Another year has passed and it seems there has been little progress toward improving the sound of television, plus there are the same old problems with microphones, compression, synchronization, audio-follow-video and ATSC standards.

With COVID-19 came the proliferation of stay-at-home journalism, principally with so-called experts who seem to fill time and echo the thoughts of the studio commentators. The occasional off-microphone talking head was tolerable, but with over four years of this practice, I find this unacceptable and very unprofessional.

The computer is a wonderful all-in-one streaming device with automatic gain control for poor lighting and some level of bad sound, but someone decided that poor lighting and “raccoon eyes” were not a good look for television. Quickly, light rings and the occasional background lighting on the bookcases or guitars were adopted, so the viewer could see the subject’s faces and how cool they were by what they read or did. Most news stories could exist without a fuzzy portrait of a talking head but when speech intelligibility becomes a problem, what’s the point?

Upgrade the Home Studio
Every home journalist should have a kit that includes lights, a real microphone, earbuds or headphones and an audio interface for the computer. The lapel microphone is often the first choice because of its small size, but that size also makes the microphone more omnidirectional. Thus, it picks up more room clutter than a larger diaphragm microphone with more directivity that picks up the desired voice and less room tone. Obviously, the art director would rather not see the presence of a large microphone, while the sound person wants better and closer sound capture.

Earbuds or headphones may be a bit of a stretch for the home journalist, but sometimes you can hear the audio return from the network if the sound from the computer is too loud. Finally, an easy improvement for the serious home journalist would be some sound treatment to reduce the sound bouncing around a big room with pretty books and a guitar in the background.

Every day, I am shocked at the misuse of audio compression across virtually all networks. How often have you heard the audio level drop dramatically and then recover a few milliseconds later? Audio compressors have an attack time and a release time that govern the function of sound compression.

A quick attack time is often undetected until a slow release time seems to keep the audio levels too unnaturally low for too long. Conversely, a quick release can make the audio sound like it is pumping up and down, electronically controlling the sound levels. My preference is to limit the audio peaks to not distort the program and to use your fingers and ears to find the right balance. Before there was compression or limiting, there was mixing.

Too Fast, Too Furious
Live television production is fast and furious and it can be challenging to get the right microphone fader up at the right time and to the correct level when the director is bouncing all over the place with more cameras than they know what to do with. College football is the worst, because the handhelds are close to the crowd and the poor audio person often does not know when the director will cut to that handheld. Most directors will argue that that is not the case, but in my 40-plus years of live sports mixing, I have heard more than once, “Ready camera two, ready camera four—take camera seven.” What?

Since the beginning of outside broadcasting, the video switcher has been capable of switching camera tally lights and microphones on and off. As a young, inexperienced sound mixer, I remember that I don’t need audio-follow-video until I uncut a couple of cheerleaders who had a camera in their face and heard about it from the director. AFV—audio-follow-video, even in its most basic form—is better than “uncut” sound.

My final two pet peeves have proven more difficult to tame and are beyond the control of the audio practitioner: lip sync and standards. Every year, I write about lip sync, but there seems to be little progress toward implementing a solution—probably because there are so many places for the sound to get out of sync.

Staying in Sync
I know you have seen programs where the content is out of sync and the commercials are in sync, and I know you have seen live content where different elements within the show are out of sync. Golf is the worst!

Finally, the ATSC needs to adopt—and the FCC needs to mandate—immersive sound as the audio standard. We probably would not have immersive sound because we probably would not have had surround sound if the ATSC and FCC had not selected the latter as the sound standard in ATSC 1.0.

I have covered all these issues on several occasions in these pages, including things the ATSC could endorse—for a long time now.

A new report from mobile and video technology research company InterDigital spotlights Versatile Video Coding (VVC/H.266) as a standout video codec with a highly versatile design for use across an extended range of applications and capabilities far exceeding those of previous standards.

VVC/H.266 offers an up to 50% bit-rate reduction over its predecessor HEVC/H.265 and boasts enhanced capabilities to efficiently transmit ultra-high-definition content, from 4K and 8K video to high dynamic range (HDR) content and 360° and immersive video formats, said the report.

The report, titled "The Evolution of Compression in a Video-First Economy," was written by Futuresource Consulting and outlines the development path of video compression codecs that have proven to be critical in reducing bandwidth and improving efficiency in the delivery of the data dense video services and entertainment.

Providing a 360-degree view of the video compression ecosystem, the report details the landscape of video compression technology and history of video coding standards, alongside the advantages of today’s codecs for video-powered experiences and potential impact for the future.

Streaming a two-hour movie without compression would require more than 1.3TB of data, states the report, but the evolution of video compression techniques over the last 40 years now supports the seamless delivery of increased volumes of new types of video content and IP-based streaming services.

The report cites the broad transformational impact of video codecs, from state-of-the-art codecs enabling the delivery of ultra-high-definition content on IP-based streaming services, to innovation in compression techniques and AI integration reducing the computational load and latency to support immersive video applications like VR and AR, and the ability for video codecs to not only reduce storage and bandwidth but also use energy more sustainably.

“Video dominates internet traffic today, with over 3.5 billion internet users streaming or downloading some form of video at least once per month. Furthermore, there were 1.47 billion SVoD subscriptions globally at the close of 2022, with the sector posting a 12% increase in subscriber numbers year over year,” said Simon Forrest, principal technology analyst, Futuresource Consulting.

“The applications for video are expanding. Consumers spent around 11% of their time watching content from video sharing sites in 2022, up only 0.6% year over year, yet time spent viewing videos posted on social media increased by 24% over the same period. The research confirms that the industry requirement to utilize more efficient codecs is intensifying.”

The full report is available to download here.

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y.—MultiDyne Fiber Optic Solutions has announced the acquisition of Niagara Video Corporation, a leading supplier of compression, streaming and IPTV solutions for the broadcast and commercial AV markets. 

The acquisition strengthens MultiDyne’s software-defined video transport offerings, and positions the company as a full-service provider of hardware and software solutions for moving high-quality video, the company said. 

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

“The MultiDyne brand has long been associated with fiber optics, but as a company we excel at processing and moving media,” said Frank Jachetta, CEO, MultiDyne. “At IBC2019, we added audio processing and monitoring to our portfolio with the acquisition of Census Digital. Three years on, we head into IBC2022 with another strategic acquisition that takes MultiDyne into exciting new territory.”

Jachetta also stressed that the Niagara Video business adds “proven hardware and pure software solutions to our in-house hardware portfolio” that will help the company proliferate media transport opportunities for its customers. That includes moving media from server-based engines and over more diverse network topologies, while ensuring seamless interoperability with a mix of industry protocols (HEVC, HLS, RTMP, SRT and more), he said. 

“We have expanded beyond dark fiber to moving content across the internet in different ways,” said Jachetta. “One example is how we can now reliably take video over the top (OTT), using open-protocol SRT transport for perfect video delivery. It’s about delivering broadcast-quality video over challenging networks for our customers.”

Jesse Foster, MultiDyne’s vice president of products, cited the growing eSports market as well as AV business verticals, notably corporate and education, as examples of how Viagara Video’s existing businesses will expand MultiDyne’s customer base. 

Foster also noted that the deal opens up a natural expansion of MultiDyne's core broadcast and live production business into the REMI production space, and an opportunity to offer complete solutions for worship facilities.

“This really opens MultiDyne to new verticals,” said Foster. “Compression is a necessary technology for remote connectivity, and Niagara’s portable GoStream encoders and decoders will provide our customers with the low-latency streaming and backhaul solutions they need for REMI production and live entertainment events. We see strong integration opportunities for MultiDyne fiber products with Niagara’s IPTV solutions, used widely today in the enterprise, corporate, government and hospitality markets. And we can now help our worship customers easily extend their signals from the sanctuary to external locations, thanks to clean integration between our fiber camera adapters, our fiber throwdowns, and Niagara’s live streaming solutions.”

Mike Galli, CEO, of Niagara Video Corporation, says that in addition to technology and in-house talent, the company broadens MultiDyne’s channel partner network through its own distributors and resellers worldwide. Galli will join the company as VP of Streaming Products, and MultiDyne will retain Niagara’s existing staff. MultiDyne will also exhibit a limited range of Niagara Video technologies on its IBC2022 stand (September 9-12, RAI Amsterdam, Stand 11.B17).

“We have built a network of channel partners with strong reputations that will help raise MultiDyne’s visibility in areas where they have less brand representation, including parts of Asia where Niagara Video has historically seen brisk business,” said Galli. “At the end of the day, we can help MultiDyne establish a robust streaming portfolio and bring them into the compression world with greater authority. And we at Niagara have always looked for the right partner to complete our vision. MultiDyne’s global presence, business reputation, and the range of customers and applications they support are all phenomenal.”

Black Pearl Management Group, owned and operated by well-known broadcast industry veteran Bob McAlpine, facilitated the acquisition process on behalf of both companies.

PARIS—Ateme today announced the launch of Ateme+, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud-centric platform, making the company’s video compression and processing solutions available as an operational expense rather than requiring a substantial CapEx investment.

"We are increasingly seeing demand for more flexibility in content processing and delivery – in terms of both the business model and the scale. Ateme+ truly delivers on these requirements, while also ensuring the superior quality of experience our customers expect from Ateme,” said Jean-Louis Lods, vice president of media and monetization at Ateme.

Ateme+ offers broadcasters, service providers and streaming platforms with the functions and capacity they require via an easy-to-use management console. The new offering enables frictionless onboarding, ensuring quicker time to value and lower overall total of cost of ownership (TCO), the company said.

“This is the beginning of a new chapter, giving more choice to video service providers,” said Rémi Beaudouin, chief strategy officer at Ateme. “They can now choose between the traditional licensing model, Software as a Service or a hybrid model where they mix the two.”

Ateme+ is cloud agnostic; however, the company has optimized the solution for use on Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. The new SaaS platform supports any resolution and is available on a subscription or pay-as-you-go basis. It is fully scalable to meet the changing needs of media organizations and offers built-in redundancy to maximize uptime and reliability, it said.

With the ability to be customized, Ateme+ provides management via a single pane of glass for configuration, monitoring, user management and key metrics. Ateme takes care of scaling the platform and will implement regular product updates to ensure customers benefit from a service that offers maximum flexibility and agility, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

PALO ALTO, Calif.—A new player in the North American encoding market arrived last month with its eye set on sports contribution, network broadcasters, telcos, MSOs and direct-to-home service providers.

Appear, which traces its roots back to 2004 as a spinoff of Tandberg Television, has entered the North American market with four products: X Platform, a high-speed video networking, IP security and advanced compression solution; XC Platform, a modular head-end platform for IPTV and broadcast with support for acquisition, compression and stream processing; X10 DSNG: a digital satellite news gathering encoder-decoder and satellite up- and downlink in a single chassis; and NEO10, a software-based compression solution, says Ed McGivern, general manager.

The Oslo-based company, which has distributed its products in the U.S. since 2008 through Sencore under the DMG brand name, will continue to have a distribution relationship with Sencore but is also building direct distribution and has begun to build a North American sales, marketing and technology team, he says.

Coming to North America was motivated as much by evolving production workflows as it was by technology developments, says McGivern.

“The market segment in 2020 and 2021—with the advent of a lot of REMI remote productions and the building of SMPTE ST 2110 networks, as well as the migration to IP, cloud-based live production and playout technologies—[are areas where] we've really done a lot of work in Europe and in North America through Sencore,” he says.

The pandemic helped to drive adoption of REMI by many broadcasters and production companies to maintain the safety of workers who otherwise would have been in unacceptably close proximity to one another. 

“REMI remote production technology has existed for years," McGivern said. "I think what some of the pandemic has proven to us is that operationally it can be done. Operationally, they were forced to be remote, which helped create demand for high-speed networks, dedicated private-line networks and then low latency contribution.”

This development helped create what McGivern calls “a pure growth opportunity” for Appear in North America. “The demand is there, the product suite is there and the market is really looking for a standards-based company that does best of breed for compression, codecs, ground-to-cloud, cloud-to-ground JPEG XS and low-latency, high-availability products,” he said.

At the moment, Appear is content to build its North American business on these products; however, the company has its eye on the adoption of ATSC 3.0 by broadcasters and the chance to meet their encoding needs, he says.

To date, Appear has conducted some encoding trials and tests in North America and is “keen to pounce on” 3.0 as TV broadcasting evolves and migrates to the new standard, says McGivern. 

“We’re very close to that, and we’re looking at where that market segment is going to take our North American customers and viewership and will be ready to deploy a support platform for ATSC 3.0 as we move forward,” he says.

To date, Appear has assembled a North American team in Nevada, California and Minnesota. Mark Andrews has been named vice president of sales for North America. The company will make its first NAB Show appearance since announcing its North American operations this April (23-27) in Las Vegas.

At the show, the company will debut its new NEO20, a plug-and-play solution offering accelerated HEVC transcoding simultaneously with AVC transcoding, which simplifies server deployment and operations.

The NEO20 can receive MPEG TS IP RTP/UDP and SRT streams and deliver both MPEG TS IP RTP/UDP output and most common HTTP push formats. It also can transmit streams in SRT format.

See Appear at NAB Show booth W8917.

More information is available on the company’s website. 

LONDON—Synamedia has achieved 8K real-time encoding and streaming without compromise using its VIVID Compression platform powered by AMD EPYC 7763 processors, one of the highest performance x86 server CPUs, the company announced.

Use of the AMD processors eliminates the need for screen splitting and other tricks that can compromise video quality. Synamedia built the compression algorithms involved to remove the need to make technology trade-offs, the company said.

Synamedia leverages the full codec toolset, powered by the AMD EPYC 7763 processors, to achieve this level of performance. There is no need to split the 8K signal into 4K quadrants nor a need for dedicated GPU memory or other hardware acceleration. Thus, issues with memory communications, throughput and local video quality variations are eliminated. These advancements and the use of Synamedia’s VIVID-AI Artificial Intelligence technology have produced a breakthrough in 8K video, the company said.

The company also has expanded its cloud-based video quality analysis to encompass 8K resolution. Video-Quality-as-Service (VQaaS) offers an objective measurement and subjective visualization analysis, which makes it simple to measure improvements in 8K video quality, it said.

Harnessing the power of 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, Synamedia’s advanced compression algorithms offer operators and multiple video programming distributors (MVPDs) significant savings of capital and operational costs by reducing footprints and power consumption, while creating consumption-based business models based on VIVID Video Workflows-as-a-Service, it said.

“We are experiencing a technology shift here, combining our unique and one-of-a-kind compression algorithms, advanced video analytics, and proven expertise with the incredible speeds of the AMD EPYC 7763 processors. The flexibility of using one CPU without a single technological compromise allows us to provide our customers with the high-quality video content they expect from us. By combining our team’s expertise with the performance of AMD EPYC processors, we are able to bring more 8K content to the market at an affordable price to enable the 8K economy,” said Elke Hungenaert, vice president of product management at Synamedia.

More information is available on the company’s website. 

MADRID—As the push for 8K content continues, Spanish-based SAPEC has been testing UHD content compression techniques for encoding 8K resolution content with HEVC standards and existing hardware.

With a resolution of 7680x4320, 8K has four-times the number of pixels that 4K content does. While there are already UHD 8K TVs on the market, there are still challenges when dealing with 8K content throughout the entire transmission chain. To help with this, SAPEC is focusing on the compression of 8K content.

SAPEC believes that HEVC (H.265) compression is currently the best available option to compress 8K video. According to its first tests, the bitrate needed for 8K transmission when using HEVC is slightly more than double than that of 4K. This could exceed the maximum conditions of some live broadcast media infrastructures. SAPEC found that these required bitrate values can be reduced by applying different compression techniques offline.

SAPEC also looked at live or real-time compression of 8K video, where the compression speed must be equal to or greater than the rate of images per second. To address these challenges, SAPEC used spatial and temporal parallelization techniques offered by the HEVC standard.

Spatial parallelization divides the image into smaller fragments so they are processed in parallel, with the results of each fragment later received to form a single output stream. 

Temporal parallelization executes the work of compression of images that do not have dependencies between them at the same time. These sequences can also be divided into fragments corresponding to one or more group of pictures.

SAPEC has detailed the results of its tests in a technical article. 

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Red’s patented process for compressing digital video so footage can remain as high-quality as possible, which is part of its Redcode codec, is coming under fire from Apple.

Apple filed a petition against the patent in May of this year, arguing that Red simply combined previously developed processes resulting in nothing novel, and therefore not protectable. This would allow for Apple—which currently has to pay a fee to Red to use the technology for its own ProRes Raw technology—and other companies to use the technology without paying a fee.

Red recently came back disputing Apple’s petition, saying that the process for its technology was first discussed in 2005 and developed for the Red One Cinema Camera in 2007.

Sony has previously attempted a similar lawsuit against Red in 2013, but it was defeated.

Read the full story at Digital Camera World.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Every time a new digital production standard gains traction, there is great stress on old infrastructures to carry state-of-the-art (i.e. “broadcast quality”) signals.

In the 1990s, it was SDI for standard definition, which had a data rate of 270 Mbps. That was so much more demanding than the analog signals that came before it, that it required new cables, new connectors, new patch panels, and of course new equipment to handle the digital signals. At the time, 270 Mbps seemed like a breathtaking data rate.

Then in the mid-2000s, broadcasters started upgrading their facilities to HD, with its data rate of 1.5 Gbps. That was for 1080i and 720p HD, and it seemed like a lot of data.

Until the push came for “full” HD with its 1080p frame rate and its demanding 3 Gbps of data. Video facilities that had installed HD-SDI were now upgrading products for a data rate twice as high as HD-SDI.

Although cables and connectors for 3G video are now common, the reality is that the frequency response of copper cables is starting to reach its limit at 3G. When 4K came along and we learned that its uncompressed data rate would be 12 Gbps, there were whispers that it was going to be impossible to send 12G video more than a short distance on coaxial cable.

Despite the whispers, some clever engineers tackled the challenge and there is now a 12G-SDI standard with cable and connectors that can be used to wire real-world facilities. It works and that’s good—although the higher the frequency, the more persnickety the cabling gets. At 12G data rates, a slight crimp in a copper cable or a bend radius that’s a little too tight will cause the signal to deteriorate quickly.

"LOSSLESS" COMPRESSION?

There is another way to tackle the problem, however. What if there was a “lossless” compression system that could reduce the necessary bandwidth by four or eight times, without adding complexity or latency?

That standard is being worked on right now, and it’s called JPEG XS.

“JPEG-XS is a newly evolving compression technology that is exciting because it is extremely low latency and also low complexity,” said Andy Rayner, chief technologist for Norway-based Nevion and the director of Nevion’s U.K. technology center. “It is an intra-frame compression—it is spatial only, with no temporal element. It is wavelet-based, and conceptually can be thought of as lots of tiny stripes of JPEG2000. The exciting thing is that where the base compression technology used for JPEG XS-TICO was visually lossless at a compression rate of 4:1, in JPEG XS this is doubled to at least 8:1.”

TICO (which stands for TIny COdec) is a precursor to JPEG XS that promotes a lossless 4:1 compression to permit 12G video to be carried on a single 3G cable. Many manufacturers in the video industry are members of the TICO Alliance, and the same developers are behind JPEG XS.

Rayner knows what he’s talking about. In addition to being awarded the Martlesham Gold Medal for technical innovation, Rayner received a technical Emmy for JPEG 2000 standardization.

When you think compression, you normally expect signal degradation, lots of latency as signals are encoded and decoded, and added power drain as powerful processors calculate how to compress and decompress the signals. JPEG XS specifically targets those concerns.

“I see it as having the potential to replace JPEG2000 as our de facto choice for mezzanine compression,” Rayner said. “The encoder-decode latency is only 32 video lines, which means at only a few hundred microseconds, this becomes negligible compared with other latency in the systems [especially wide area connectivity]. The compression has also been optimized for real estate usage on FPGAs, CPUs and GPUs, which means its use in server technology is also highly viable.”

SAFEGUARDING ADVANTAGES

One of the other goals of the team developing JPEG XS is that it not be specific to any resolution, and be capable of supporting future format requirements, while safeguarding the advantages of an uncompressed stream. These advantages include interoperability, visually lossless quality, multigeneration robustness, low power consumption, low latency in coding and decoding, ease of implementation, small size on chip (no additional DDR memory is required), and fast software running on general-purpose CPUs and GPUs.

“No other codec fulfills this set of strong requirements simultaneously,” said Antonin Descampe, founder of and compression technologist at IntoPIX, a Belgium-based manufacturer of signal compression and processing components. “JPEG XS can thus ‘compete’ with uncompressed in every aspect, and reduce bandwidth and video data significantly.”

There are lots of compression formats out there, including some widely used for their ability to maintain high quality for serious production work. Do we really need a JPEG XS codec?

“The main difference between JPEG XS and existing codecs from JPEG, MPEG or other standardization committees is that compression efficiency is not the main target,” Descampe said. “Whereas other codecs primarily focus on their efficiency, disregarding latency or complexity, JPEG XS addresses the following question: ‘How can we ultimately replace uncompressed video?’”

To many in the television industry, switching from an uncompressed format to a compressed one sounds unwise. The only reason to consider it would be due to the high bandwidth of uncompressed 4K video reaching the limits of what copper cabling can support.

That said, JPEG XS can make a real difference in bandwidth.

“The typical operating points for visually lossless quality with JPEG XS are around 10:1.” Descampe said. “However, it is important to take resolution and content type into account when identifying a maximum compression ratio. For instance, natural content usually reaches higher compression ratios for a given quality level. During its development, JPEG XS has been tested against the strictest quality assessment procedures (ISO/IEC 29170-2, ‘Evaluation procedure for visually lossless coding’), seeking the threshold guaranteeing an ‘indistinguishable flickering’ between original and compressed image—a measure often referred to as ‘visual transparency.’”

DIFFERENT KINDS OF CONTENT

Based on the tests performed by the JPEG XS working group, Table 1 shows the codec’s performance with different kinds of content (screen content, computer-generated images (CGI)) and natural imagery. The lower compressed bitrate in the table defines performance with natural content, while the upper range is for more complex content requiring full visual transparency.

For broadcasters, overall image quality is a big concern, but not the only one. Perhaps equally important is latency, and JPEG XS should address that concern as well.

“In terms of latency, using MPEG-4/H.264 and HEVC/H.265 in a live production workflow with multiple encoding and decoding steps would lead to a compiled latency of many seconds,” Descampe said. “JPEG XS has a microsecond-latency and can thus be run throughout a whole live production workflow without inducing the latency of a single MPEG-4/H.264 encode/decode step. Even though we need H.265 for the last mile to distribute it to the consumer, we try to avoid any additional latency in the production workflow before distribution.”

Descampe said that we should hear about the finalization of the JPEG XS standard around 2019 IBC in September.

“Concerning the status of the standardization process itself, JPEG XS Part-1 [Core Coding System] is published and available as an international standard already,” he said. “Part-2 and Part-3 [respectively profiles and transport formats] are finalized and being prepared by ISO for immediate publication. Part-4 and Part-5 (respectively conformance testing and reference software) are under ballot and shall be published by the end of this year.”

In addition to that standards work for JPEG XS, there are several ongoing liaisons between standards bodies and industrial organizations such as AIMS, VSF, SMPTE, TICO Alliance and IETF. The IP Showcase at the 2019 NAB Show hosted a presentation about JPEG XS in ST2110-22.

WORKING ON IMPLEMENTATIONS

Descampe said that several broadcast suppliers are already working on implementations in their soon-to-be-announced products. And he pointed out one more feature of the standard that makes it compatible with IP video requirements.

“JPEG XS uses a constant bitrate and is thus highly relevant for reliable video over IP transport, especially with compressed video being added to ST 2110 as ‘part 22,’” Descampe said.

Why name this new format JPEG XS? There is some precedent in the JPEG2000 system, which is also used for high-quality video transmission. Why “XS,” however?

“I think the funniest thing is the name,” Rayner said. “It literally stands for eXtra Small!”

Extra small or not, JPEG XS looms large to the people who have been working on it.

“I genuinely expect this to become the de facto mezzanine compression within the next year,” Rayner said.

Further down the line is the possibility that some production facilities may add 8K video capability. The only way to handle uncompressed 8K video data today is to split it into four 12G feeds, as the bandwidth is far beyond what a copper network can carry on a single cable. JPEG XS might be the lubricant that eases 8K production tools into high-end facilities.

LONDON –Telestream has added support for V-Nova’s PERSEUS Plus codec to its Lightspeed Live video streaming system, which is used by numerous major operators and video service providers worldwide.

Telestream Lightspeed Live provides live multiscreen encoding, packaging and distribution in addition to multichannel video capture and processing. V-Nova’s PERSEUS Plus enables video to be transmitted at half the bitrate of existing h.264 solutions whilst improving picture quality, and the low complexity of PERSEUS Plus h.264 also increases encoding density by 2-3x when compared to HEVC. V-Nova says this can enable the delivery of live 4K content at up to 70 percent more efficiency when compared to current competitive codecs,

PERSEUS will be available in Lightspeed Live Stream from version 3.0.

“We have always been committed to ensuring our customers have access to the most innovative and advanced video delivery capabilities on the market,” said Scott Murray, vice president of Product Management at Telestream. “It is clear that V-Nova’s unique PERSEUS codec plays a key role in rolling out higher-quality and more efficient video services. We’re delighted to be able to offer PERSEUS to our customers.”

PALO ALTO, CA.—A new report from online video technology provider Bitmovin finds that in 2018 the H.264/AVC video codec has continued to dominate video encoding used by developers around the world while the use of H.265/HEVC has grown significantly from 2017 to the present.

In its second year, the “Video Developer Report 2018” draws on the responses of 456 survey developer submissions from more than 67 countries to paint a picture of the current state of video streaming technology and what will be important over the next year.

Besides video codec technology, the report presents findings on other key streaming technology, such as streaming formats, software vs. hardware encoding, audio-video format delivery popularity, native playback and OTT streaming device technology, ad architecture and other topics.

[Read: Can Video Compression Tame The Internet?]

As in 2017, the results reveal that nine out of 10 developers continue to use H.264/AVC, while the percentage saying they are using H.265/HEVC has climbed from 28 percent in 2017 to 42 percent this year. VP9 saw a slight 1 percentage point uptick in the 2018 total to 11 percent, and AV1 remained flat at 6 percent.

Future plans for codec use paint a different picture. In 2017, 40 percent of developers said they planned to use H.265/HEVC in the 12 months, while 36 percent said the same this year; 18 percent said their plans called for using VP9 last year, while 15 percent said they did this year.

AV1 recorded the biggest increase with 14 percent in 2017 saying the codec would be used in 12 months, while 29 percent said so in 2018.

Other highlights of the report include: 82 percent saying they are using the HLS streaming format, while 61 percent use MPEG-DASH; 43 percent saying they use hardware encoders, while 54 percent use on-prem software encoders, and 38 percent use a software encoder in the cloud; and 52 percent saying they use client-side ad insertion, 44 percent saying they use server-side ad insertion and 25 percent saying they use dynamic ad replacement.

The free report is available online from Bitmovin. Registration is required.

CAMARILLO, CALIF.—Aperi has a number of technology demonstrations planned for VidTrans 2018, but the IP live media processing provider is looking to highlight a partnership with Video Clarity on a presentation of Aperi’s H.264 compression app.

During the demonstration, Video Clarity will test the quality of the H.264 compression app on audio and video live. The demo also intends to show how compression can be analyzed when operating in live IP-centric infrastructures to ensure optimal media compression and transport.

Andrews Osmond, Aperi’s vice president of business development, will attend the show to present a session titled “Sorting the Fact From the Fiction—IP and Software-based Live Video Transport.” Osmond’s presentation will cite real-world deployments to show the value of IP.

Additional demonstrations planned include Aperi’s live remote production technology and apps created using Aperi’s software-based media processing technologies. The company will also showcase the latest in its IP security offerings, including real-time network address translation, RTP packet and media inspection and firewalling, and new fail-over technologies.

VidTrans 2018 is underway and will continue through March 1 in Los Angeles.

HOLLYWOOD, CALIF.—As the industry anticipates high dynamic range content, it must address quite a few issues related to compression, compatibility among different displays and backward compatibility of standard dynamic range content.

Standards for HDR must be more flexible than BT.709 for SDR, since SDR works with a fixed definition of 100 nits (candela/meter square) at its brightest, while HDR will be mapped in one of many possible ways to display where the brightest output could be 400, 800 or theoretically 10,000 nits. HDR can offer a more lifelike image because of its greater contrast range, but that same characteristic could also introduce new kinds of artifacts. HDR displays likely will be expected to present SDR material.

Shailendra Mathur
These were some of the issues addressed on Wednesday by Pierre Larbier, chief technology officer of French ATEME; Olie Baumann of Ericsson Television, Southampton, U.K., and Avid Inc. Chief Architect Shailendra Mathur.

Larbier’s presentation, “High Dynamic Range: Compression Challenges,” addressed issues related to compression when working with the SMPTE 2084 Opto-Electronic Transfer Function in conjunction with codecs such as the HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) when encoding a higher contrast signal than BT.709 can support.

“Extensive research conducted using HDR-graded content shows that HEVC video encoders that were not specifically designed for this new format will produce new types of coding artifacts,” Larbier said

“Mapping between luminance and code values is not supposed to have an impact on coding efficiency,” he said. “HEVC was selected as the codec to compress 10-bit UHD HDR signals. But the tests on UHD HDR content showed unexpected new video defects that might become noticeable to viewers if the video compression system wasn’t specifically adapted.”

His conclusion: “HDR promises an immersive experience, but the video encoder has to be specifically optimized” to avoid artifacts such as noise and banding.

Baumann’s paper, “The Interaction Between Transfer Function and Compression in High Dynamic Range Video,” concerned the fact that consumer displays are offering imagery that can be both brighter and darker than previously possible. Even current SD displays, he noted, offer peak brightness of up to 300 nits. The result, he showed in a slide presentation, causes artifacts, specifically banding, at particular levels.

Baumann suggested a possible solution that involved adding more bits and increasing the baseband data rate, but pointed out the inefficiencies of such an approach. It would be preferable, he said, to change the transfer function in order to exploit the relative viewer sensitivity to contrast differences at low luminance. But, he asked, which transfer function should one choose? SMPTE 2084 or BBC/NHK Hybrid Log Gamma or something else? What are the trade-offs of each?

Among the potential solutions for delivering this additional information is the use of a nonlinear opto-electrical transfer function (OETF) prior to quantization, which exploits the relative sensitivity of the human visual system to contrast differences in light and dark areas. His presentation investigated the interaction between these transfer functions and HEVC video compression in terms of the perceptible artifacts in HDR video. His demonstration primarily dealt with his methods of identifying and isolating particular areas (cells) of potential banding, rather than offering a solution to the banding problem itself.

“Nonlinear transfer functions are fundamentally a compromise,” he said. “Banding/loss of detail is not only an issue in dark regions, but potentially throughout the image, and compression exacerbates the effect. Different transfer functions impact difference luminance regions.”

Mathur spoke about the SMPTE VC-3 video codec—the basis of Avid DNxHD —and the extension that is being added to the standard to allow for resolution-independent encoding of arbitrary raster resolution, any frame rate, multiple bit depths and a variety of color spaces.

Stressing its success as a low-complexity editorial, intermediate and mezzanine codec, Mathur said it is very important to maintain the low-computation complexity characteristics. This attribute is essential, he said, and worth compromising on compression ratio to maintain.

“The idea with VC-3,” he said, “is that you can put it in an archive and decode it any time in the future.”

The new VC-3 standard, he said, was enhanced to break all resolution, color and frame-rate boundaries, and to be compatible with existing hardware and software implementations. It has fast and scalable performance for real-time editing. It has specificity for existing video standards, and allows the freedom to work with non-standard video.

“It supports a variety of workflows involving better, faster and more pixels,” he said.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—Despite the fact that HD broadcasting is relatively recent, and most people in the U.S. bought their first HDTV only in the past seven years, there is growing pressure to shoot, produce and distribute programming in 4K resolution. There are already a couple episodic TV shows available for viewers in 4K, and more are on the way. Of course, big sporting events will also be shot in 4K, but there are a number of reasons why broadcasters can’t yet deliver 4K to viewers.

One reason has to do with the broadcast infrastructure inside every TV station and network control facility. Although most television broadcast facilities in the U.S. have HD-SDI and 3G-SDI infrastructure that can move signals around at a data rates up to 3 Gbps (which is uncompressed 1080p HD video), the gear can’t go higher than that. And broadcasters, who had to upgrade their plants from SD to HD in the past 15 years, aren’t ready to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to upgrade yet again to carry the 12 Gbps data streams required for 4K.

Yet the interest in 4K continues and there have been multiple tests showing that it’s possible to transmit 4K in a standard 6 MHz TV channel and still have room for secondary channels. Consumers have been buying TVs with 4K resolution capability, so the elements are starting to fall into place to envision 4K as a broadcast format in the reasonable future.

Jean-Baptiste Lorent

Still, how do you carry broadcast quality 4K signals in a video facility without tearing everything out and starting from scratch? That scenario is simply out of the question for most broadcasters.

The TICO Alliance thinks it has the answer. It is promoting “non-destructive” compression of 4K that will enable the signal to work in a 3G-SDI plant. The proposal is not a standard yet, but the TICO Alliance is working with international bodies to work out the details and make it palatable to broadcasters.

To learn more about the TICO Alliance, Broadcast Engineering Extra spoke to Jean-Baptiste Lorent, who is the product and marketing manager at intoPIX and leads TICO Alliance’s development and activities. Lorent joined intoPIX in 2007, where he is now responsible for product innovation, marketing strategies and standardization (VSF, SMPTE, EBU) in the broadcast and pro-AV industries.

BE Extra: What is the TICO Alliance? What is it looking to accomplish?

Lorent: TICO alliance is a coalition of companies united to establish TICO lightweight compression in the new IP-based live-production ecosystem. It will allow users to update and upgrade existing SDI-based workflows to 4K/UHD without the cost of a complete renewal.

Launched at NAB Show 2015, the group wants to solve three important challenges to move to 4K and to IP-based workflows with TICO: UHDTV needs more video bandwidth; broadcaster have massively invested in 3G-SDI and don’t want to replace it; and in the transition to IP, 4K has more data than can fit on a 10Gbps Ethernet port.

The group wants to develop and promote technical specifications with different active groups in this transition, such as SMPTE, EBU or VSF, in order to ensure interoperability among TICO equipment. Recently, intoPIX introduced the TICO SMPTE RDD (registered disclosure document) to ensure interoperability to map a UHD/4K stream within a 3G-SDI signal, as well as to map TICO within RTP. These two maps will enable TICO to be used with UHD/4K production workflows that can be IP-based, SDI-based or hybrid SDI/IP.

BE Extra: What is the bit rate of an uncompressed 4K signal? What is the bit rate after it has been encoded using the TICO process? Can that amount of bit-rate reduction really be considered “lossless”?

Lorent: The table here shows the typical uncompressed UHD data rates vs. the different Ethernet types. TICO compression is typically 4:1, which enable broadcasters to easily support UHD/4K in 3G-SDI 10GbE infrastructures. TICO compression has been designed as an alternative to uncompressed video, with visually lossless quality and no latency.

Preserving quality: TICO compression was studied to be visually lossless with any type of content (not only broadcast videos but also Excel spreadsheets, for example). Mathematically lossless is possible with TICO as it uses a reversible wavelet transform. However at the application level, SDI or IP transmission want to have a guaranteed bitrate, so the TICO rate allocation will guarantee to either add some padding if the content is easy to compress or will activate the rate allocation to reach the expected bitrate. Moreover, another goal of TICO is that it be robust enough to survive multiple encoding generations, which is mandatory for use in production workflows.

No latency: The smallest implementation of TICO has only nine lines of latency in total (six lines at the encoder and three lines at the decoder). Moreover, the latency is fully deterministic (not variable).

Lightweight: TICO compression is conceived as a simple tool to be added on any uncompressed workflow. The inventors have had a strong focus not only on the quality of the compression, but also on the complexity of its implementation which enables existing equipment to be simply upgraded.

4K uncompressed and transmission is unmanageable within current systems and infrastructures. With SDI, 4K needs too many cables (4 x 3G-SDI links) and will require more SDI ports on routers and switchers. An upgrade to 12G-SDI will also cost more than 3G-SDI. Today, 10GbE is the obvious affordable infrastructure solution for intra-plant transport. However, 4K cannot fit in 10GbE Ethernet (11,880 Mbps). Only 4:2:0 goes below 10GbE and higher bandwidth (i.e., 40GbE, 100GbE) ports are too expensive for large-scale adoption. And broadcasters need real 4K 60fps at 4:2:2 or 4:4:4. That’s where the 4:1 compression of TICO plays a role.

BE Extra: What are the audio provisions within TICO processing? For example, does it support simultaneous stereo and surround mixes?

Lorent: The SMPTE RDD of TICO addresses these two questions actually. In the use case of mapping UHD/4K with the active area of 3G-SDI, we do not touch the audio channels that are already transporting with SDI. In the case of RTP mapping, TICO video is transported as an independent payload. Implementers will be following the recommendations made by the SVIP (studio video over IP) workgroup at the VSF organization.

BE Extra: What is the status of TICO with regard to the standardization process? Is SMPTE or any other organization looking into creating a standard that includes the TICO Alliance’s recommendations?

Lorent: The work is done with SMPTE. Currently the Alliance members have been collaborating for the SDI and RTP mapping of TICO, and the work is almost completed. intoPIX will soon submit a first Registered Disclosure Document at SMPTE. TICO Alliance and intoPIX are open to collaborate with industry organizations to standardize TICO and provide recommendations for different applications. Interoperability is an important motivation for all Alliance members.

BE Extra: What else do we need to know about the TICO Alliance and its recommendation for 4K bit-rate reduction?

Lorent: The alliance is growing quite rapidly in a very open and collaborative way. Moving to TICO means less cabling and less cost with more UHD/4K. People interested in this technology should definitely visit IBC2015 and see the different live demos with companies such as Grass Valley, Imagine Communications, Nevion, intoPIX and others.

RENNES, FRANCE—As India currently goes through a government-mandated transition to digital programming, Hinduja Group has relied on Thomson Video Network in rolling-out its headend-in-the-sky platform. The HITS system was built on Thomson technology and will be used for Hinduja’s NXT Digital station in Noida, India.

Thomson's Headend Solution

Thomson provided its ViBE SD and HD broadcast encoders and its multiplexing and network management system. Using Thomson’s compression technology with advanced statmux features offers high picture quality at a lower bandwidth consumption, according to Vynsley Fernandes, executive director at Castle Media, the consulting company for HITS’ implementation.

The HITS technology will deliver programming to local cable operators via C-band satellite. NXT DIGITAL is scheduled to roll out across India in 2015.

Thomson Video Networks is a provider of advanced video compression technology headquartered in Rennes, France.

One of the most eye-opening and simultaneously disheartening experiences I’ve ever had as an audio engineer happened during an AES Atlanta student workshop where I was volunteering. Jim Anderson, multiple-Grammy winner and jazz recording engineer extraordinaire, was teaching the class on critical-listening that day, discussing frequency ranges of instruments, ear training, and getting the participating high school and college students to concentrate and understand what they were hearing. Toward the end of the class, Anderson would play samples of work he had recorded in the studio to compare original mixes against compressed versions of the same songs.

It was a truly glorious experience to hear a well-recorded, high-quality, uncompressed mix from a professional studio, crafted by a masterful engineer.

Everyone in the room listened intently as the versions were played and when Anderson asked the students which they preferred, I naturally assumed everyone would choose the original. To my utter horror, many preferred the lower bit-rate compressed version. While some of the compressed files sounded quite good, others were lacking upper harmonic content and had a collapsed soundfield compared to the original.

As I discussed this experience with other engineers present at the event we pondered whether the students had ever heard real instruments or whether they were so accustomed to modified and effected sounds that that was now their preference. It also left me wondering if anyone cares about quality anymore and whether it has been displaced by convenience.

Old vs. new mediaCASH SOMETIMES TRUMPS QUALITY
The broadcast world is not immune to this phenomenon with viewers more concerned about the ability to consume content anywhere instead of how it looks or sounds. As the industry struggles with how to broadcast 4K, consumers are increasingly using small screens for viewing. While immersive audio is conquering cinema and promises to make its way into homes, consumers pop buds into their ears or listen to tiny tablet speakers, sometimes while sitting in the same room as their large screen television and home entertainment center.

Anyone who has seen the signal degradation that occurs when an MVPD needs to cram more channels into their lineup quickly realizes that cash sometimes trumps quality. Broadcast channels divvy up their frequencies to provide as many channels (and revenue streams) as possible rather than provide a best-quality experience. The FCC used to require that broadcasters meet rigid standards and that broadcast engineers be licensed. Now the agency seems more concerned with filling government coffers through auctions and fines, which leaves industry groups like the ATSC, SBE and SMPTE creating standards and hoping for compliance.

Oddly, the protagonist of all this fragmentation is the very thing that initially promised to yield improved quality—digitization of data. The way we’re able to manipulate video and audio these days is almost magical, and digitization has allowed us to do and create things that were impossible in the past.

When compact discs were released, so were we—from scratches, dirt in grooves and poorly pressed vinyl. Yet digitization also ushered in the age of pirating and sharing of content and it also brought us data compression. Digital, by its very nature, is merely a sampling and reconstruction of the original, but it still is not the original. This facsimile-state is true of uncompressed, high bitrate, high-resolution PCM audio and it is even more so for lossy compression schemes such as AC-3, AAC and MPEG. Lossy compression tosses out more of the original and tries to recreate it with whatever data has been retained, so keeping the sample rate and bitrate high are absolute necessities for decent quality audio with these codecs.

iPad Mini stereo speakers atop one small speakerIS IT REAL OR IS IT COMPRESSED?
There are countless psychoacoustic studies explaining that people cannot discern the differences between uncompressed and high bitrate compressed audio files; and there is little doubt that most people can’t hear the difference, but mostly because they don’t stop and take the time to really listen. However, I wonder if we’re conditioning ourselves to hear differently when virtually everything we listen to is sliced, diced, tossed out and then mathematically sewn back into some form of the original for our listening horror.

One of the ways increased bitrate reduction is justified is that our brains mask errors and fill in the gaps when we listen. This proves our brains are marvelous information processors, but should we be forcing them to do all this extra work simply because we’re being stingy with bits?

At the content creation end of the chain we spend money to ensure mix engineers listen on properly set-up surround systems, yet the majority of home systems come with speakers that have a limited frequency response, so the system relies on the subwoofer to handle everything the rest of the system can’t. That puts a lot of audio content into a speaker that should only be reproducing low frequencies.

Some living spaces can’t accommodate surround speakers, so we install products such as soundbars to provide pseudo-surround, and, in the future, immersive audio will surely bring us products with pseudoimmersion. Yet even these are better than the speakers in most flat-panel television cabinets, which often come with their own special version of surround emulation.

Like other parts of today’s society, the world of audio has become polarized. High quality has lost out to convenience in some areas, but there are also signs of hope. Vinyl is experiencing a resurgence among music lovers and bands are selling uncompressed downloads of their albums. Sales of highquality headphones are increasing and live music opportunities seem to be everywhere.

Television, however, seems stuck in the model of throwing away bits of audio as we compress the video, even though 5.1 mixes take up 1/100th the space of 1080i video (0.013824 Gbps at 48 kHz, 24 bit vs. 1.485 Gbps at 60 Hz, 29.97 fps). We’re still forced to compress everything for over-theair broadcast delivery, but with ATSC 3.0 in development and broadcast-over-IP in our future, perhaps it’s time to reconsider whether we want to continue throwing away the best bits of the content we deliver to consumers.

Jay Yeary is a broadcast engineer specializing in audio. He is an AES Fellow and is a member of both SBE and SMPTE. He can be contacted via TV Technology.