Great River Technology, Inc. - High Performance Custom Digital Video Solutions


	Intro to FC-AV FC-AV stands for Fibre Channel-Audio Video that is protocol for transporting digital video. FC-AV is based on the document: ANSI INCITS 356-2002. An abstract of this document can be found at: Abstract of FC-AV document. Fibre Channel (FC) is a very common technology used for networked high-volume data storage (Storage Area Networks). FC-AV is a subset of FC, and in many implementations, is not necessarily compatible with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) FC devices because FC-AV is typically unidirectional, not bi-directional as required by the FC standard. A key benefit of FC-AV is that it is a low-overhead protocol which allows for real-time transmission of video signals at high frequencies (1.0625 Gbps and beyond using copper or fiber optic cables). "Fiber Optic cables" as follows: Video can be transported over long distances (from 500 meters up to 10K) using FC-AV systems, with no electromagnetic interference. The FC-AV protocol breaks a video frame (for example, a 1280- by 1024-pixel SXGA resolution frame) into a number of “packets” for transmission; these “packets” are called FC Frames (it is easy to confuse an FC frame with a Video frame). An FC frame is limited to a maximum of 2112 bytes, which then requires a video frame to be broken-up into a series of FC frames. FC-AV uses a container system to transmit a video frame. The container provides important information that is used to interpret the information received in an FC frame. A simplified diagram is shown below with the main functions involved in transmitting a Video Frame via FC-AV. The main functions are: Packaging the Video image into FC Frames, serialization and 8B/10B encoding, serial transmission which includes inserted IDLE characters between FC frames, decoding, stripping off IDLE or special characters, and reconstruction of the video image. In a typical avionics set-up, the source of the Video Frame will be a graphics generator or mission processor that will be sending an image to a Display Unit.

Intro to FC-AV
FC-AV stands for Fibre Channel-Audio Video that is protocol for transporting digital video. FC-AV is based on the document: ANSI INCITS 356-2002. An abstract of this document can be found at: Abstract of FC-AV document. Fibre Channel (FC) is a very common technology used for networked high-volume data storage (Storage Area Networks). FC-AV is a subset of FC, and in many implementations, is not necessarily compatible with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) FC devices because FC-AV is typically unidirectional, not bi-directional as required by the FC standard.

A key benefit of FC-AV is that it is a low-overhead protocol which allows for real-time transmission of video signals at high frequencies (1.0625 Gbps and beyond using copper or fiber optic cables). "Fiber Optic cables" as follows: Video can be transported over long distances (from 500 meters up to 10K) using FC-AV systems, with no electromagnetic interference.

The FC-AV protocol breaks a video frame (for example, a 1280- by 1024-pixel SXGA resolution frame) into a number of “packets” for transmission; these “packets” are called FC Frames (it is easy to confuse an FC frame with a Video frame). An FC frame is limited to a maximum of 2112 bytes, which then requires a video frame to be broken-up into a series of FC frames. FC-AV uses a container system to transmit a video frame. The container provides important information that is used to interpret the information received in an FC frame.

A simplified diagram is shown below with the main functions involved in transmitting a Video Frame via FC-AV. The main functions are: Packaging the Video image into FC Frames, serialization and 8B/10B encoding, serial transmission which includes inserted IDLE characters between FC frames, decoding, stripping off IDLE or special characters, and reconstruction of the video image. In a typical avionics set-up, the source of the Video Frame will be a graphics generator or mission processor that will be sending an image to a Display Unit.