COTS System Holds High-Resolution Video Images

Consisting of capture and replay units and a standard video recorder, the Sentinel commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) system is designed to record high-resolution computer screen images directly onto a standard video cassette. The high-fidelity image recordings are achieved using the company's pixel rate conversion technique in which the original screen resolution is maintained by slowing the replayed content update rate. The capture unit, the key element of the system, connects directly to a hi-res monitor's RGB port and can accept up to 1,600 x 1,200-pixel signals, with the unit locking onto the incoming video signal using a built-in auto-sync feature. And two video sources can be recorded simultaneously. The unit captures a complete video frame in just 250 ms and then converts the frame into a PAL/NTSC format and outputs at a standard video rate into the cassette recorder. On playback, the recorded video is passed directly to the Sentinel's replay unit. The video recorder system's capture and replay units are available as a standard VME board, as a standalone desktop unit, and as a 19" rack-mounted unit.