Archive: News & Press Releases

09/2007

IBC 2007: STAGETEC presents the next generation NEXUS STAR

Total redundancy concept for the popular router addresses large installations

Berlin, Germany, September 2007: When it comes to lavish campus-wide audio installations the NEXUS STAR routing system by SALZBRENNER STAGETEC MEDIAGROUP is the first choice of audio professionals around the globe. This popular router, installed in several hundred locations worldwide, not only handles up to 4,096 by 4,096 I/O’s but also houses the entire DSP resources for the company’s award-winning flagship console AURUS. Now the MEDIAGROUP’S R&D branch, STAGETEC, has fundamentally re-engineered the NEXUS STAR hardware architecture to answer the growing demands of today’s huge and mission-critical installations for total redundancy of all system components.

Launching at this year’s IBC, the next generation of NEXUS STAR routers features a new highly integrated controller and multiplexer board (product name RCX) instead of the previous separate boards for multiplexing (product name RMX) and the CPU (product name RCPU). A redundant RCX module can now be accommodated easily, thanks to this space saving change. But STAGETEC have gone much further. NEXUS STAR now not only switches seamlessly to this second RCX in the event of a board failure but also to a complete fall-back bus system in the all-new backplane. “This new hardware architecture guarantees an extremely high level of redundancy since even if a failing board interferes with the backplane it cannot cause a system crash”, states Dr. Klaus Scholz, Managing Director of STAGETEC. “This has been achieved by the technical masterstroke of integrating the performance of two highly complex boards into a single unit with extremely low power consumption and heat loss.” The new RCX board features maximum power consumption of only 10 Watts and commensurately low heat dissipation.

The new NEXUS STAR hardware architecture principally addresses large up-to-date installations in broadcast environments with many thousands of inputs and outputs and with an extremely high demand for system reliability. Thanks to the unique NEXUS concept of “distributed intelligence”, featuring an independent CPU within every NEXUS device and the capability of hot-swapping every I/O module, NEXUS and NEXUS STAR have gained a market-leading position in this market segment over the last decade. “The new generation NEXUS STAR consolidates this market position and ensures that STAGETEC customers will continue to enjoy confidence in the most reliable cutting-edge technology available", Scholz continues.

The new RCX module and NEXUS STAR rack will be on show at IBC 2007 and will be standard with all systems shipped from the fourth quarter of 2007.