SGI: Hardware

Abekas A82/A83 (eBay)

I don't know if this is strictly related with SGI Hardware, but I recall a few products from Abekas for SGI... anyway, it seemed to me that maybe I should post it because someone else could find it interesting:

Abekas A82/A83 Upstand Composite Video Switcher Control

I'm not related with the ítem or the seller at all, or at least nothing more than you are by receiveing their "Check out the latest items from your favorite sellers on eBay" in your eMail box! :)
Enjoy it!
This Abekas beastie doesn't interface with an SGI, but the A60 and A66 video disk recorders do. The A60 (which holds 30 seconds uncompressed standard def video) and A66 (a whole 60 seconds!) connect to a standard ethernet network and you can rcp individual Quantel/Abekas .yuv frames to and from them. I believe you can connect the A66 via SCSI as well. I know the guy who developed the ethernet interface for the A60, he also developed quite a lot of other broadcast stuff for Quantel and SGI over the years.

The A60 was quite a monster, both in terms of rack space and electricity consumption.
fieldframe wrote: This Abekas beastie doesn't interface with an SGI, but the A60 and A66 video disk recorders do. The A60 (which holds 30 seconds uncompressed standard def video) and A66 (a whole 60 seconds!) connect to a standard ethernet network and you can rcp individual Quantel/Abekas .yuv frames to and from them. I believe you can connect the A66 via SCSI as well. I know the guy who developed the ethernet interface for the A60, he also developed quite a lot of other broadcast stuff for Quantel and SGI over the years.

The A60 was quite a monster, both in terms of rack space and electricity consumption.


Interesting, I knew a bit from the A60 and A66 because of a few brochure papers I had, but nothing about the A82/A83. Things like Abekas or even Chyron never were too popular here in Argentina, despite the fact I know about a few TV Channels here that used Abekas with SGI.

In fact once upon a time I've investigated if I could trick one of their DVR's to use something bigger than the standard couple of 4.5 GB SCSI disks. Of course I'm talking about many years ago, and I could not even tell you the name of such systems! :)