For-A HVS-500HS Switcher Records Live Events in HD for High End TV

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High End TV, an HD equipment rental house located in Nashville, Tenn., that specializes in concert and sports production, recently selected For-A''s HVS-500HS production switcher.

High End TV senior engineer Adam Mills says the facility added the HVS-500HS to their arsenal of mobile production equipment because it was the most cost effective way for his company to meet demand for high-definition production of live events. “For the price, the For-A HVS-500HS switcher had the absolute best line up of features and benefits in a switcher that size,” he says.

Concert productions are in high demand in Nashville. Purchasing the HVS-500HS gave High End TV the multi-camera capability needed to meet that demand. High End TV engineers took the For-A switcher and built a full bandwidth HD flight pack around it. Now the company can readily accept jobs that call for HD multi-camera work. “A client told us they needed to do an HD six-camera shoot, but hiring a production truck was breaking their budget. We were able to accept the job and do it for a third of the cost,” Mills says. “It turned out to be the biggest shoot we''d ever done. There''s a lot of interest in town now that we''ve added the HVS-500HS. To be able to do a six-camera shoot for what we charge is pretty remarkable.”

The HVS-500HS is a self-contained switcher that accepts analog and digital HD and SD formats—with no external conversion required. One of the switcher''s major innovations is its variety of input/output interfaces, including SD-SDI, HD-SDI, Analog Component SD and Analog Component HD. It can also connect to HDV cameras or PCs using component video break-out cables.
The HVS-500HS can be quickly installed and integrated. “We took delivery one week before a major event, had the unit integrated and up and running in no time” Mills says. “For-A was very helpful with that part of it as well.”