FieldCast Fiber Base One 4x PTZ Control System

Alternating current survives a two-kilometre cable run in a way that DC cannot, and that piece of physics explains the architecture around the FieldCast Fiber Base One. This 1RU converter is where power for a four-camera PTZ rig starts: a 110–240 V AC PowerCon inlet, redundant supplies inside, and mains sent down one SMPTE 311M/304 hybrid cable to a Fiber Node One at the camera end. The node puts 24 V DC on each hybrid connector, and every PTZ Monk hands its camera a clean 12 V. One socket in the OB van feeds the lot.

Signals arrive on the same cable: two single-mode 9/125 cores, one bringing the four camera feeds home, the other tying both chassis into one gigabit network. An SMPTE 304 FXW connector lands the fibre at the rear panel, and the unit demultiplexes it into four 3G-SDI channels with dual outputs across eight 75-ohm BNCs, so a switcher and a multiviewer, or two recorders, are fed at once without a distribution amplifier. Rates run to 2.97 Gb/s, compliance covers SMPTE 259M, 344M, 292M and 424M, and every SD and HD standard up to 1080p60 passes. Nothing is rescaled on the way, so what the camera sends is what the gallery cuts.

Camera control travels back along the second core. The front-panel RJ-45 port joins the optical Ethernet switch inside Fiber Node One, putting a controller in the truck and a second panel at the node on the same subnet — either can drive any camera in the network, which earns its keep at rehearsal, framing set at the camera position and trimmed from the van. Throughput follows 1000Base-T and 1000Base-SX/LX, IEEE 802.3ab and 802.3z, full or half duplex.

The aluminium 19-inch enclosure stays inside one rack unit; 2 mm warm-white LEDs on a black front panel report AC input, per-channel SDI and Ethernet activity over fibre, local Ethernet and gigabit link detection, so faults are narrowed by reading the panel, not pulling BNCs. Because the SDI outputs at both ends carry identical signals, one kit covers a motorsport compound well back from pit lane, a velodrome infield, an exhibition-hall keynote or campus lecture capture. For a rental operation: one cable to run, no local power to arrange, four boxes to maintain.