulit-mode fibres which have continued to improve over the years which is recognised by the ‘OM’ number which currently stretches to OM5 (this is an advance on the OM4 which that talk considers.) Since multi-mode has some different versions, it’s possible to have mismatches if you send from one fibre to another. Phil visits these scenarios explaining how differences of the launch (laser vs. LED) and core diameter all affect the efficiency of moving light from one side of the junction to the other.

On that note, connectors are of key importance as there’s nothing worse than turning up with a fibre patch lead with the wrong connectors on the end. Phil explains the differences then looks at how to splice fibres together and the issues that need to be taken care of to do it well along with easy ways to fault find. Phil finishes the talk explaining how single-mode differs and offers some resources to learn more.

This video was recorded at a Jigsaw24 Tech Breakfast while Phil Crawley was their Chief Engineer. Download the slides

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Speaker

Phil Crawley Phil Crawley
Lead Engineer, Media Engineers Ltd.
Former Chief Engineer, Jigsaw24

[Video]: Video Compression 101

Jigsaw24’s Chief Engineer, Phil Crawley, explains video codecs from the fundamentals up. Codecs touch every part of the broadcast chain and are a vital part of the industry as much as of day to day life. So it’s worth brushing up or learning the basics to help you to fully understand what’s happening with today’s codecs, whether that be HEVC, AV1, JPEG XS or trusty MPEG4.

Phil covers:

  • Compressed and Uncompressed video & codecs
  • DCT Principles
  • Intra/Inter-frame compression
  • Acquisition Vs Editing Vs. Transmission codecs
  • Measuring compression effects
  • Codecs Vs File Formats & wrappers
  • Compression concatenation
  • MPEG4, H.264(AVC) & H.265(HEVC)

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Want to take things further? Check out Harmonic’s Next-Gen Compression Techniques

Speaker

Phil Crawley Phil Crawley
Chief Engineer,
Jigsaw24

Meeting: Jigsaw24’s Tech Breakfasts – AES67


Meeting: 9am-9.45am • 8 Golden Square, Soho W1F 9HY • 31st January 2018

The first in a series of Tech Breakfasts, kicking off at 9am, this session will focus on AES67 and audio networking standards. There will be some breakfast bites to get you ready for the day ahead, and the experts will be hanging around afterwards so you’ll have the chance to put your tough technical questions to them.

Experts on hand:
Phil Crawley, Head of Systems Integration, root6
Phil has over 30 years’ experience as a broadcast engineer. He was previously the Technical Director of The Resolution Post Group, Chief Eingineer at Oasis Television, and worked on the first three series of Big Brother before joining root6 to oversee the design commission and certification of systems integration projects. In his spare time, he makes handheld games consoles and is a member of the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE).

Matt Ward, Senior Engineer, root6
Matt worked with some of London’s leading music recording studios before making the jump to video post and handling delivery to national broadcasters. He’s worked in post-production and broadcase ever since. He’s a member of the SMPTE, and was previously a Technical Manager at Strongroom Post-Production, Breathe Post-Production and Air Post-Production.

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