Transmitters and receivers for transmission of video and other signals by fiber optic cable

A video signal transmitter or receiver for transmitting or receiving a plurality of video signals, each video signal including video data signals and video control signals, the video signal transmitter or receiver comprising:

• a main circuit board;
• mainboard signal processing circuitry mounted on the main circuit board;
• a plurality of video signal connectors electrically coupled to the mainboard signal processing circuitry;
• and
• two or more fiber modules mounted on the main circuit board, including one master fiber module and one or more add-on fiber modules, each fiber module including:
• a casing;
• an optical fiber connector disposed in the casing;
• an optical transceiver disposed in the casing and optically coupled to the optical fiber connector, the optical transceiver having a plurality of channels and configured to convert between electrical signals and optical signals in each channel;
• and
• a signal processing chip disposed in the casing, electrically coupled to the optical transceiver and to the mainboard signal processing circuitry, and programmed to control the optical transceiver;
• wherein the mainboard signal processing circuitry is programmed to process and transmit the plurality of video signals between the video signal connectors and the two or more fiber modules, including to:
• divide the video data signals for the plurality of video signals into a plurality of subsets, and transmit or receive each subset of video data signals to or from one of the fiber modules, without transmitting or receiving any video control signal to or from any of the add-on fiber modules;
• transmit and receive video control signals for all of the plurality of video signals via a first subset of channels of the master fiber module, the video control signals being multiplexed on the first subset of channels;
• and
• cooperate with the signal processing chip of the master fiber module to process the video control signals for all of the plurality of video signals;
• and
• wherein the signal processing chip of the master fiber module is further programmed to process video control signals for at least two of the plurality of video signals.