Support of Sony RCP products over RS-422 with the Beam

Overview

Some customers have expressed interest in using Sony RCP units and cameras with the RS-422 communication ports on the Beam.

Beam's maximum baud rate on the RS-422 port is 115.2 kbps (additional details in this article), while the Sony protocol operates at a non-standard speed of 562.5 kbps. This 115.2 kbps speed is a hardware limitation and cannot be increased above this maximum.

Sony's older cameras used standard 38400 bps, but it's not certain if any current Sony models use a standard, supported baud rate that would be compatible with the Beam's RS-422 port.

Tested Configurations

Teradek's engineering team has tested and confirmed as working a Sony HDC-1500, but in order to have IP control it also required the HDCU-1500 to work with the RCP-1500 (or similar), so this is a substantial amount of 

An additional setup that was examined was the Sony HDC-P1 and the RMB750, but this did not work with the Beam.

Workaround

 The Beam has IP bridging capabilities in the most recent firmware, so IP-enabled cameras that don't require serial connections for PTZ control could use that built-in functionality on the Beam without worrying about RS-422 serial port speeds and limitations.