Patent ID: 8505063

Claim:
A video transmission system for carrying video signals from a first, video source location to a second, remote video editing location, comprising: a plurality of video sources at the first location; a first video transmission path comprising a first encoder and a first decoder associated with each video source, and a communications channel common to all of the video sources, the first decoder providing a first video output signal and an alarm relay signal corresponding to its associated video source, the alarm relay signal reflecting a signal error in the first video output signal; a second video transmission path comprising a second encoder and a second decoder corresponding to each first encoder and first decoder and associated with the same video source as the corresponding first encoder and first decoder, and a second communications channel common to all of the video sources, the second decoder providing a second video output signal corresponding to its associated video source; and a video protection switch at the second remote location, comprising: a first input corresponding to each first decoder for receiving the first video output signal from its corresponding first decoder, and a second input corresponding to each second decoder for receiving the second video output signal from its corresponding second decoder, the received first and second output signals being from the same video source; an output; a switch connected for receiving both the first and second video output signals, and pre-set to provide the first video output signal to the output of the video protection switch; and an alarm input for receiving the alarm relay signal; wherein when the first decoder detects an error in the video signal in the first transmission path, the alarm relay signal provided to the alarm input causes the video protection switch to provide the second video output signal at the output of the video protection switch, so that only the first video output signal from the first transmission path having an error is replaced with the second video output signal from the second transmission path, with other first video output signals continuing to be provided from the first transmission path, and with the second video output signal on the second transmission path continuing to be provided at the output of the video protection switch after the error, thereby preventing loss of the video signals to the editing location.