ORBIS FLIES THE
GIFT OF SIGHT
WORLDWIDE WITH CANOBEAM
NEW YORK, NY, July 2001: The international humanitarian
organization ORBIS uses every technological tool available
to bring the gift of sight to the world, taking quality
eye care everywhere via a uniquely equipped DC-10 flying
eye surgery hospital and teaching facility. To expand
the reach of this crucial classroom, every mission now
flies with a newly added Canon Canobeam DT-50/SDI, also
know as the Canobeam III, optical beam communications
system on board.
When the ORBIS plane arrives at its destination, local
citizens in need of surgery for serious eye problems such
as cataracts, trachoma, or river blindness can be treated
in the DC-10's operating room. While area doctors are
welcome aboard to witness the surgeries and be trained
in new techniques, space on the plane is limited to just
50 people. But the
Canobeam gives ORBIS an easy way to transmit the scene
to nearby temporary classrooms set up with high quality
A/V systems, allowing large groups of additional doctors
to get educated on the sight-saving procedures. Destinations
last year included multiple locations in India, Cuba,
China, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria and Myanmar.
"The Canobeam has been a very significant addition
to ORBIS," notes Ismael Cordero, Manager of Biomedical
Engineering for ORBIS. "It greatly expands our capacity
to teach people about eye surgery. In places like China,
for example, we may have up to 200 people in our peripheral
classroom that's linked with the Canobeam. And since it
allows for two-way communications, that room can be interactive,
just as if the students were sitting on the plane's classroom."
"I've spent a lot of years designing and building
mobile TV facilities --but never one that flies at 500
MPH and 35,000 feet like ORBIS," says Greg Doyle,
President of Doyle Technology, which served as a technology
consultant to the project. "The Canobeam provides
us with a very effective A/V path in and out of the airplane.
Since it's an optical
beam, it requires no frequency allocation and can be set
up very quickly, which allows us to expand the classroom
area of ORBIS with a minimum of effort."
Canobeam proved to be uniquely qualified to accept the
critical assignment, beaming out a live video presentation
from cameras and microphones positioned in the operating
room. "The Canobeam's ability to handle serial digital
video gives us the best possible image quality, at a very
good value," adds Don Morgan, Director of Project
Development for Doyle Technology. "It's an integral
part of our design of a state-of-the-art image processing
capability on the aircraft, while also keeping down size
and weight."
The Canobeam DT-50/SDI is capable of transmitting up
to 2 km (1.25 miles) a wide variety of bi-directional
digital video signals. In combination with a video codec,
multiple streams of bi-directional video transmission
are possible and when used with an HD-SDI converter, HDTV
wireless transmission can also be provided. The use of
the Canobeam is unregulated and no frequency allocation
is required.
Since its inception in 1982, ORBIS has completed more
than 440 programs in 80countries while training over 50,000
health care workers. It has directly treated 23,070 patients
and led to over nine million people more who have received
eye care from ORBIS-trained doctors. With the Canobeam
on board, ORBIS has the potential to make the number of
people it reaches grow at a faster rate than ever. "The
challenges of keeping an A/V studio and a hospital on
board an aircraft are many and complex," Cordero
says. "The environment is very severe and every time
you land you're shaking up the equipment. The Canobeam
has proven highly dependable, which is key when you might
be thousands of miles away from the nearest technical
support person."
"It's very exciting to be part of a project like
ORBIS that deals with worldwide saving of sight,"
Greg Doyle concludes. "Canobeam opens up ORBIS' flow
of information, and we're glad to have it on board."
To learn more about ORBIS, please visit www.orbis.org.
For further information on Canon Broadcast & Communications
Products, please call 1-800-321-4388.
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