As broadcasters continue transitioning to IP-based workflows, industry leaders are exploring new approaches that could improve interoperability, collaboration and operational flexibility.

At the heart of these discussions is the Dynamic Media Facility (DMF) and related Media eXchange Layer (MXL), emerging frameworks intended to help broadcasters determine how the next generation of software-defined workflows could work.

The topic was explored during a panel hosted by the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA), in conjunction with the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), featuring moderator Steve Reynolds, CEO, Imagine Communications, and guest speakers Naveed Aslam, senior vice president of Production Technology and Engineering, CBS/Paramount; John Mailhot, senior vice president of Product Management, Imagine Communications; Willem Vermost, senior IP media technology architect, EBU; and Andy Rayner, CTO, Appear.

“Much of media processing now runs in software, in a combination of on-premises and in the cloud,” Reynolds said. “And so, if everything is now moving to software, we have to ask the question: are we still designing our facilities in the right way?”

Panelists said DMF was created to address this question, driving the industry forward while solving key business challenges such as how to improve efficiency and allow broadcasters and their partners to share “very expensive resources” amongst more productions.

“I think, from our perspective, SMPTE ST 2110 and IP-based workflows have largely been understood and embraced as being the next industry evolutionary step,” Aslam said. “From our perspective, the DMF initiative is truly the key to start unlocking the practical and technological benefits that we can derive from an IP infrastructure, the opportunities that arise from that, and it just truly starts to give us an opportunity to explore what IP workflows can be.”

The panel explained that neither DMF nor MXL are meant to replace SMPTE ST 2110, the technical standards that gives broadcasters a means to transport broadcast-quality signals over IP networks, enabling them to scale workflows and providing a foundation for interoperability.

Rather, all three are designed to work together: DMF provides a framework for the next generation of more dynamic, software-defined facilities, while MXL provides a specific mode for connecting applications and services, effectively enabling interoperability inside of a computing cluster.

“It’s really the goal of the DMF to organize those upper layers so that you can actually have a dynamic facility,” Mailhot said. “I think that 2110 and MXL will work together to achieve that, but there’s a lot of work to do to fill in all those blanks.”

“If we work in an asynchronous way, suddenly more media functions can be run than ever before. Within the same time frame, of a frame, multiple operations can be run,” Vermost said.

“If you look at it from that point of view, it seems like a revolution. But, if you look at it from your broadcast plant and how you operate it, it’s an evolution. We’ll get there step by step.”

Panel discussion is available on demand on NABA's YouTube channel.

OSLO, Norway—Appear ASA has announced that it is supporting Rede Legislativa de Rádio e TV’s contribution workflow for Brazil’s TV 3.0 activities as part of the country experimental transmissions of the new standard, which are locally branded as DTV+.

The deployment uses Appear’s X5 to transport the broadcaster’s signal from Brasília to the TV 3.0 core infrastructure in São Paulo and are part of the Rede Legislativa trials designed to shape the next phase of Brazilian television.

Brazil’s TV 3.0 program has gathered momentum since the technology was formally adopted in August 2025. In 2026, the Chamber of Deputies hosted experimental demonstrations of DTV+ and the Mais BR public-channel platform, while Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC) confirmed its role in the first public presentation of the TV 3.0 platform. Earlier this year, EBC and the Chamber were authorised to use test stations in Brasília and São Paulo for continuous TV 3.0 transmissions.

In the Rede Legislativa workflow, Appear’s X5 uses HEVC compression and Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) to carry the signal over the public internet from Brasília to São Paulo. The architecture is designed to deliver the content simultaneously to two CDNs operated by the EBC and ALESP (Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo).

The project highlights how proven IP contribution technologies can support the operational requirements of Brazil’s emerging TV 3.0 services.

For Rede Legislativa, the deployment provides a practical and cost-efficient way to connect existing broadcast operations into a new delivery environment without requiring a bespoke TV 3.0 transmission platform.

“Brazil’s move towards TV 3.0 is creating new requirements not only in transmission, but also in the contribution workflows that feed it,” said Luis Perez, sales director LATAM at Appear. “In this project, our hardware-accelerated SRT technology enables Rede Legislativa to transport high-quality signals securely and reliably from Brasília to São Paulo over the public internet. It demonstrates how broadcasters can use new efficient technologies, such as SRT, to support the next wave of television services in Brazil with the low latency, high density and resilience needed for modern production workflows.”

“The trial has given us an efficient and reliable way to connect Brasília to the TV 3.0 core infrastructure in São Paulo,” added Luiz Flávio Menezes, engineer, Chamber of Deputies, Brazilian National Congress. “Appear’s X Platform has helped us validate a practical contribution architecture for DTV+, preserving quality while simplifying operations as we evaluate how next-generation television services can be best delivered in Brazil.”

OSLO, Norway & LOS ANGELES—Appear has announced that Fox Sports is deploying Appear’s X Platform, a high-capacity, ultra-dense, low-latency media processing and gateway platform.

Fox Sports using the solution to build a unified foundation to support remote production, premium live events and large-scale IP workflows.

The rollout builds on an initial deployment and now extends across three major areas of Fox Sports’ production infrastructure: a refresh of HRP (Home Run Productions) REMI infrastructure, a standards-based IP workflow supporting coverage of a major global soccer event taking place in the Americas in Summer 2026, and the broadcaster’s Jewel Events production system for its highest-profile live broadcasts.

Appear and Fox did not specify the soccer event but Fox is the English-language broadcaster for this summer’s FIFA World Cup. Following the World Cup, Fox Sports plans to redeploy the same infrastructure across other major national broadcasts, including American football and baseball.

Together, these deployments create a common technology foundation supporting Fox Sports’ production models, from field kits and mobile units to large-scale premium live events.

“By adopting Appear across our REMI workflows, Jewel Events productions and Summer 2026 soccer coverage, we are creating a flexible production architecture that can support the scale and complexity of sports broadcasting today,” said Rob Rees, vice president, live production engineering, Fox Sports. “The ability to choose the right compression and transport approach depending on venue requirements, while maintaining the highest standards of performance and reliability, is critical to delivering the biggest moments in live sport.”

More specifically, the deployment spans three areas of its live production infrastructure:

• HRP REMI infrastructure refresh. Fox Sports’ Home Run Productions (HRP) operation is modernizing its remote production infrastructure, replacing legacy contribution and processing systems across field kits, mobile production trucks and compact deployments. By supporting both JPEG XS and low-latency HEVC on a single platform, Appear enables a consistent production approach across a broad range of live sports, while providing the flexibility to optimise codec choice and bandwidth usage without compromising operational efficiency.
• Standards-based IP production for Summer 2026 soccer coverage. For coverage of a major global soccer event in the Americas in Summer 2026, Fox Sports is deploying a REMI production workflow based on SMPTE ST 2110 and JPEG XS. This standards-based approach will enable ultra-low latency contribution of 104 live matches over 39 days, allowing workflows to seamlessly adapt across venues with different connectivity profiles.
• Jewel Events production system. Appear technology is also being deployed within Fox Sports’ Jewel Events production system, supporting the broadcaster’s highest-profile national live broadcasts with a scalable and robust processing platform.

Across the deployment, Fox Sports’ infrastructure includes Appear X20 platforms across HRP and Jewel environments, alongside Appear X5 systems supporting the commentator workflows.

The X5 provides a compact contribution solution for distributed production, enabling remotely located commentators to receive live feeds and deliver synchronised commentary with ultra-low latency.

Using a single platform, Fox Sports can select the optimal workflow for each production environment, from ultra-low latency JPEG XS over SMPTE ST 2110 to HEVC and SRT for more constrained or variable networks. This approach allows production teams to maintain consistent workflows regardless of venue connectivity conditions.

Looking forward, Fox Sports plans to redeploy the same infrastructure across other major national broadcasts, including American football and baseball, maximizing long-term value while maintaining performance and reliability.

“Fox Sports is setting a benchmark for how major broadcasters are evolving their live production infrastructures,” said Ed McGivern, president and GM, Appear US. “By deploying a single high-performance platform, they can scale workflows from compact field kits to the most demanding premium sports events.”

Join Appear at NAB Show 2026 (Booth: W1531) for live demonstrations of its latest live production solutions. To schedule a meeting, email: appear@platformcomms.com

OSLO, Norway and TORONTO, Canada—Canadian broadcaster Corus Entertainment has partnered with Appear Appear, a global provider of live production technology, to modernize Corus’ news contribution architecture, replacing legacy leased circuits with an IP-based approach, using SRT as the primary transport protocol across the network’s affiliates, news bureaus and operational hubs.

The transition reflects the changing realities of broadcast environments in North America, including more live output, locations, as well as greater pressure to operate efficiently while maintaining the reliability required for news production, the companies said.

“Moving away from a reliance on leased circuits and bringing greater capability in-house was central to how we approached this transition,” said Drew Kikauka, Senior Director, Enterprise Architecture and Broadcast Engineering , Corus Entertainment. “Appear gives us greater control and has unlocked meaningful efficiency gains, while enabling a consistent, scalable IP-first contribution model across Canada.”

Corus’ transformation centers on shifting from leased circuits to IP, using the SRT protocol to enable secure, stable media transport for this always-on news environment. To ensure continuity across this transition, Corus required support for legacy interfaces such as ASI at key headend locations alongside IP workflows, enabling a practical hybrid operating model as facilities and endpoints transition at different times.

Corus is using Appear’s X Platform, a high-capacity, ultra-dense, low-latency media processing and gateway platform, to consolidate key functions into a more streamlined nationwide workflow. This reduces complexity and helps engineering teams maintain a robust operating model across a distributed footprint.

To support day-to-day operations at scale, the deployment includes an orchestration layer built around Skyline Dataminer, with Toronto-based partner Rocket delivering custom UI and application-layer tools for scheduling and operator control. The architecture also supports ground-to-cloud contribution, enabling more flexible, cloud-connected news production workflows.

“Corus has taken a decisive step that many broadcasters are now prioritising, replacing a reliance on leased circuits with an IP-first architecture engineered for resilience,” said Ed McGivern, President and General Manager, Appear US. “By consolidating functionality and increasing consistency across a nationwide footprint, it shows how a more streamlined contribution model can deliver both robustness and efficiency without adding operational burden.”

Based in Toronto, Corus Entertainment owns Global Television Network as well as specialty cable channels. radio stations and is also involved in publishing and streaming.

LAS VEGAS and OSLO—PSSI, a global provider of live media production services announced a new phase in its collaboration with Appear, deploying Appear’s X Platform to upgrade its mobile fleet and PSSI International Teleport in advance of live coverage of the FIFA World Cup, which takes place in North America, June 11-July 19.

PSSI also deployed Appear X for its coverage of the FIFA Club World Cup Cup in 2025. The company said it selected Appear’s solutions “due to their high density, integrated functionality and advanced security, enabling PSSI to build a more flexible and future-ready contribution infrastructure.”

“Upgrading the PSSI trucks and our teleport in Pittsburgh with Appear’s X Platform puts us in a strong position for an extremely demanding summer of live sports,” says Derek Blount, CEO of PSSI. “The combination of Appear’s high-density deployment and our own operations and engineering expertise enables us to exceed our customers’ requirements in premium live events. As an early adopter of this platform, PSSI has years of experience proving the reliability of both the Appear technology and the support team behind it.”

Appear is providing PSSI with multiple X20 chassis and a range of integrated functionality including encoding, decoding, satellite modulation and demodulation, ASI and Secure Reliable Transport (SRT).

As part of this project, Appear has enabled PSSI to upgrade its video transport security to BISS-2, giving customers confidence that their premium sports feeds are highly secure, leveraging AES-128 encryption, dynamic key rotation and real-time receiver control.

“PSSI operates in some of the most challenging live production and transmission environments in the broadcast market, with its customers demanding flawless performance, strong security and total operational reliability,” said Ed McGivern, President & General Manager, Appear US. “This deployment helps ensure that PSSI delivers for its customers with greater efficiency, more flexibility and the confidence that premium live sports feeds are protected at every stage.”

With less than three weeks before the 2026 NAB Show, TV Tech Content Director recently spoke with Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO of Appear about the company's latest news and plans for Las Vegas.

TV Tech: Since Appear’s successful IPO in late 2025, how has the transition to a public company influenced your long-term R&D roadmap and where are you focusing your 2026 investment to build on your present momentum?
Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen: The IPO was an important milestone for Appear, not because it changes our R&D roadmap, but because it reinforced the momentum we have built and gives us even greater scope to accelerate. The successful IPO and our market momentum reflect customer confidence in our business, the market opportunity ahead of us, and the role Appear is playing as one of the real success stories in this sector. There is a great deal of positive energy around the company, both internally and externally, and that comes from the fact that customers are responding very strongly to our strategy, our innovation and the results we are helping them achieve.

For 2026, we are investing to build on that momentum in areas where we see the clearest customer demand and the strongest commercial opportunity. The common thread is bringing scale, performance and agility to live event production. Customers are increasingly looking for the flexibility to operate across hardware, software and cloud in hybrid environments, while maintaining the highest standards of reliability, latency and efficiency. This means continued development of our award-winning X Platform for the most demanding live production and contribution environments, expansion of our all-software-based VX to support hybrid and cloud-based workflows, and the delivery of X5, extending the application of our X Platform to a wider range of production use cases.

TVT: There is an industry-wide shift toward IP-based live production. How is Appear helping broadcasters bridge the gap between traditional SDI workflows and the "all-IP" future?
TBJ: The reality for most broadcasters is that this is not an overnight shift. They are managing a mix of legacy infrastructure, new IP investments and growing pressure to become more flexible and more efficient. Our role is to help them move at their chosen pace.

We help customers transition from SDI to IP in a way that preserves operational continuity, while opening the door to newer workflows based on standards such as ST 2110, alongside low-latency transport and processing technologies that support modern live production.

Our customers demand the flexibility to respond to the requirements of each event production. They value the features and performance density of the X Platform as their agile enabler to acquire, process, format convert, encode/decode and transport live video, audio and data in the most demanding scenarios.

TVT: Appear was selected to support NBC Sports for the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Milan Cortina. What specific technical challenges does a multivenue, high-stakes event like the Winter Games present for your X Platform compared to standard seasonal sports?
TBJ: An event like the Winter Olympics is different from seasonal sports in both scale and complexity. You are dealing with multiple venues, a very high concentration of simultaneous live feeds, a broader mix of production requirements, and a level of operational scrutiny that leaves no room for failure.

For NBC Sports, the challenge was not only transporting more content, but doing so with the quality, resilience and the timing precision expected of a global event of this scale. That includes supporting fibre and satellite contribution workflows, efficient bandwidth usage, high-quality video delivery including HDR, and the growing role of remote and distributed production across the enterprise.

The X Platform really stands out when it is faced with these types of high-density, high-stakes live environments, where customers need flexibility and scale as well as robustly proven performance for the most prestigious events.

TVT: You’ve said the YouTube partnership was driven by direct customer demand from a major European broadcaster. How are real-world customer requirements like that shaping and accelerating the X Platform roadmap, and what does YouTube SRT verification say about the growing role of low-latency, pro-grade IP delivery for both traditional distribution and direct-to-platform streaming?
TBJ: This is a very good example of how our roadmap is shaped in practice. The YouTube verification did not begin as a theoretical product exercise. It came directly from a major European broadcast platform that wanted Appear encoders to support its production pipeline. That customer requirement helped trigger the collaboration with YouTube and ultimately led to official verification of the X Platform for SRT live streaming.

For us, that is exactly how the best innovation happens. When a customer comes to us with a clear operational need, it validates the use case almost immediately and helps accelerate development in the right direction. In this case, it reinforced the importance of giving broadcasters and rights holders a seamless, resilient and low-latency way to deliver high-quality live content not only through traditional broadcast chains, but also directly to major digital platforms.

What the YouTube SRT verification shows is that professional-grade IP delivery is now firmly extending beyond traditional contribution and distribution. Broadcasters, sports organisations and production teams increasingly want one reliable, broadcast-quality workflow that can support linear, OTT, FAST and direct-to-platform delivery. That is exactly where the market is heading, and it is why customer-led developments like this are so important to the evolution of our solutions.

TVT: What will we see at Appear's booth at the NAB Show?
TBJ: At NAB, the conversation will no longer be about choosing between hardware and software, or between on-prem and cloud. It will be about combining these choices intelligently to create more scalable, more efficient and more future-ready live production workflows.

We will enable this by showcasing how Appear technology enables sports leagues, broadcasters, and service providers to address key industry trends and needs, including satellite-to-IP migration, scalable remote production (REMI), and hybrid edge-to-cloud operations. Appear will launch new advances across the X Platform, a high-capacity, ultra-dense, low-latency media processing and gateway platform for live contribution, production and distribution, alongside the commercial availability of the X5, which brings X Platform performance to smaller-scale live productions, delivering Appear quality and core capabilities in a compact, energy-efficient chassis.

At NAB our objective reflects our mission – working daily with customers and the industry to enable the future of live production through innovation and proven technology performance from Appear.

TV Tech: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2026 NAB Show?

Matthew Williams-Neale: The most significant trend at NAB Show will be the continued shift toward hybrid live production, driven by customers looking for more flexible ways to scale live events while managing cost and complexity. Broadcasters, sports organizations and rights holders increasingly want workflows where linear IP video and cloud-based processing operate within the same production environment. Standards and protocols such as SMPTE ST 2110 and SRT, alongside frameworks like DMF and MXL, are helping define shared models for timing, control and interoperability across distributed infrastructures.

REMI and distributed production are gaining traction, demanding precise timing, synchronization and reliability across AVC/HEVC and ultra-low-latency JPEG XS workflows. Customers are prioritizing dense, power-efficient platforms that can support both large-scale global productions and smaller remote events. These architectures are now firmly established in major live environments, including NBC Sports’ coverage of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics, where Appear’s X Platform supported its contribution and distribution workflows.

TV Tech: What will be your most important product news?

MNW: The Appear X Platform underpins many of these environments, supporting high-density video compression, transport and processing for live production. It is widely used for contribution, production, and distribution across sports and major live events. The X Platform was also recently verified by YouTube for SRT live streaming, allowing broadcasters and rights holders to deliver resilient, professional-grade live content directly to YouTube Live.

We will also showcase X5, the compact addition to the X family which is now commercially available. It delivers low-latency AVC and HEVC encoding and decoding with hardware-accelerated SRT in a highly efficient form factor suited to remote production and right-sized live events. In addition, we will demonstrate the VX Media Gateway, a cloud-ready software platform that complements the X Platform by extending these workflows into cloud and datacenter environments. VX operates as an API-driven distributed media gateway, enabling resilient media transport and processing across both on-prem infrastructure and cloud resources.

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

Our approach starts with customer workflows rather than individual products. Customers are increasingly moving from traditional satellite to IP contribution, expanding remote production models and exploring hybrid processing across cloud and on-prem infrastructure. In many cases, this involves replacing IRD-heavy, RF-routed satellite distribution with centralized satellite-to-IP architectures that reduce infrastructure footprint, simplify operations and create a more flexible path to cloud and multi-site contribution. Our goal is to provide a platform that supports those transitions without increasing operational complexity.

The X Platform provides the density and processing performance required for high-volume live production environments, while X5 extends those capabilities into smaller and more distributed deployments. For example, World Archery used the X Platform to bring production in-house, deploying an X20 chassis with SRT, decoding and network management to build a fully IP-based workflow that improved the quality and consistency of its live streams while giving the federation direct control over delivery. VX complements this by introducing a flexible software layer that enables media transport and processing across hybrid infrastructures. Combined with the deterministic performance of the X Platform, it allows broadcasters to run resilient live workflows from venue to network operations center to cloud production.

TVT: What is it about NAB Show that brings you back every year?

NAB Show provides an opportunity to engage directly with customers and partners who are actively building and evolving hybrid production environments, whether that means shifting from satellite to IP, expanding remote production models or exploring hybrid processing workflows. Listening to these requirements is central to how we develop our technology, and conversations at NAB Show support initiatives such as Appear’s customer councils, which help inform our priorities and strategic roadmap.

The show also offers a useful view of where the wider industry is heading. For Appear, it’s a chance to share what we are seeing across our customer base and to demonstrate how these production approaches are already working in real deployments across sports, broadcasters and content owners.

COLUMBIA, Md.—Managed IP video transport specialist LTN and live production tech provider Appear are collaborating to enable scalable, IP-native live video contribution and distribution for premium live events with the combination of Appear’s X Platform and LTN’s fully managed global network.

“The satellite-to-IP transition is no longer theoretical. Broadcasters are operating IP at scale today. By combining Appear’s best-in-class encoding with LTN’s fully managed global network, we’re delivering the infrastructure and execution layer required to power that shift,” said LTN executive chairman and co-founder Malik Khan.

As the industry moves beyond evaluating IP and into operating it at scale, broadcasters require more than transport. They need reliability, density, orchestration and service assurance, LTN said.

LTN and Appear deliver a proven infrastructure model designed for mission-critical live sports and events. Customers gain real-time operational transparency, proactive network management and service assurance designed for mission-critical live sports and premium broadcasts.

Appear’s X Platform provides high-density encoding and decoding supporting JPEG XS, JPEG 2000, AVC, HEVC and ST 2110 workflows, widely deployed across Tier-1 broadcast and telco environments. Integrated directly into LTN’s purpose-built IP backbone, Appear-originated feeds are transported securely and redundantly to any destination worldwide.

Beyond contribution, LTN extends those feeds into global distribution, adding point-to-multipoint delivery, conditional access, rights management, multi-language versioning, graphics insertion and metadata enrichment to drive monetization across linear, OTT, and FAST platforms.

The collaboration supports onsite production, REMI workflows, centralized production models, and hybrid OTT distribution, reducing operational complexity while accelerating time-to-air.

The companies are jointly targeting broadcasters, sports leagues, OTT platforms and service providers that are seeking a scalable, IP-native alternative to legacy distribution models.

More information is available on the LTN and Appear websites.

OSLO, Norway—Appear, a global provider of live production technology, today announced that its X Platform has been officially verified by YouTube for Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) live streaming. This verification enables broadcasters, rights holders, and production teams to deliver high-quality live content to YouTube using Appear’s X5, X10, and X20 hardware platforms, providing a seamless, resilient and low-latency high-quality streaming workflow for news, sports, and live event coverage, the company said..

“Becoming a YouTube-verified encoder partner is a significant step forward for us and our customers,” said Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO at Appear. “It reinforces our position in professional-grade IP contribution and gives our users a powerful new route to reach global audiences across one of the most important platforms in digital media.”

Appear says its partnership with YouTube was prompted when a major European broadcast platform approached YouTube to request support for Appear’s encoders in their production pipeline. That initiated a collaboration between Appear and YouTube, culminating in full verification for Appear’s hardware-based AVC/HEVC encoding and SRT streaming, further expanding Appear’s reach across a broader ecosystem of FAST, OTT and hybrid broadcasters.

“YouTube collaborates with technology partners to ensure their products meet our highest standards for reliability and performance when streaming to YouTube Live” says Callum Hewett, Live Solutions Consultant, YouTube. “We’re pleased to verify Appear’s X Platform for SRT delivery which we hope will streamline content delivery for all of their partners. It’s been great working with Appear on this and I look forward to seeing high-quality, resilient live production workflows delivered to YouTube via the Appear platforms.”

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC Sports has selected Appear to provide the X Platform for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Feb. 6-22, and March 6-15, respectively.

NBC Sports will utilize Appear to deliver video compression, satellite modulation and transport stream aggregation for its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Appear’s X Platform will ensure flexible and reliable delivery of both fiber and satellite feeds in Cortina helping NBC Sports route the excitement in Italy back to viewers watching coverage of the Games in the United States.

“NBC Sports will rely heavily on Appear’s encoding, both for exceptional HDR video quality and efficient use of international bandwidth, and upload technology for Cloud transport. We can quite simply transport more cameras and video feeds across our enterprise than previously realized,” said Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president, Engineering & Technology, NBC Sports & Olympics. “And remote production is the cornerstone of the Milan Cortina venue coverage.”

Appear has worked with NBC Sports for five years, assisting NBC Sports’ production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events in Europe, Asia, and throughout the U.S. at domestic events.

“NBC Sports’ selection of the X Platform to support coverage of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics extends our longstanding partnership and demonstrates how Appear technology leads the industry in delivering the reliable, flexible and high-quality live production capabilities that world-class broadcasters demand,” said Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO, Appear.

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

HUDSON, Mass.—BitFire and Appear have struck a strategic partnership aimed at offering broadcasters, sports leagues and streaming platforms a faster, more flexible and reliable way to deliver live video from venues to viewers.

The companies have integrated Appear’s high-density live contribution X Platform with BitFire’s global transport network and cloud production ecosystem. The move enables direct ingest into BitFire’s transport network, providing low-latency, high-quality video contribution and distribution and granting access to BitFire’s virtual production tools, including Cloud Switcher, Cloud Replay and the FireBridge remote talent interface. The BitFire tools enable remote control, monitoring and distribution from anywhere, the companies said.

“This partnership merges best-in-class edge encoding with professional IP transport and scalable cloud production,” BitFire President and CEO Jim Akimchuk said. “By combining Appear’s efficient encoding with BitFire’s flexible infrastructure, we’re removing traditional geographic and hardware constraints for all live content producers.”

The integrated solution is designed for high-demand environments like live sports and entertainment telecasts where nearly instant transport and quality are critical. Appear’s X Platform solutions deliver high-quality feeds directly to BitFire’s IP transport network and cloud production platform, supporting cloud, REMI and hybrid productions, the companies said.

“Partnering with BitFire allows us to better serve the evolving needs of broadcasters and cloud operators by directly connecting our products with a world-class IP transport and cloud production provider,” Appear Chief Technology Officer Andy Rayner said. “Whether for global sporting events or full-time distribution, we’re collectively raising the bar for efficiency and quality in live production.”

The integrated solution is being evaluated by major sports and entertainment companies at the moment. Full-scale deployments are expected in early 2026. BitFire and Appear will show the solution at upcoming industry events, they said.

More information is available on the BitFire and Appear websites.

SINGAPORE—Appear, an Oslo-based provider of live production technology, is opening a new facility in Singapore as part of the company’s expansion into the Asian market.

The ribbon will be cut on Appear’s Centre of Excellence, located in Singapore’s central business district on Nov. 13. Appear’s CEO Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CTO Andy Rayner, Chief Commercial Officer Alex Pannell and Chief Product Officer Thomas Lind, will meet customers at the launch event before embarking on a regional tour across APAC to engage directly with partners and clients.

During the tour, Rayner and Lind will host a technology session in Kuala Lumpur on Nov. 12, in collaboration with the Institute of Broadcasting and Information (IPPTAR) and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU). The event will bring together broadcast engineers and industry professionals from across Malaysia to explore emerging trends such as IP-based infrastructures, the use of SRT in ad-hoc live events, and innovations in remote production workflows.

The new Appear Centre of Excellence in Singapore is organized around three core functions:

• Solution engineering – hands-on design, region-specific development, POC and workflow optimization
• Customer support – responsive, in-region assistance and escalation
• Sales coordination – commercial engagement and partner enablement.

These teams will collaborate closely with Appear experts across APAC, including Australia, South Asia and North Asia, as well as throughout Appear globally.

“By placing a fully equipped lab in our Singapore Centre of Excellence, we’re making it simple to test, tune and train, whether that’s a remote demo for a rights owner in India, a PoC for a remote sports production in Australia, or validating ad-signalling nuances unique to the region,” said Shakunt Malhotra, VP APAC, Appear. “Through the lab and our in-region engineering, support, and sales functions, the centre achieves three critical goals: it shortens decision cycles, develops region-specific solutions and de-risks deployments for our customers.”

The new hub underpins Appear’s expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, providing a regional facility for hands-on proof-of-concept (PoC) testing, remote demonstrations, the development of region-specific solutions and accredited training for customers and partners, the company said. The centre will also house key commercial and technical functions to support broadcasters, rights owners, service providers and telcos across APAC.

Appear’s Singapore Centre of Excellence includes a working lab, enabling customers to validate solutions via remote access to the lab before moving to an on-site PoC. The centre will host multi-vendor workflows and Appear’s key modules for contribution, remote production and primary distribution, enabling rapid PoCs for formats and standards commonly used across APAC, including HEVC/AVC, JPEG XS, ST-2110 and high-capacity SRT.

It will also support early development and evaluation of regional-specific solutions, such as APAC ad-signalling workflows and audio in broadcast. In addition, the centre will run structured training and accreditation so that reseller/solutions partners and customer engineering teams can achieve Appear certification, helping operators scale skills and standardize best practices across their organization, backed by proven workflows and licensed expertise.

“The launch of our Singapore Centre of Excellence brings us physically closer to our customers, enabling us to deliver the full power of Appear’s platforms while ensuring that the unique requirements of the APAC region are fully understood and integrated across our R&D teams," said Alex Pannell, Chief Commercial Officer for Appear. "The Singapore centre also combines a hands-on technology lab with accredited training and in-region support, ensuring APAC customers can confidently scale premium live production with the performance, density and efficiency that Appear is known for.”

OSLO, Norway—Appear, the global leader in live production technology, will demonstrate how its powerful hardware and software innovations are shaping the future of hybrid, sustainable, and software-defined live production at NAB Show New York (Booth 746) at the Javits Center, Oct. 22-23. The company will showcase the X5 and VX Media Gateway, each representing a critical piece of the puzzle for broadcasters navigating the transition to more flexible, cloud-integrated workflows.

At its booth, Appear will highlight how its latest technologies combine high-performance media processing, sustainability, and interoperability to meet the demands of live media contribution, production, and distribution. These solutions address the needs of broadcast, streaming, and remote production environments, including large-scale live sports coverage where low latency and reliability are critical.

Appear will also demonstrate how it is helping broadcasters to modernize affiliate distribution by replacing traditional satellite downlinks with efficient IP-based delivery. This transformation was exemplified by NBCUniversal’s recent overhaul of its satellite reception operations, powered by Appear’s advanced X Platform and its integration with Skyline Communications’ Dataminer—an initiative that earned the prestigious NAB Show 2025 Delivery Project of the Year Award.

“Broadcasters are under unprecedented pressure to deliver more content across more platforms while managing cost and environmental impact,” said Andy Rayner, chief technology officer at Appear. “Our X5, VX Media Gateway, and leadership in developing the Media eXchange Layer, show how we’re empowering customers to bridge the gap between traditional infrastructure and the new, software-defined and distributed compute world, enabling secure, ultra-low-latency live media transport wherever it’s needed.”

Building on the award-winning X Platform, the Appear X5 delivers Tier 1 performance in a compact, cost-efficient form factor. Designed for smaller-scale yet high-value live productions, the X5 provides ultra-low latency, industry-leading compression, and robust IP media transport, making it ideal for remote contribution, cloud-based workflows, and broadcast-grade transport. Supporting AVC and HEVC encoding/decoding, SDI and ST2110 workflows, and Appear’s hardware-accelerated SRT (aSRT), the X5 enables a smooth transition to IP-based live production.

Appear’s VX Media Gateway will also take center stage. As part of the company’s open, software-based VX Platform, VX is built for secure, scalable, and hybrid media workflows that seamlessly connect on-premise infrastructure with cloud environments. Supporting SMPTE ST-2022, SRT and ST-2022-7 redundancy, VX provides unmatched resilience, interoperability, and elasticity for media transport. VX has been designed from the ground up to support the Media eXchange Layer (MXL), the open standard for interoperable media exchange, enabling broadcasters to orchestrate low-latency, vendor-agnostic workflows.

MXL directly aligns with Appear’s vision for the next generation of broadcast interoperability. It provides an open framework for containerised media functions, allowing operators to mix best-of-breed software tools across cloud and on-prem environments without compromising quality or latency. By embracing MXL, broadcasters can accelerate innovation, reduce vendor lock-in, and achieve greater flexibility in their hybrid production strategies.

With the growing adoption of cloud and hybrid workflows, Appear’s technologies enable media companies to balance performance with sustainability, maximizing processing density while reducing power consumption. These innovations underscore Appear’s ongoing commitment to enabling the industry to deliver pristine, reliable live content across all types of networks, platforms and production models.

“Our customers want technology that lets them scale at their own pace,” said Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO at Appear. “At NAB New York, we’re showing how our modular hardware, scalable software, and the MXL standard work together to make that possible, helping broadcasters and content owners and distributors to evolve confidently towards the future of software-defined live production.”

In addition to the exhibit, Appear CTO Andy Rayner will present at the NAB New York session Emerging Connectivity for Live Production, 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 22 in Theater B (Booth 747).

To register for the show, visit nabshow.com.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—For years, World Archery—the international governing body for the sport of archery—relied on a complex, third-party broadcast setup to deliver coverage of its 10 top-tier and 40 second-tier events each season. This semi­remote workflow involved signal uplinks from competition venues, downlinks and fiber handoffs across multiple countries, and an outsourced master control room (MCR) in Scotland.

Not only was the process expensive and time-consuming to reconfigure for every event, it also often left us with little control over quality, particularly when our content wasn’t necessarily given priority over more regular or higher-quantity projects in the shared facilities.

This year, that all changed. We’ve taken production and distribution fully in-house, centralizing our entire live workflow at our Lausanne, Switzerland-based Excellence Centre and powering it with Appear’s award-winning X Platform.

The move has transformed the way we operate, improving reliability, enhancing quality and cutting costs, with an expected payback period of just 18 months.

From Satellite to IP
Our previous satellite-centric model was cumbersome. At each venue, we uplinked to satellite via SNG truck for downlink in London, sent the feed via fiber to Scotland for MCR switching, then back to London for final uplink or fiber distribution. We had no dedicated infrastructure and no consistent configuration—archiving was fragmented and scaling the operation down to lower-tier events was prohibitively costly, stunting our ability to grow.

Today, thanks to Appear’s X20 chassis equipped with Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) modules, decoders and multinetwork management, we send high-quality SRT feeds straight from the venue to Lausanne over IP. The Excellence Centre receives, decodes and redistributes them via IP to more than 20 global media partners, from regional broadcasters to streaming platforms.

Redundancy is built in, with parallel IP paths ensuring our distribution hub can maintain service even in the event of an outage. We’ve also largely eliminated the need for RTMP encoders, thanks to SRT’s efficiency and resilience.

Previously, a typical top-tier event required a 10-person off-site crew spread across multiple locations. Now we run the entire content distribution operation from Lausanne, with just two people, one technical and one editorial. That’s not just a cost saving; it’s a huge simplification of logistics. If we need to add resources, we can—the fully-IP nature of the workflow means that scaling is instantaneous, economic and easy.

Most importantly, we now have full ownership of our signal path. Our output is consistent from event to event and we can make real-time adjustments without depending on a third party’s priorities or availability. And as there’s no cost barrier to adding transmissions, we can scale our offering exponentially. We expect to hit 200 events annually by the end of this cycle—a fourfold increase.

Using Appear’s high-capacity IP platform, we can guarantee predictable quality across all events. Our content now reaches a broader audience, with feeds delivered to more partners more reliably, and often at higher quality than before.

Gateway to Expansion
The flexibility of the X Platform also opens the door for future expansion. We’re already exploring adding transcoding and encoding modules to improve contribution quality from our second-tier events and installing Appear X5 units at select venues worldwide to enhance our remote production capabilities. In the offseason, the Excellence Centre may even be used by other federations, creating a new revenue stream.

Appear’s X Platform stood out for its combination of flexibility, density, and sustainability. For a federation like ours, with events in challenging locations and a lean technical team, efficiency is crucial. The system’s modular design means we can add capabilities as our needs evolve, without replacing core infrastructure.

By removing the complexity of our previous broadcast setup, we now deliver consistent, high-quality coverage with minimal setup time. Appear’s X Platform has allowed us to regain full control of our content, ensure that audiences worldwide enjoy a seamless viewing experience, and reduce operational costs, all with a payback period of just 18 months.

More information is available at www.appear.net.

Broadcast operations today face growing complexity as live production requirements expand across sports, news, entertainment, and remote workflows—often under tighter resource and network constraints. To keep pace, many are re-evaluating the workflows and video transport technologies at the heart of their operations.

Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) is emerging as a practical solution in this context. Originally developed for reliable, low-latency video delivery over unmanaged IP networks, SRT has evolved into a powerful tool for primary contribution, as well as cloud integration, playout, and multi-site connectivity.

By enabling real-time transport over the public internet, SRT helps broadcasters simplify their architecture, reduce reliance on dedicated links, and extend IP-based operations across distributed and hybrid environments.

Breaking the Satellite and Fiber Dependency
Traditional video transport methods, namely satellite and dedicated fiber, continue to provide reliability, but at a cost. These systems are hardware-heavy, difficult to scale dynamically, and increasingly misaligned with cloud-based, decentralized production environments.

SRT offers a lower-cost, more agile alternative. Its ability to move encrypted, broadcast-quality video over standard internet links makes it an effective replacement for traditional contribution infrastructure, especially when physical connectivity or fixed networks are not feasible. Previously the preserve of larger sports, SRT solutions now enable almost any sport federation, however small, to profitably take production in-house through reducing complexity and cost.

In particular, SRT is proving to be a reliable solution for primary contribution, transporting live linear feeds from production hubs or sporting venues to centralized broadcast or cloud facilities. Where satellite or fiber was once essential for these links, broadcasters are now turning to SRT to deliver the same real-time performance over public IP, with built-in redundancy, error correction, and encryption that meet broadcast-grade standards.

As highlighted with the Project of the Year award win at NAB Show 2025, NBCUniversal recently re-engineered its satellite downlink model to centralize and virtualize operations. By consolidating site-specific antenna systems and replacing physical routing hardware with shared high-density demodulation and IP-based decoding, the broadcaster significantly reduced rack space and energy requirements, achieving a two-fold increase in system density at its edge sites.

From Multi-Site to Central Hub: A Real-World Case Study
For Grupo RBS, the ability to consolidate infrastructure is just as important as scaling it. In one large-scale regional deployment, SRT has been used to replace 12 individual playout and MCR facilities with a single super-playout hub. By linking 11 affiliate sites over the public internet via SRT, the broadcaster eliminated the need for dedicated circuits and reduced operational risk by collapsing the control architecture into a centralized, IP-native workflow.

This transformation relied on a hardware-accelerated SRT gateway capable of handling over 1,500 concurrent connections and 72 Gbps of throughput, with support for SMPTE ST 2110, NMOS, and PTP ensuring seamless handoff into existing baseband and IP systems.

This type of deployment showcases the clear infrastructure advantages that SRT brings to broadcast engineering: simplification, standardization, and operational efficiency, without the cost or lead time associated with dedicated transport networks.

Remote Feeds, Real-Time Resilience
SRT’s ability to maintain quality over volatile networks makes it a valuable option for field-based contribution, especially in mobile or short-notice productions. Unlike traditional bonded cellular systems, which often require proprietary platforms or added complexity, SRT is infrastructure-agnostic, equally capable of traversing public IP, 5G, or even LEO satellite uplinks.

These workflows are increasingly being adopted for remote commentary feeds, off-site switching, and on-location encoding without the need for full truck deployments or fiber provisioning. In venues without guaranteed IP service, broadcasters have layered SRT on top of private 5G networks to guarantee consistent contribution paths, without bandwidth contention.

Integrating with IP and Cloud Workflows
As IP transport and virtualized infrastructure become more embedded in production environments, SRT is proving its value as a bridge between ground operations and cloud-based services. Whether contributing to cloud ingest points, linking affiliate facilities to a centralized MAM, or enabling remote access to live production chains, SRT supports a wide variety of workflows without locking broadcasters into proprietary standards or platforms.

It also provides a pathway for phased IP migration. Broadcasters integrating ST 2110, NMOS, or SDI over IP routing can use SRT to move feeds flexibly between cloud, core, and edge, enabling them to modernize infrastructure without overhauling the entire chain.

Its footprint also aligns with sustainability goals: fewer racks, lower power draw, and the ability to consolidate or virtualize formerly discrete systems, all of which support more efficient engineering operations.

SRT has transitioned from a flexible workaround to a strategic infrastructure layer, providing reliable video transport across public and hybrid networks. For broadcast engineers, that means a protocol that fits with operational goals, integrates with evolving standards, and scales from a few feeds to a full contribution network.

As IP-native architectures, cloud tools, and wireless connectivity continue to reshape broadcast operations, the flexibility and efficiency of SRT will remain central to how broadcasters build, manage, and modernize their workflows.

OSLO, Norway—Appear will show how the combined power of its X Platform hardware and new VX software platform enables broadcasters to chart their own routes to the future of hybrid and software-defined live production during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

Attendees visiting the Appear stand will see firsthand how the company is enabling a software-defined future in live production and how its future-proofed technologies have been engineered to handle the always-on world of services, content and data.

Appear will showcase the European debuts of its VX Media Gateway software solution and the X5, the latest addition to its hardware-based X Platform.

“Whether you’re backhauling UHD from a stadium or running a master control in the cloud, Appear’s new VX platform, its SRT solutions and ever-evolving X Platform features ensure that you can move pristine, low-latency, real-time media securely over any network and exchange it seamlessly between hardware and software services,” Appear Chief Technology Officer Andy Rayner said.

“These solutions demonstrate how Appear is enabling truly flexible live production so that operators can create high-quality programs entirely in software and do it wherever compute and storage are most cost-effective for their own individual business model.”

Appear’s new product launches and European debuts include:

• The latest addition to the X Platform, the X5, a compact, cost-effective solution engineered for high-value, smaller-scale live productions, delivering ultra-low latency, high-quality compression and superior IP media transport.
• The VX Media Gateway, a software solution for secure, scalable and future-proofed media processing on prem or in the cloud.  
• New capabilities for the X Platform, including the 100 Gigabits-per-second network card, a high-capacity module engineered for the next wave of bandwidth-hungry live production, seamlessly moving lightly compressed to fully uncompressed UHD or multi-HD feeds. It quadruples the X Platform’s network interface speed.
• The Appear Estate Manager (AEM), a new advanced tooling solution that gives users greater visibility and control of their X Platform deployments.

In addition to unveiling new hardware and software capabilities, Appear will use IBC 2025 to underline its role in evolution of the Media eXchange Layer (MXL). The VX Media Gateway has been designed from the ground up to support real-world media interchange between containerized software functions, enabling operators to deploy hybrid and cloud-native workflows that are low latency, vendor-agnostic and easy to orchestrate.

“MXL is simply the next logical step for live production,” said Rayner. “Broadcasters want to mix best-of-breed tools, and a lightweight exchange layer lets them do that without sacrificing latency or quality. Our VX platform is built for this world from day one, and all our software solutions will be MXL-compliant.”

See Appear at IBC2025 Stand 1.C61.

More information is available on the company’s website.

LAS VEGAS—PSSI Global Services, a major provider of broadcast transmission solutions, has made another significant investment in state-of-the-art video delivery technology by purchasing transmission hardware from Appear.

The newest purchases include multiple X20 chassis, HDR HEVC encoder and decoder cards and multiple hardware-accelerated SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) cards, representing a notable expansion of PSSI’s IP and High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) infrastructure.

In addition, PSSI has procured corresponding BISS-CA addressable encryption licenses, enabling robust, secure, and scalable content protection for high-value live broadcasts, the companies said.

PSSI said the equipment from Appear will play a central role in supporting upcoming major live events, including the FIFA Club World Cup and FIFA World Cup.

PSSI is also designing and engineering new multi-path field transmission kits, built around the Appear X Platform, to enhance remote production capabilities for top-tier sports entertainment clients such as UFC, WWE, and Fox Sports.

“Whether over satellite, fiber or IP, this investment in Appear technology reflects our ongoing commitment to delivering world-class broadcast transmission solutions for the most prominent live events around the world,” said Derek Blount, CEO of PSSI. “Appear’s high-performance X Platform gives us the flexibility and scalability to meet the needs of our partners, from regional sports productions to the most complex international broadcasts.”

“One of the earliest industry pioneers to utilize the Appear X Platform in remote event contribution, PSSI’s senior engineering staff is recognized today as the foremost field experts in Appear technology,” said Ed McGivern, general manger, North America at Appear. “The joining of PSSI's service expertise, along with Appear’s advanced compression and processing technology, is a robust combination that holds tremendous benefits for technology-forward customers in the live events industry.”

For more information, visit: www.appear.net

OSLO, Norway—Appear has announced that it will introduce the VX Media Gateway at the 2025 NAB Show 2025 and that it will be showing the solution at its Booth W2042 between April 6 and 9.

Developed in direct response to customer needs, the VX Media Gateway enables broadcasters to optimize their media workflows by leveraging the power of hardware and the flexibility of software. This versatile, scalable, and highly secure software solution—part of the broader VX Platform—integrates seamlessly across on-premise hardware, cloud, and hybrid architectures, maximizing efficiencies and flexibility in media processing, the company reported.

“The VX Platform is a step-change for the industry, offering exceptional capabilities for handling the complexities that broadcasters are facing when it comes to balancing hardware, software and hybrid workflows,” said Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO at Appear. “We know that our customers need efficient and future-proofed technology. The VX Platform gives the industry the assurance that investment today is also an investment for the future. We are developing industry-leading solutions in both hardware and software, ensuring our customers can build workflows that are scalable and can be tailored to all their needs, today and in the future.”

In announcing VX, Appear explained that it is a ‘living platform’ that has been engineered to evolve with the industry’s needs, delivering resilient and adaptable software-defined media processing capabilities. With a deep understanding of the shifting balance between hardware and software adoption, Appear has prioritized the development of the right solution at the right time. This strategic focus has ensured that the VX Media Gateway delivers unmatched reliability and scalability, seamlessly integrating with both existing infrastructure and next-generation workflows, the company said.

More specifically, the VX Media Gateway addresses the challenges of modern IP-based and cloud-driven media workflows with these features:

• Advanced Stream Resilience: Built-in seamless healing, AB failover, and alarm attributes ensure uninterrupted signal integrity.
• True Hybrid Workflow Enablement: Effortlessly moves media between on-premise data centres, private/public clouds, and distributed production environments.
• OpEx and CapEx Licensing Flexibility: Subscription-based OpEx and perpetual CapEx models, to better fit any business model and operational strategy.
• Optimized Network Utilization: Efficient bandwidth management and routing minimize costs while maximizing performance.
• Modular and Future-Proofed: Designed to evolve with future enhancements such as transcoding, NDI, JPEG XS, ST 2110 and the emerging cloud-native media exchange formats.

Mirroring the inherently flexible design of Appear’s X Platform, VX has been developed as a modular, API-first, compute-native software platform that can be rapidly configured and expanded, the company added.

As media workflows continue to shift towards cloud software environments, VX enables customers to future-proof their operations, providing a foundation for continued innovation in media transport, processing, and distribution.

“VX is more than just a product - it’s a living platform that will evolve as broadcasters’ requirements change,” said Andy Rayner, CTO at Appear. “It reflects the industry’s movement towards next-generation, software-native media workflows and, when combined with our X Platform, gives our customers an ecosystem that is unparalleled in its robustness, unwavering performance and adaptability. Service providers can now transition to IP workflows with complete confidence when the moment is right for them.”

Appear will showcase live demonstrations of the VX Media Gateway at Booth W2042 at NAB Show 2025. Visit www.appear.net for more details.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil—Brazilian media conglomerate Grupo RBS has selected Appear to deploy Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) primary distribution solutions to centralize master control and playout functions at a single site.

The deployment relies on Appear’s hardware-accelerated SRT technology to connect 11 sub-affiliate sites across the nation to a central master control room (MCR) and playout operation in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Previously each site had its own MCR and playout, the company said.

“Centralizing our MCR and playout operations required a robust solution that seamlessly connects a multitude of feeds from various sites across [the] South of Brazil into our facility in Porto Alegre. Appear’s SRT-enabled X Platform meant we could integrate feeds from different interfaces and sources with ease,” Grupo RBS engineering manager Roberto Hoffmann said.

SRT is rapidly becoming the preferred protocol for primary video distribution for broadcasters thanks to its ability to overcome the obstacles of traditional broadcast delivery over unreliable networks, according to Appear. This is especially important when streaming content from central playout facilities to geographically dispersed local affiliate stations, Appear said.

One of the main challenges in primary distribution over the public internet is ensuring broadcast-quality signal integrity, where packet loss, jitter and unpredictable bandwidth can challenge traditional transport protocols. SRT effectively tackles these issues with error correction mechanisms, adapting to network quality, Appear said.

“Appear’s proactive approach in understanding our needs from the beginning was paramount to the project’s success,” Hoffman said. “It was actively involved in the proof-of-concept process, proposing effective solutions that perfectly aligned with our needs. Moreover, the X Platform met all technical requirements and was the right size for the project. Our partnership with Appear not only enhances our operational efficiency but also paves the way for better broadcast experiences in Brazil, through reducing points of failure and enabling us to concentrate on ensuring that our single super-playout center is the most advanced in LATAM.”

Appear’s X Platform SRT solution provides low-cost channel transmission over the public internet, according to the company. It enables replacement of expensive satellite links and dedicated fiber circuits. SRT also empowers operators to reduce the transport budget of moving studio functionality such as media asset management to the cloud, Appear said.

In a single 2RU chassis, Appear’s X20 Platform as an SRT gateway can handle up to 1,536 connections (12 cards with 128 connections per card) and up to 72 Gigabits of SRT traffic. SRT enables organizations to change the economics of migration to Internet distribution in their favor, it said.

OSLON, Norway—Appear will demonstrate its solutions for contribution, remote production and distribution with a focus on the performance of its offerings in HEVC, JPEG XS, SRT and IP Trust Boundary implementations at the 2024 NAB Show.

Andy Rayner, company CTO, also will deliver a keynote, entitled “Navigating Security in the Live Distributed Production Landscape,” as well as participate in panels addressing sustainability, latency and emerging technologies for live production during the gathering, the company said.

"Over the past year, Appear has seen remarkable success, both in business growth and technological advancements," said Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO at Appear. “Our pioneering use of hardware accelerated SRT combined with our HEVC and JPEG XS performance, flexibility, density and sustainability credentials has enabled us to live up to our ambition to be the winning team in live production technology.”

For primary distribution applications, Appear will demonstrate how its accelerated SRT solution is enabling one of Brazil’s leading media groups to reduce its playout facilities from 13 to just one. These savings are in addition to OPEX reductions, the company said.

The company will launch its new JPEG XS module for contribution. It enables the delivery of eight full-HD channels per module, totaling a possible 96 JPEG XS full-HD channels across a single 2RU chassis, it said.

Appear also will highlight the HEVC performance of its X Platform, enabling 96 full-HD HEVC feeds to be contributed from a 2RU chassis. The company also will launch a 100Gb IP Gateway switch module, it said.

Appear will demonstrate enhanced analytics and monitoring functionality in its Network Operations Center (NOC) hub at the NAB Show, highlighting:

• Integration of the Grafana Labs solutions with the Appear X Platform, providing real-time application observability with prebuilt and customizable dashboards and workflows.
• Integration with the Prometheus open-source monitoring solution.
• Integration with Skyline’s Dataminer monitoring and management solution.

Rayner’s NAB Show speaking engagements include: 

• April 13, 3-3:20 p.m.—NAB Broadcast Engineering and IT Conference keynote.
• April 13, 3:30-4 p.m.—Media Tech Sustainability Series, “Fostering Collaborative Supply Chains.”
• April 14, 8-9:30 a.m.—IABM State of the Industry Conference.
• April 14, 10-10:30 a.m.—NAB Broadcast Engineering and IT Conference panel: “Navigating Time. When is Real Time No Longer Real Time - and Does it Matter?”
• April 15, 10:45-11:15 a.m.—NAB Connect, Capitalize and Create Zones panel “Elevating Live Production: Harnessing Emerging Media Technologies.”

More information is available on the company’s website, https://www.appear.net/

See Appear at NAB Show booth W2130.

OSLO, Norway—Vivaro Media has selected Appear to support live contribution of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, July 26-Aug. 11, for broadcasters and service providers across Latin America.

The company will rely on Appear’s X20 platform to deliver signals using SMPTE ST 2022-7, SMPTE ST 2110 and NMOS. The X20 platform will replace Vivaro Media’s existing SDI equipment, Appear said.

The deployment builds on a long relationship between the two companies. Most recently, Appear provided live encoding and multiplexing services for the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, it said.

“Live sporting events are enjoyed by billions of fans globally every year, who expect perfect broadcast coverage. Our positive experience with the Appear X20 and X10 platform, gives us the confidence to further use it in more applications within our network and to deploy it in services for our customers in premium live events worldwide,” said Carlos Jurado, senior director of sales engineering and operations at Vivaro Media.

“The X20’s ability to adapt to our evolving requirements, its compact design, and its flexibility to manage most protocols and interfaces, were key factors in our decision. We are confident that our continued partnership with Appear will enhance our broadcast operations’ efficiency and sustainability, setting new standards for live event coverage.”

The X20 platform offers broadcasters and service providers the ability to facilitate live contribution with advanced remote production and distribution workflows globally. Integration with industry standards, such as HEVC/AVC, ST-2110, JPEG XS, NMOS and high-capacity SRT, combined with a diverse array of processing functionalities, Network Address Translation (NAT), and firewall features, ensures a comprehensive and efficient solution for content delivery, the company said.

More information is available on the Appear website.

BOTHELL, Wash.—The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) has announced that three companies have joined the group. 

The new members are NovaStar, a leading global LED display solutions provider; CUX, a provider of audio, video, and environmental control solutions; and Appear, a global leader in high-capacity solutions for media processing and content delivery.

"We couldn't be more excited to name NovaStar, CUX, and Appear as the newest AIMS members," said Andrew Starks, board of directors' member and marketing working group chair for AIMS. "With NovaStar and CUX's deep-rooted experience in AV-over-IP for the Pro AV industry and Appear's specialized knowledge in broadcast IP media transport, all three companies will be instrumental in helping us propel IPMX adoption in these sectors and unlock new market possibilities."

NovaStar boasts a diverse range of products that encompasses everything from synchronized controls for LED displays to point-to-point calibration systems, AV-over-IP solutions, and cloud-based management services. The company's solutions have been adopted for a variety of live events — including concerts and the opening ceremony of the 2008 summer games in Beijing— digital advertising signage, and more. Operating from 37 locations across the globe and catering to both corporate and retail customers, NovaStar is dedicated to delivering pioneering technology, tailored solutions, intuitive products, and dedicated customer support, the company reported. 

"Our solutions are widely implemented across a variety of Pro AV environments, where the transition to video-over-IP as the dominating infrastructure is well under way," said Jason Xiao，director of product development of NovaStar. "With AIMS' IPMX poised to be at the center of that infrastructure, the timing is perfect for NovaStar to become part of the alliance. We're thrilled to contribute to a standard that will advance the whole industry through increased interoperability."

Based in China, CUX is dedicated to delivering products and systems — including AV-over-IP solutions — that prioritize ease of use and are tailored for a broad spectrum of audio and video applications in various markets. The company's commitment extends to supporting the system integration sector from the design stage through implementation, with a guiding principle of "Technology promotes harmony, innovation changes the future," the company said. 

"Through our work supporting system integrators, we've gained a deep understanding of the interoperability hurdles that have plagued the Pro AV industry," said Keven Pang, executive director of CUX. "We couldn't be more excited for the arrival of IPMX as a solution to these challenges and look forward to collaborating with AIMS and its members to champion its adoption."

Headquartered in Oslo, Appear specializes in premium live event contribution solutions that are utilized by an extensive list of rights holders and content providers, remote production products, and modular head-end platforms for IPTV and broadcast, with distribution options for cable, satellite, and terrestrial networks. Pushing the limits of media and entertainment innovation, Appear's primary focus is on delivering exceptional value to its global network of clients by elevating their content delivery to unprecedented levels of success, the company reported. 

"We've maintained a leading position in industry innovation through active partnerships with esteemed trade organizations and technology providers, with the goal of achieving seamless and secure media transport. We are thrilled to include AIMS among them," said Andy Rayner, chief technology officer of Appear. "As the boundaries between broadcast and Pro AV increasingly blur across various applications, we're eager to work with the organization to advance IPMX and bring interoperability to both domains."

More information about AIMS and its work is available at www.aimsalliance.org.

OSLO, Norway—Appear has announced it will highlight how “elegant engineering” has promoted greater efficiency and created other benefits for users of its X Platform, XC Platform and NEO series during IBC 2023, Sept. 15-18, at the RAI Amsterdam.

“We believe that if our engineering is as elegant as possible, then our media processing and transport solutions will always be more power-, space-, and operationally efficient than our competitors,” said Appear CEO Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen. 

“This approach has been a critical element in becoming a world-leader in premium live event contribution," he continued. "At IBC 2023, we will show how and why many of the world’s largest rightsholders use Appear solutions to get their footage from stadium to studio and beyond.”

The company will share updates on its initial trials of hardware-accelerated Secure Reliable Transport (SRT).

“Traditionally our customers have relied on expensive satellite links and dedicated fiber circuits; the high density of our new hardware-accelerated SRT provides an option to make game-changing reductions to video transport OPEX costs,” he said.

The Appear IBC 2023 booth will have a sports-bar feel with three main demonstration pods, showcasing:

• Live contribution with the X Platform, an all-in-one integrated solution that makes it possible to create operational efficiencies while saving energy and rack-space.
• A Network Operation Center (NOC), demonstrating how Appear’s solutions provide operational confidence through workflow security, management and monitoring.
• The NEO Series, supporting linear and OTT distribution with the multiple functionalities and density of the X Platform and XC Platform as well as offering the company’s high-capacity server-based compression solution. Recently, NEO Series has been deployed by media companies that are taking back some functionality from the cloud to on-premise, to deliver better cost-effectiveness and efficiency.

See Appear at IBC Stand 1.C61.

More information is available on the company’s website.

BURBANK, Calif.—PSSI has announced that it demonstrated a significant expansion of its remote production capabilities last month with the production of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s "The Road to UFC 2" from Shanghai, China. 

The live production in Las Vegas in May involved 24 camera feeds that were acquired from Shanghai via remote integration through transmission services provided by PSSI Global Services, a live event management, transmission, production and connectivity provider serving clients across the globe. 

PSSI reported that the scale and distance of the event represented a significant expansion of the remote production model and that the successful event demonstrated that PSSI can help clients of any size expand globally without compromising production quality and reliability. 

The REMI production model enabled UFC and its production partner, ConCom, to reduce its production footprint by providing an alternative to traveling overseas with an entire production team.

"A college football game as a 10-channel REMI is now part of the weekly repertoire in the US, but we are pushing the boundaries with scale and distance,” said Garrett Hunt, who leads PSSI’s project management team. “UFC is the perfect partner for this initial venture because their global reach is so expansive. Our work in Shanghai and Vegas shows there’s no corner of the world we can’t reach to produce a world-class show with fewer boots on the ground than ever before.”

PSSI sent its newly acquired Appear media processing and delivery equipment and two senior engineers to Shanghai to facilitate this broadcast. Appear's X Platform enabled high-density HEVC encoding/decoding for the event, converting 24 HD camera signals and 8 return feeds into high-quality HEVC, low-latency transport signals. 

In addition, PSSI turned to Telstra to provide one gigabyte of data for the event via their Special Events Network, as well as an IT interface for remote engineering. PSSI also engaged Nextologies to design multiple payload data tunnels for comms, scoring, and camera tallies between the Shanghai Media Group facility and UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

“What we were able to accomplish in Shanghai could be tailored to any company with an interest in efficient international REMI productions,” said Tracy Michaels, director of project engineering, who architected this solution alongside PSSI’s partners at Appear, Telstra, and Nextologies. “What sets this REMI apart is the rapid-deploy set/shoot/strike model that can be scaled up or down for any event around the world.”

For more information about PSSI, visit http://www.pssiglobal.com. 

OSLO, Norway—Media processing and delivery technology developer Appear today announced the general availability of the latest update to its X Platform, a high-capacity, versatile, ultra-low latency platform for high-speed video networking, enhanced IP security and advanced compression.

Designed for remote production, contribution and distribution applications, the latest release offers upgrades to all X Platform modules to enhance flexibility, security and remote traffic management. 

The latest version offers full support of JPEG XS encoding and decoding with embedded support for either SMPTE ST 2110 or TS between encoder and decoder. JPEG XS is among the latest light compression algorithms. It offers reduced bitrate by a factor of 10x to 18x without sacrificing quality or introducing latency.

With two modules, one with classic coax SDI I/O and one with dual 40/25/10 IP, operators can easily bridge classic coax infrastructure sites with newer sites based on SMPTE ST 2110 infrastructure.

The latest version offers encoding and transcoding support for SDI and SMPTE ST 2110 in OTT applications. The X Platform embedded encoder in OTT mode offers a low-maintenance solution designed for 24/7 operation, consuming up to seven times less power per channel than traditional server-based solutions. It also offers about three seconds less of delay than server-based solutions without sacrificing quality.

X Platform also now offers support for Basic Interoperable Scrambling System (BISS) scrambling and descrambling on IP, satellite and ASI. It also supports BISS CA, an open standard introduced by EBU for encryption of content between professional players. Scrambling and descrambling will be available on all transports stream I/O modules on the X Platform and can be provided as a software option on IP, satellite and ASI input and output.

It also now supports PCAP recording on IP input, offering users the ability to do short PCAP recordings of incoming RTP/UDP data together with relevant network protocols, and provides Prometheus API support. Prometheus is a standard for extracting data from all types of equipment, including routers and servers.

More information is available on the company’s website.

OSLO, NORWAY—Tico Alliance has a new name to its roster of companies seeking to support interoperability for broadcast IP migration with the addition of Appear.

As part of the Alliance, Appear will adopt the Tico codec, adding Tico lightweight compression to the Appear X10 and X20 product range for UHD transport over 10G IP networks or legacy 3G-SDI links with minimum latency. Appear reports that the synergies of Tico compression and the capacity of the X platform optimizes network bandwidth usage upholding video quality at a premium level.

“Joining Tico will enable us to foster a shared commitment to equipping broadcasters with a seamless, integrate and high-quality Ultra-HD ecosystem,” said Carl Walter Host, CEO of Appear in the company’s announcement.