On Screen Display - STV5730A IS being discontinued :-(

["Keith Doxey" <ukha@xxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

Been mentioned several times on the list in the past, not least because of
doubts about the availability of the STV5730A.

Yesterday I had a call from my account manager at Rapid Electronics and I
asked her to find out pricing and availability of said chip... not good
news
:-(

It IS being discontinued. It is currently on "Lifetime Buy"
status where
this is the last chance for people to buy all they will ever need for the
lifetime of their product before it disappears forever. Even if you want to
buy it at the moment it is on very long lead times.

She did manage to find some stock, she could get me 2500 of them but the
asking price was over £6 each and they have to be bought in tubes of 28
devices.

I asked her to check if there was a replacement chip and the answer once
again is NO.

Presumably with the increase in TV/Computer convergence ala TiVo etc, there
is little need for OSD chips as the graphics processors used in such
devices
handle all the overlay stuff as a matter of course.

I also notice that http://www.stv5730a.co.uk  aka
BlackBox Camera Co still
have their OSD boards available but no longer supply just the chips so that
they can prolong the life of their product by keeping all the stocks for
themselves.

I did buy some chips from them a couple of years ago and they were only
about £5 each which is less than the current quantity trade price :-(

Looks like a video overlay device for xAP and xPL will need a bit of a
redesign if it is to be a long term project.... sorry Frank!

To sum it up in one word..... BUGGER !!!!!

Keith

www.diyha.co.uk
www.kat5.tv