As the first company to introduce FPGA technology to the audio production business, Fairlight has announced the launch of its second generation Crystal Core (CC-2) technology at the upcoming AES Convention (booth #1304) in Los Angeles.
CC-2 incorporates an impressive 1000 playback channels, 100+ output buses and 100 live inputs. When teamed with Fairlight’s new V5 operating software, it offers the ultimate professional solution for the demanding delivery requirements of today’s broadcast industry.
In keeping with Fairlight’s long tradition of seamless upgrade paths, CC-2 is entirely compatible with the audio hardware currently operating with the company’s established CC-1 engine.
Tino Fibaek, Fairlight’s chief technical officer, says: “Future proofing our technology has always been at the heart of our business philosophy. With the launch of CC-2, we have ensured that existing Fairlight customers can easily upgrade without having to replace their current audio interfaces or control surfaces.
“This means they can extend the life of their original hardware investment, whilst benefiting from the increased capacity that CC-2 brings.”
Fairlight’s CC-2 engine features a processor chip that is five times more powerful than the chip in its CC-1 engine. It also has four times the PCIe bandwidth, new dual channel memory architecture, an on-board expansion slot and almost twice the MADI connectivity.
Augmenting Fairlight’s editing model, V5 sees the addition of Clipbender, an enhanced time compression and expansion feature allowing audio within a single clip to be aligned to picture, with multiple bend points and real time non-destructive processing.
Fairlight’s V5 software has advanced to a full 64-bit application, allowing unrestricted access to the full power of Intel’s latest processors. The associated increase in memory and speed delivers more simultaneous plug-ins, more video formats and larger media files. When used in combination with CC-2, this platform delivers faster than real-time, offline mixdown.
Also developed as a part of the new 64-bit architecture is a brand new video engine, leveraging GPU acceleration for real-time video processing, support for 4K video resolution, and featuring built-in HEVC decoding.
