What is ASI Digital video?

DVB-ASI - Digital Video Broadcast- Asynchronous Serial Interface

DVB-ASI is a serial video communications standard defined by the DVB consortium for use in transporting MPEG-2 encoded video streams. The standard is most commonly used to connect cable head-end equipment that transports MPEG-2 streams. Data is transported at a rate of 270 Mb/s. A complete discussion of DVB-ASI specifications is provided in EN 50083-9: Cabled Distribution Systems for Television, Sound and Interactive Multimedia Signals, available from ETSI. Implementation of multiple channels of DVB-ASI are possible in Xilinx FPGAs and typically result in substantial cost savings versus ASSP-based solutions. When integrated with SDI and HD-SDI, the FPGA becomes a true connectivy platform for all kinds of applications handling compressed and uncompressed video.

Source: http://www.xilinx.com/esp/broadcast/interface.htm#ASI