10-11-2025, 05:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-11-2025, 05:07 PM by ppppenguin.)
Many thousands of yards of PSF1/3 cable would have been used in any broadcast TV installation. I don't know how much it cost back then. It won't have been cheap but I don't think it was terribly expensive. Back then, all broadcast kit was pretty expensive. Canford https://www.canford.co.uk/ was (and still is) one of the major suppliers of cable, connectors etc to the BBC. I think they acted as a sort of extension to the BBC's own Equipment Department. Mark Hennessey may be able to confirm this.
At the Broadcast Engineering Museum we mainly use the newer and thinner Image 360 cable: https://www.argosycable.com/product/imag...1hHysmyhXK though we still use plenty of PSF1/3. We also have quite a few AM4/517 etc VDAs in our stores. Up to eight of them fit in a 3U rack. We don't use them very much. Nor their BBC-designed successors. This is partly because we mainly use SDI (serial digital interface) for our main infrastructure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_digital_interface For us, this is the original standard definition 270Mb/s standard. All analogue sources are converted to SDI, audio is embedded in the SDI signals as needed. SDI is converted back to analogue RGB or PAL to feed monitors etc. Where we need analogue VDAs we mainly use ones by BAL (which I designed many years ago!) or Avitel. The latter suffer from intermittent connector faults.
Bob, you really must visit us one day. Our next open day is planned to be Sunday April 5th 2026. Then the first Sunday of every month until August and a Heritage Open Day weekend in September.
At the Broadcast Engineering Museum we mainly use the newer and thinner Image 360 cable: https://www.argosycable.com/product/imag...1hHysmyhXK though we still use plenty of PSF1/3. We also have quite a few AM4/517 etc VDAs in our stores. Up to eight of them fit in a 3U rack. We don't use them very much. Nor their BBC-designed successors. This is partly because we mainly use SDI (serial digital interface) for our main infrastructure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_digital_interface For us, this is the original standard definition 270Mb/s standard. All analogue sources are converted to SDI, audio is embedded in the SDI signals as needed. SDI is converted back to analogue RGB or PAL to feed monitors etc. Where we need analogue VDAs we mainly use ones by BAL (which I designed many years ago!) or Avitel. The latter suffer from intermittent connector faults.
Bob, you really must visit us one day. Our next open day is planned to be Sunday April 5th 2026. Then the first Sunday of every month until August and a Heritage Open Day weekend in September.
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
