Deborah D. McAdams / 10.28.2011 12:00AM
Bits and Bytes From the SMPTE Technical Conference
HOLLYWOOD: Engineers and members of the Society of Motion
Picture and Television Engineers came together recently to discuss the latest
technology and developments in the broadcast and film industries. Yours truly
was able to attend a few of the presentations and herewith attempts to boil
down her takeaway...
Developing a Machine-Learned Video QC Algorithm
It’s darn near impossible for someone to sit at a monitor and spot every
video and audio error in a given program. Automated tools fare no better,
because they’re difficult to configure, according to
Nick Vercammen, a master of applied informatics at Ghent University in Belgium. However,
Vercammen and his colleagues are using machine-learning techniques to develop
an algorithm that reliably identifies audio and video errors. (Continued...)
Points to Consider With Multiple Formats
in a File-Based Workflow
The chief complaint about file-based workflows is how to handle all the
source formats. Pick one, said
John King
of BitCentral. King recommends
identifying an acquisition format and driving the organization and newsroom
toward it. For everything else, he laid out steps to create a methodology. (Continued...)
Take a Unique Material Identifier,
Please
UMIDs take metadata to a whole new level. UMID stands for “Unique Material
Identifier,” a core component in MXF and AAF. UMIDs are also part of a SMPTE
spec and intended for linking audio/video material to metadata. Such
deployments are rare, according to
Yoshiaki
Shibata of MetaFrontier, yet
material is more easily trackable via UMIDs than metadata alone. (Continued...)
Broadcast, Mobile and Streaming
Headends, Oh My Indeed
Multiplatform distribution is more than just demuxing a signal. With linear
broadcasting, there’s a common transport standard, a typical reception device
and well-established content rights. Multiplatform streaming often requires
adaptive transport measures for multiple receiver types, and content rights are
“contentious, if not right down hostile sometimes,” said
J. Patrick Waddell of Harmonic.
(Continued...)
Adding Mobile DTV at the Station
Mobile DTV will eventually need a differentiated programming stream, but it
probably won’t start out that way. That was the assessment of
Triveni Digital’s Dr. Rich Chernock, possibly the only nuclear physicist working in
TV. He provided an overview. (Continued...)
Adding Mobile DTV at a Venue
Common wisdom suggests mobile DTV should be made as widely available as
possible at launch. Yet past attempts at mobile television service haven’t gone
so well,
Gustavo Marra of ATEME
USA said. However, Marra says there’s an opportunity within sports
stadiums, because fans want commentary and information in addition to just
watching the game. (Continued...)
TV Tomorrow: Married to LTE
Instead of fighting over spectrum, the broadcast and wireless industries
could work together to deliver video, according to
Mark Aitken of Sinclair.
Aitken said the next-generation ATSC standard could be married to 3GPP, the
global standard of the wireless industry. That way, ATSC would be compatible
with LTE-Advanced capabilities, allowing carrier aggregation, heterogeneous
networks, an all-IP core network and network-sharing possibilities. (Continued...)
Remote and Mobile Monitoring of On-Air
Signals For Centralcasters
NBC wanted remote monitoring of 10 TV stations and multicasts with
discrete, full-resolution channels, and multiviewers for each channel group,
distributed across multiple platforms. “And they wanted to do it with minimum
financial outlay,” said
Michael Wright of
TI Broadcast Solutions Group. (Continued... )
IP-Based Monitoring In A Broadcast
Environment
Martin Jolicoeur
of Miranda Technologies
examined monitoring at two levels: Transport and content. (Continued...)
Monitoring Data Integrity in SMPTE 310M
and DVB-ASI Transport Streams
Monitoring signal integrity within a facility is one thing. Catching a
glimpse of it in the air is another.
David
Wood of Ensemble Designs considered
monitoring a signal from the studio to the transmitter relay sites. He used
KJLA-TV in Los Angeles as an example. Its studio is 29 miles from the Mt.
Wilson transmitter site. (Continued...)