Active Silicon designs, manufactures and supplies specialist digital imaging products and technologies, in particular those related to video acquisition, machine vision and networked video.

This agreement allows SNP to pre-install Phoenix boards into their Catalyst systems and sell them anywhere in the world, and also to market SNP as a “Value Added Reseller”.

SNP offers extremely competitive pricing on the popular LFG4 and Phoenix PE4 HD-SDI video input capture cards. These are used in the latest spec'd Catalyst  digital media servers, the leading Mac based video media processing system for live shows, television and events of all types.

The Active Silicon Phoenix PE4 is a 4-lane PCI express HD-SDI capture card with two SDI inputs which can be either two SD-SDI or two HD-SDI. A maximum of three cards can be installed in a MacPro server, providing up to six SD-SDI inputs and the potential for four-six (hardware dependant) HD-SDI video inputs with virtually no frame delay … this is four more SDI inputs than any other media server on the market.

This card is a new addition to the Active Silicon range, which includes the popular LFG4 capture card with four composite video inputs. With three cards installed in a MacPro server , the LFG4 gives a potential of 12 composite video (camera) inputs.

SNP recently supplied 10 x Active Silicon Phoenix HD-SDI video input capture cards to leading UK lighting rental company Neg Earth, some of which were used to upgrade the Catalyst systems being used for Muse's current "Resistance" world tour.

The show's eye-catching visual environment includes lighting, video and set/scenic elements, and is a creative collaboration between LD Oli Metcalfe, set designer Es Devlin and video director Tom Kirk. Metcalfe designed the video control and Catalyst system which is run over ArtNet and controlled via a Hog 3 console.

Four Catalysts are used to output playback video and 12 different camera sources to three impressive 'tower blocks' onstage, each constructed from PixLED F30 screen. Each tower comprises a flown top section and a bottom section which is scissor-lifted up from the stage deck, with video/camera outputs for the different sections driven by different mixes in the Catalysts. Metcalfe is running the Catalysts hard and also using some advanced features including: timecode, MIDI functionality and sync ID to frame synchronise playback across the servers.

Neg Earth upgraded five of their existing Catalyst media server systems to new Intel MacPros for the tour, and SNP also supplied five USB cards to secure the Catalyst dongles inside the MacPros, plus five 250Gb OCZ Solid Stage Drives (SSD) on SNP Productions' new 2.5in - 3.5inch MacPro SSD Adaptors v2.

Said SNP's Simon Pugsley: "Active Silicon's Phoenix cards provide Catalyst users with a high quality solution to capture HD-SDI video/camera images live in to the catalyst system with virtually no frame delay. We are proud to have already supplied NegEarth — one of the leading lighting suppliers in the Europe — with the latest versions of this product".

SNP provides a full range of Catalyst media server products and peripherals in the UK and worldwide. For further details check www.snp-productions.co.uk/Tel : +44 1908 410129.