HAMILTON, N.J.— The shift from baseband SDI to an IP model based on off-the-shelf servers is very complex, especially if you factor in other looming trends like 4K and private data cloud migration.

Nowhere is the pressure being felt more than in master control, which delivers the programs and commercials that generate the revenue. Integrated Channel Playout (ICP) and Channel-in-a-Box (CIAB) systems are taking over due to their unprecedented operational flexibility and cost-efficiency. Many of the latest ICP and CIAB systems offer both IP and SDI I/O connectivity to ease the transition.

Grass Valley’s iTX channel gridTWO TERMS, TWO DIFFERENCES
The terms ICP and CIAB are often used interchangeably, but there is a difference, according to Andy Warman, director of production and playout strategy and market development for Harmonic in San Jose, Calif., “CIAB is a self-contained ecosystem where all the functions to run and playout one or more channels are contained in one box,” he said. But, “when the workflow is more complex, and you need centralized management and monitoring, that’s where you’re going to use ICP systems. If the facility needs to handle many upstream processes, such as integration to an archive, recording via baseband and quality control as well as playout, this broader requirement goes beyond what can be accommodated in a CIAB.”

Harmonic’s product line includes both types of systems, including Polaris Play, which is targeted at CIAB; and Polaris Advance and Polaris Elite, which are designed for ICP systems. When paired with Harmonic’s Spectrum MediaDeck 7000 integrated media server, Polaris Play automates playout of up to four SD/HD channels, each with its own SD simulcast channel for a total of eight channels per 1RU. And when Spectrum servers are used with Polaris Advance and Elite, this solution spans ingest, archiving, playlist management, media prep, traffic integration and scheduled and live playout.

Another Harmonic product, Spectrum X, is an advanced media server that enables broadcasters to migrate from SDI to IP workflows for both CIAB and ICP systems, and includes graphic branding, DVE and live switching of HD/SD-SDI (3G) baseband and IP I/O sources.

“Many broadcasters are still using SDI workflows, but at some point they’ll be moving to IP, and Spectrum X bridges the gap because it supports SDI and IP connectivity in a single box,” Warman said. “This allows broadcasters to keep parts of their plant SDI, while other parts are IP. Then, as their workflow needs and budgets change, they can fully transition to IP when they’re ready.”

HYBRID WORLD
“This transition to ICP is happening because it’s more economical than running a physical transmission chain with different brand boxes that are complex to maintain and consume lots of space and power,” said Scott Rose, director of product marketing for iTX for Grass Valley. “It’s not like broadcasters will just flip a switch and now their stations are IP-only. They still need to stay on the air, running in mixed IP/SDI mode, with all the standards and functionality that make our business uniquely broadcast television.”

When broadcasters are ready to move to integrated playout, Rose said they should ask themselves: Does this solution enable frame-accurate switching in IP that’s as good as we’ve come to expect from a baseband router? The SMPTE 2022-6 standard, approved in 2013, enables high-bandwidth IP with deterministic switching and Grass Valley supports the standard throughout its iTX automated integrated playout product line.

“Just because our industry is moving to IP doesn’t mean we want to give up frame-accurate switching, broadcast quality video and graphics, closed captioning, loudness controls, and other standards viewers have come to expect,” Rose said. He added that reliability is also key, with Grass Valley iTX systems successfully playing out 17.5 million hours of broadcast television this year, including $8 million worth of commercials on Oscars night.

Steve SmithOPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY
“Outside the walls of the TV station, our world is already IP, and what we’ve done is allowed it to come all the way into our facilities and cloud environments,” said Steve Smith, chief technology officer for Cloud technology at Imagine Communications, in Frisco, Texas. “ICP systems, such as our Versio system, enable purely IP, software-based master control.”

Versio can virtualize the entire workflow from contribution to distribution, including master control tasks like video playout, graphics and branding, live caption insertion, switching, routing and digital signal processing. And a higher layer of automation called orchestration can manage Versio along with all the other virtualized systems across the IP workflow. Disney/ABC Television Group, which announced a deal with Imagine at the 2015 NAB Show to move to an all IP infrastructure, is among the many broadcast organizations that have adopted Versio.

“ICP makes master control more resilient while shrinking the physical footprint needed to support playout,” Smith added. “Lower cost, generic IT systems can provide any business function needed depending upon the software applied to them.” Smith calls this operational flexibility— including readily changing the business functions supported and scaling the entire platform up or down— “virtualization.”

ORCHESTRATING CHANGE
Pebble Beach Systems has virtualized the entire air chain into their Orca CIAB, which is a fully IP-enabled device that offers the feature set of its SDI counterpart, Dolphin. According to Eric Openshaw general manager for North America for the Denver-based company, Orca, which was launched at the IBC Show in September, is designed for large-scale deployments where customers with enterprise virtualized server platforms can host playout services on their own infrastructure, often along with other virtual machines they may run.

“Virtualization and our dedicated deployment tools make it possible to ramp up a new broadcast channel in just minutes, without the significant capital outlay and technical barriers associated with installing specialized boxes and cabling,” he said. “This gives broadcasters an increased level of agility because they can quickly set up a new channel, or even a temporary channel, just to see if it appeals to viewers since they wouldn’t have to expand their physical infrastructure to do so.”

Pebble Beach Systems launched its Orca CiaB system at the 2015 IBC Show. Virtualization coupled with an IT infrastructure makes it more practical to move some or all of master control to a private cloud, he adds.

Orca is driven by another Pebble Beach Systems product, Marina, which serves as the orchestration layer. While the CIAB largely handles air chain functions, “the orchestration layer automates a broader range of upstream tasks, such as managing files, assets and metadata, as well as the CIAB itself,” Openshaw said.

For SDI facilities, the company offers the Dolphin CIAB, which includes an SDI video card and optional IP inputs and outputs. Scripps Networks Interactive has purchased Marina and 31 Dolphin CIAB systems for its Knoxville, Tenn. BOC, plus 11 for off-site disaster recovery.

THE NEED FOR STANDARDS
By around 2020, we should see an end-to-end IP infrastructure in broadcast, according to Karl Mehring, director of playout and delivery for Snell Advanced Media in the U.K. “Until then, we’ll have islands of SDI due to interoperability issues and non-standardization.”

Mehring said that the broadcast industry is unique in its need for a continuous stream of data and “five nines” of reliability—a tall order in today’s IP domain. “As long as we drive the various standards in the right way, become very IP savvy, and build sufficient redundancy around playout, master control will be as reliable in IP as SDI,” he said.

Two standards—SMPTE 2022-6 for sending uncompressed SDI over IP and SMPTE 2022-2 for compressed video—have begun to address the challenges in the short term. “The remaining interoperability issues will be resolved by newly ratified standards,” Mehring said, “but until then, we’ll need to accept a hybrid world.” SAM offers ICE CIAB systems with SDI and IP functionality as well as ICE SDC, a software only playout solution.

THE MODULAR ROUTE
Miami-based Primestream’s Fork Suite of applications consists of modules, with automated functionality that spans the gamut from broadcast acquisition to playout and OTT delivery. These modules include Fork Playout, Fork Live Assist and Fork MAM, among other broadcast management tools.

“Our focus is on making manufacturer-agnostic software, allowing customers to choose best-in-class components and configurations that are right for their unique workflows,” said Chief Operating Officer David Schleifer. “Our product is designed to serve as the glue in the midst of key production and playout processes.”

FORK software can be implemented as an adjunct to existing third-party equipment, such as playout servers, storage systems and even integrated playout systems. Or it can serve as a full-featured, automated, integrated playout solution that supports industry protocols and leverages generic, IT servers and video cards for flexibility and cost-efficiency.

CIAB FOR LPTV
One market segment that’s traditionally been priced out of technological advances, like CIAB, is low-power TV and Class A stations. Dallas-based RUSHWORKS stepped up to remedy the situation, and make CIAB affordable to these stations with its A-LIST broadcast automation CIAB, which supports up to four SD and HD I/O channels per chassis.

“We saw an opportunity to serve LPTV stations, as well as Class A and full-power stations, by developing a full-featured CIAB that enables these price-conscious customers to adopt new technology at a price point that better allows them to make a return on investment,” said company President Rush Beesley. Along with A-LIST’s powerful yet simple interface, the price point makes it equally attractive for government, educational and independent channels.

A-LIST lets broadcasters distribute signals to a broad range of platforms simultaneously, including traditional TV, Internet sites, OTT services like Roku, and cable head-ends. HD and SD formats are supported along with a mix of popular file formats, such as MPEG-2, H.264, MXF, MOV and AVI.

“Our architecture performs SD/HD up/down conversion in real time during playout,” Beesley said. “Because we support multiple formats, users can drop all their content into the automated playlist without the additional process and expense of using file-conversion software to prep the files for playback.”

Multichannel HD A-LIST systems are installed in master control facilities at Christian Broadcasting Network and KTNC-TV/San Francisco, an NRJ station.

Primestream Workflow Manager module within the FORK asset management and automation system helps users visualize the steps in a given process.
SAN FRANCISCO—From the beginning, station automation and master control technology has been tasked with taking a series of complex steps and whittling them down to a relatively simple task: making the process of running a station more efficient.

Easily said, tough to accomplish.

“From a workflow standpoint, you have recordings from feeds and files from different sources—and most of the work is juggling these different sources and moving them into a system for playout,” said Fred Fourcher, CEO of Bitcentral, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based provider of broadcast automation systems. “One of the key things in a workflow is [a system’s ability] to handle multiple formats and resolutions, whether you’re dealing with a progressive, interlaced, MXF file or any flavor in between. The key is to be able to play them out and do it elegantly.”

Simpler said than done.

MAKING COMPLEX SIMPLE

In the years since, as station automation became a staple in nearly every broadcast facility, the technology has grown. And with that growth, comes some problems of its own.

“One of the challenges that has arisen with automated production control is that these systems can now do so much; that what was designed to simplify has itself become complex,” said Scott Bowditch, marketing product manager for Ross’ Over-Drive automation system.

As more stations began to automate their environments, many actually began losing track of material and workflow improvements. “With the addition of automation, [stations] were losing track of some of these processes,” said Warren Arenstein, senior vice president of business development at Primestream in Miami. “When bottlenecks arose, stations weren’t able to get on top of them as quickly as necessary.”

So what to do, when you have nearly constant growth on one hand and the desire to improve workflow on the other?

Ross is one company that has addressed the complexity issue by integrating a Dashboard control system within OverDrive. Users can build custom GUI control surfaces, which have proven particularly useful in breaking news environments. Likewise, the company’s Workflow Manager helps users visualize the steps in a given automation process. From the different color indicators—if there is indication that system is overloaded—it can be automated to send out an alert.

For Florical, the goal is to eliminate redundant and consistent tasks that don’t require a human decision, according to Shawn Maynard, vice president and general manager of the Gainesville Fla.-based broadcast automation provider. “If you have a TV group that has 50 stations that are bringing in content individually—and the same person is doing the same work in multiple locations—then technology makes it easier to acquire and prep in one location,” he said.

Particularly for a group of TV stations, it makes sense to manage as much as possible centrally and not have too many people managing something that can be prepped once and distributed to all, added Bitcentral’s Fourcher. “That model for management is what we support in central control,” he said. “If you’ve got 30 stations with syndicated programming, you should only prep it once; you don’t need to prep it 20 to 30 times. That’s the goal.

“Our view is that broadcasters should follow the model of ‘prep once, cache at the local station, let it play out,’” he added, while allowing stations to take control of their master control when news breaks.

POOLING RESOURCES

Minnesota PBS station KSMQ-TV recently revamped its automation solution with an NVerzion CLASS system. (L to R) KSMQ Chief Engineer Paul Fisher, Operations Manager Tim Gassmann and Operations Director Michele Hoeper
For Aveco, the automation solution involves jumping in the pool. “For many years we’ve had an advanced workflow scripting capability that has an underpinning of facility management, so that everything is in an ‘equipment pool,’ including combining master control and production automation in the same system,” said Jim O’Brien, vice president of global sales for Aveco in Miami Beach, Fla.

“The improved production value from master control and production automation has been to provide workflow improvements,” he said. “It’s not so much about reducing staff but achieving a more predictable and higher quality on-air product,” he said, pointing to the system’s four-channel video server and 32 layers of real-time graphics.

Aveco’s automation platform has been engineered to potentially include any piece of equipment from the production automation side, including production switchers, video servers and audio boards.

Primestream is addressing the workflow issue with a new Workflow Manager module within the FORK asset management and automation system, which helps visualize the steps in a given process. Customers are also asking for ways to improve remote workflows. The USC Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism uses Primestream Xchange to allow students and teachers to interact over student-created content over a Web interface. “They can look at it online, make subclips, markers and annotate the video, and receive feedback from teachers online,” Arenstein said.

It was the promise of an improved workflow that led Minnesota PBS station KSMQ to adopt NVerzion’s Component Level Automation System Solutions (CLASS) to oversee master control and playout operations as well as speed up station operations. KSMQ uses components that include NControl on-air playlists and NTime event scheduling modules.

From the station’s point of view, there was a budget number to reach and a de sire to do a certain number of automation-related things, according to Mike Schmidt with Heartland Video Systems, the Plymouth, Wis.-based SI for the project. CLASS allows KSMQ to control a variety of third-party equipment, including servers, universal distribution system, VTRs and trafficking system. CLASS helps guarantee the integrity of KSMQ’s on-air presentation by eliminating any single point of failure within the station’s file-based workflow, Schmidt said.

THE EFFECT OF IP ON AUTOMATION

The next step for automation? Diving headlong into the world of IP.

“The next question is determining how master control will interact when it comes to playing out IP,” said Florical’s Maynard. “IP is strong in the production workflow—from cameras to control room to routers—and stations are seeing the opportunities for using off-the-shelf equipment and to increase accessibility to be able to move high-quality video over a WAN.”

What’s tricky for automation in IP is handling ancillary data within automation. “There’s closed captioning data and embedded Nielsen data within an on-air play-out stream that still needs to be considered,” Maynard said.

“But I think that is the future. We are getting away from the baseband environment and moving to IP, and I certainly see master control being in an all-IP environment. It’s the revolution that will keep our industry moving forward.”