FOR-A Corporation of America, a leading manufacturer of video and audio systems for the broadcast and professional video industries, will introduce its latest HANABI series innovation, the HVS-500HS HANABI 1 M/E switcher, at NAB2006 in Las Vegas from April 24-27 (Booth #C3210). The HVS-500HS is an economical, compact and self-contained switcher that accepts HD, SD, HDV and DV formats. It comes with 10-bit, 4:2:2 internal processing and is well suited for applications such as editing, studio production, mobile production, up-link vans, live production, broadcast television and live staging. Competitive HD switchers start at approximately $30,000. FOR-A’s affordable HVS-500HS comes in at just a fraction of that price.

A fraction of the price, huh? Hopefully that means about $50, right? Anyway, this thing is chalk full of inputs and outputs including: four HD/SD SDI inputs, two PGM outputs, and three AUX outputs. Additional I/O devices include another four HD/SD-SDI inputs, four HD/SD analog with VGA inputs and one HDV/DV for a total of 13 possible inputs. It is switchable between NTSC or PAL, and can work in 1080/60i, 50i, or 720/60p. It will be available in July.

[ via AVProducer ]