The M-CLEANIT is Crystal Vision’s new profanity delay system which is designed to prevent the broadcast of unwanted or offensive video or audio material. Equally suited to IP and SDI environments, the M-CLEANIT’s flexibility allows it to be fully customized for any workflow. With intuitive control from a smart button box and separate reaction controls to event and restore, the M-CLEANIT offers the biggest choice of ways to deal with video and audio profanities to keep broadcast content protected – including clean switching to two different video sources or a web page, blurring the video, showing black or blue or colour bars, muting individual audio channels and switching to another audio source. To give the operator time to react, the M-CLEANIT allows an IP or SDI live content stream to be delayed by up to 600 frames, which is 24 seconds in 1080i50, 20 seconds in 1080i59.94, 12 seconds in 720p50/1080p50 and ten seconds in 1080p59.94. The M-CLEANIT is a software app that runs on the MARBLE-V1 media processor hardware, a card which features a powerful CPU/GPU processor and both SDI and 10GbE IP network interface connections and which is housed in the Vision frame.
With its extensive video and audio cover options, the M-CLEANIT is ideal for preventing expletives, obscene gestures, wardrobe malfunctions, bloopers, competitor mentions, coughing fits and technical problems from making it to air. All of the cleaning features are user configured and individually controlled – making it easy for operating procedures to be established for each production, tailored to the content. There are eight cover options to prevent unwanted video from being broadcast. The operator can clean switch to two different safe video sources or – unique to Crystal Vision – to an HTML-based cover image or animation. The web page can be stored on a web server (either connected to the same local network or located externally), or can be stored in the Vision 3 frame. The operator can choose to blur the program video, with a variable user-defined blur amount and a blur fade time of up to ten seconds, or can make the video black or blue or show color bars. Finally, it is possible to clean switch to the undelayed program, jumping ahead in time of the offensive content. There are two audio cover options: the main program audio feed can be muted – with individual channel selection and a fade time of up to ten seconds – or the operator can switch to a safe audio source. Video and audio cleaning features can be combined – for example, a video blur can be combined with an audio mute or with an audio switch, and a video switch can be combined with an audio switch.
The M-CLEANIT will provide very precise cleaning. The recommended method of operation is to use the SBB-4 smart button box with its four big momentary buttons, which are set to Mute A, Blur A, Switch to B and Switch to C by default, but can be customized as required. Crystal Vision’s other control methods are available, including the VisionWeb Control web browser software and the JSON and ASCII protocols which can all be used in conjunction with the SBB-4.
The SBB-4 buttons execute their action after the user-defined delay times out, and one of the M-CLEANIT’s most useful features is the flexibility of its delays which sets it apart from other profanity delay systems. The ‘delay to event’ and ‘delay to restore’ can either be the same length or different, to suit all workflows. Using the same ‘delay to event’ and ‘delay to restore’ requires the operator to hold the button for longer after the profanity has finished. Setting a longer ‘delay to restore’ adds some safety delay to ensure all objectionable content is covered, and in this workflow the operator can release the button as soon as the profanity has cleared. There are also override controls which act immediately – ideal for emergency situations where the profanity was missed.
In a profanity delay system confidence in the content is crucial. The M-CLEANIT provides this confidence by allowing one of its two outputs to show the Monitor output. This fixed multiviewer allows the user to monitor everything that is happening by simultaneously showing the Live Source A video, Cleanit Out video, Delayed Source A video, Source B video, Source C video, Event pending tally and Event active tally. In addition, the Live Source A audio is monitored. With this Monitor output available as either SDI or IP, it allows – for example – an IP program to be monitored using a legacy SDI viewing station.
The M-CLEANIT’s ability to work with both SDI and IP gives the easiest possible SDI to IP upgrade, while also making it perfect for mixed SDI and IP installations as well as fully IP or fully SDI environments. It currently supports the ST 2022-6 and 2022-7 IP protocols, with full ST 2110 video/audio/data support coming in early 2021. The M-CLEANIT’s gateway functionality can be used to integrate SDI into an IP environment or IP into an SDI environment. Its IP to IP translation functionality can be used for network address translation, protocol conversion between any of the input and output formats, unicast to multicast address conversion and the creation of media firewalls. The IP flows can be separated and protected across up to four bi-directional 10GbE SFP+ network interfaces. It includes output traffic shaping and is tolerant of any input packet distribution.
Explained Crystal Vision’s Managing Director, Philip Scofield: “The M-CLEANIT is a great demonstrator of what can be done with MARBLE-V1. With video and audio delay and processing, IP and SDI gateways and a multiviewer on the preview output as well as flexible ways of programming a sequence of events, the M-CLEANIT is the best profanity delay available whether you work with SDI or IP.”
Additional useful features include a framestore synchronizer timed to an external Black and Burst or tri-level syncs analog reference or PTP, with user configurable options for timing source priority and redundancy, as well as an additional ten frames of video delay on both the input and output. Comprehensive SDI, IP and PTP monitoring information is available and can be used to generate SNMP traps, while 13 built-in test patterns can help with fault finding.
Equally suited to traditional broadcasting or to social media webcasts, the M-CLEANIT software app is available to buy now.
Based at Whittlesford near Cambridge in the UK and with an office in the USA, Crystal Vision provides a full range of interface and keyers and helps people transition through a range of technologies – from SD to HD, from HD to IP and from IP to IP.