BOTHELL, Wash.—The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), together with the Video Services Forum (VSF), the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), today announced that 48 products were officially certified to the Internet Protocol Media Experience (IPMX) standard at the recent IPMX Product Testing and Certification Event in Geneva, Switzerland. The IPMX-compliant solutions were revealed at a cocktail reception that took place at ISE 2026 in Barcelona on Wednesday, February 4, at 4:30 p.m. in booth 5K880.

The IPMX Product Testing and Certification Event represented the first opportunity for manufacturers to formally certify products against the IPMX set of open specifications for professional media over IP. Following rigorous testing, solutions from Bridge Technologies, Matrox, Adeas / Nextera, Panasonic, Cobalt, intoPIX, plexusAV, Megapixel, Novastar, and Evertz successfully passed certification. These products are now certified and will carry the IPMX branding, signaling verified compliance with published transport, control, and interoperability requirements.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be unveiling the first IPMX-compliant products at ISE 2026,” said Sam Recine, IPMX Pro AV Working Group Chair at AIMS. “The certification of these solutions represents a major milestone in IPMX’s transition from specification to a certifiable and deployable technology, validating years of collaborative technical work and confirming that IPMX is ready to move from development into active deployment.”

“AIMS extends its sincere thanks to Packetstorm and Meinberg for their critical technical contributions, test infrastructure, and timing and network expertise that were essential to the success of IPMX interoperability and certification efforts,” added Recine. “We also recognize the EBU for hosting the event and for providing independent administration of the test process, ensuring a rigorous and neutral certification environment.”

IPMX is a set of open standards and specifications designed to extend SMPTE ST 2110–based media transport and AMWA NMOS–based control into a broader range of markets, including professional AV, live events, corporate media, education, and beyond.

In addition to uncompressed workflows, IPMX introduces support for compressed video, simplified system timing, HDCP, and defined system profiles to make deployment more practical, scalable, and cost-effective for Pro AV environments. The certification program is designed to ensure predictable behavior, reliable interoperability, and adherence to the published IPMX test plans and specifications.

Further technical information on IPMX is available at ipmx.io/technical-information, while the published IPMX test plan can be found at vsf.tv/technical-recommendations. More information about AIMS and its work is available at www.aimsalliance.org.

To help engineers and technical leaders stay ahead, this two-part series, which is now available for on demand viewing, brings together the engineers, innovators, and technical architects defining the next decade of production. If you’re responsible for shaping or supporting your organization’s workflows, this is where the real insight lives.

Session 1, January 21: “MXL Architecture and Its Capabilities: Unlocking the Future of Live Production” Featuring a keynote from Peter Brightwell, Lead R&D Engineer at BBC and moderated by Jenny Priestley of TVBEurope offers a deep dive into the building blocks of #MXL providing broadcasters, content creators, and technology professionals with actionable strategies to streamline production, enhance flexibility, and future-proof their media operations. REGISTER HERE TO WATCH ON DEMAND

Session 2, January 28: "MXL in Action: Real-World Interoperability for the Software-Defined Era." Featuring a keynote from Helio Eufrauzino Media Solution Specialist at TV Globo and moderated by Tom Butts Editor of TV Tech will explore real-world implementations of MXL, demonstrating how interoperability between devices, systems, and workflows enables more agile, scalable, and efficient production operations. REGISTER HERE TO WATCH ON DEMAND

Who Should Attend

• Broadcast engineers
• CTOs and technical managers
• Live event and remote production teams
• Studio operators
• System designers and integrators
• Anyone modernizing workflow and infrastructure

Why Register Now?
Because the future of media workflows isn’t coming “someday” — It's being built today. And this series gives you access to the people designing the blueprints. Registration is free, but spots fill quickly.

Join us and be part of the conversation shaping what’s next.

The event is being held in collaboration with Matrox Video, Lawo, TVU Networks, Appear, Techex, Riedel Communications, Grass Valley and Telos Alliance.

BOTHELL, Wash.—The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), the Video Services Forum (VSF), the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) will hold the first official Internet Protocol Media Experience (IPMX) Product and Certification Event in January 2026.

The event, Jan. 19-23, 2026, at the EBU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, will give manufacturers the chance to complete formal certification of products built to the IPMX set of specifications for professional media over IP. Certified products will qualify to carry IPMX branding, indicating they are compliant with a verified set of transport and interoperability requirements, AIMS said.

The event in Geneva is the culmination of a series of technical sessions, plug fests and test-suite development activities overseen by AIMS, VSF and AMWA to establish a basis for certification.

“We’re deeply proud and excited to host this event along with our partners from VSF, AMWA, and EBU,” said Sam Recine, IPMX Pro AV Working Group chair at AIMS. “Certification is an essential step for any open standard that promises interoperability across vendors. This event is where IPMX moves from theory into practice. The products tested in Geneva will be the first to demonstrate verified compliance with the IPMX specifications.”

IPMX is a set of open standards and specifications designed to bring SMPTE ST 2110-based media transport and NMOS-based control to a broader range of markets, including Pro AV, live events, corporate media and education. IPMX adds essential features tailored for Pro AV workflows, including support for compressed video, simplified system timing, HDCP and system profiles to make deployment more practical and scalable, AIMS said.

More information is available on the AIMS website.

SMPTE has joined forces with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) to publish an updated report on AI and its impact on media.

The document is the result of a task force on AI standards in media that began in 2020 and is an updated version of the Engineering Report released in 2023.

It aims to provide media professionals with a background of both AI and Machine Learning (ML), said the organisations.

The report includes a technical understanding of the two technologies, as well as the impact they are likely to have on the media landscape. It also explores AI ethics and discusses the role that standards can play in AI/ML’s future.

“The AI in Media landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and the SMPTE AI Taskforce remains committed to keeping up with this transformation,” said SMPTE standards director Thomas Bause Mason.

“The revision to the Engineering Report reflects new developments such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enhanced security considerations, open source in AI, and emerging frameworks like ISO/IEC 42001 among others. By incorporating these updates, we aim to provide the industry with clear guidance on AI/ML as well as interoperable AI practices for media workflows.”

The report is open to all and can be found here.

A groundbreaking new study by the BBC and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has found serious problems with news summaries generated by AI assistants.

In nearly half (45%) of the AI-generated news summaries, researchers found at least one significant error. In addition, some AI tools performed even worse, though all showed significant problems. Google’s Gemini performed worst with significant issues in 76% of responses, more than double the other assistants, largely due to its poor sourcing performance.

The finding raise serious doubts about the widespread use of AI-generated news summaries by consumers and plans to use those summaries by news organization.

Tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon have been investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI, in part because AI-generated summaries could potentially replace existing search tools and provide them with the kind of massive advertising revenue currently enjoyed by Google.

The study is also notable for the scale and scope of the research, which was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC.

In arguably the largest study of its kind, the research involved 22 public service media (PSM) organizations in 18 countries working in 14 languages. Professional journalists from participating PSM evaluated more than 3,000 responses from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity against key criteria, including accuracy, sourcing, distinguishing opinion from fact, and providing context, the BBC reported.

The study also found that the poor performance of the AI-assistants was in fact a slight improvement over an earlier BBC study. “First – there have been improvements since the earlier BBC study,” the report noted. “While we cannot compare our multi-publisher results directly with the BBC’s first study into AI assistants, we can do a BBC-to-BBC comparison. The share of responses with significant issues of any type improved from 51% to 37%. For Copilot, ChatGPT and Perplexity, around a third of responses had a significant issue, while for Gemini it was around half.”

In a second major conclusion, the study noted that, “despite the improvement seen in the BBC-to-BBC comparison, the multi-market research shows errors remain at high levels, and that they are systemic, spanning all languages, assistants and organizations involved. Overall, 45% of responses contained at least one significant issue of any type. Sourcing is the single biggest cause of significant issues (31%)."

"Of particular concern for publishers are sourcing errors that misrepresent them, such as when a response misattributes an incorrect claim to them," the study found. "Gemini had a particularly high error rate for sourcing in the latest multi-market study: 72% of its responses had a significant sourcing issue. All other assistants were below 25%.”

The full study can be found here, with additional commentary and tools from the BBC here.

HACKENSACK, N.J.—The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has awarded LiveU a five-year contract to deliver 24/7 live news content through its Eurovision News Exchange.

The exchange project is the next step in an ongoing transition from a previously satellite-only system towards IP-based contribution and hybrid distribution. The Eurovision News Exchange will rely on LiveU Matrix for delivery of its members’ live signals throughout Europe and beyond, LiveU said.

"The project marks a decisive step for the broadcasting industry, as major public service media embrace cloud-based IP workflows for faster, more sustainable and cost-efficient live news delivery,” said Emilio San Pedro, EBU head of Eurovision News Exchange. “LiveU’s Matrix platform enables us to connect Europe’s leading broadcasters better than ever and ensure seamless, future-proof live news delivery for audiences everywhere."

The project connects all members with LiveU technology, extending to more than 60 public service newsrooms in Europe and globally, the company said.

The exchange conducted a rigorous evaluation of the company’s LiveU Reliable Transport (LRT)-based delivery with Secure, Reliable Transport (SRT) capabilities and chose the platform for its reliability and scalability, it said.

The project includes a phased rollout—currently in its pilot phase with 15 members—of LiveU Ingest for cloud recording and shared content workflows across both primary and backup channels.

"Following a very tight and highly competitive selection process, we are delighted to partner LiveU to replace the Eurovision News Exchange live contribution and distribution system,” said Piotr Kaszynski, EBU program manager for the renewal of the Eurovision News Exchange live network, said.

“By the end of 2025, the new solution will bring greater flexibility and faster setup times, enabling our members [to have] continuous, reliable access to Eurovision News Exchange live signals,” Kaszynski added. “With LiveU Matrix seamlessly connecting on-prem and field units already used across the News Exchange, this will strengthen collaboration and deliver even more value to our Members and partners."

LiveU's Matrix IP distribution platform sits at the heart of this transformation, enabling seamless contribution and distribution of live news content among members and ad hoc sharing with other sources. The solution integrates 125 LiveU Transceivers deployed at member premises, with Dual Active (active/active) redundancy ensuring that two parallel streams—via cloud and transceiver—guarantee uninterrupted service in each location. This premium layer of Dual Active reliability enhances Matrix's capability to serve as a primary distribution system complement to backup satellite distribution, it said.

The multiregion, multivendor contingency plan relies on global cloud providers in the various regions, further supporting a highly resilient, multilayered architecture. Proactive monitoring is also included in the solution as well as the option to scale up the distribution channels for high-demand events, LiveU said.

Deployment began earlier this year. LiveU Matrix has already been used for major news events, such as the papal conclave. It will be completed in January 2026, when the EBU plans to gradually phase out its satellite contribution workflow and transition to a hybrid distribution and IP-based contribution. The official go-live date for the new IP-based network is set for Jan. 1, 2026, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Broadcasters have spent years trying to integrate different vendor technologies in their facilities. As the industry has moved closer to software, that struggle has become more pronounced. Currently, media exchange protocols need timing synchronization accuracy that’s beyond most IT hardware, while the reliance on SMPTE ST-2110 and NDI can lead to significant computer resource consumption, latency and vendor lock-in.

However, a groundbreaking initiative led by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), with key contributions from both broadcasters and vendors, could be about to revolutionize how media is exchanged.

The European Broadcasting Union’s Dynamic Media Facility (DMF) project published its first white paper in 2023, recommending the adoption of an IT-focused approach with best practices that involve developing solutions using a layered architecture and creating a unified infrastructure for media production. The idea of the Media eXchange Layer (MXL) came when Canadian broadcaster CBC began to reflect on the move to software-first cloud architecture for its facilities. CBC’s proposed approach also included a layered model in which each layer has distinct responsibilities. At the base lies the physical IT equipment, moving up to applications and user interfaces at the top. The crucial missing piece, they realized, was a software-centric approach to media exchange.

Compute Heavy
“We didn’t want to use a streaming technology like SMPTE ST 2110, for example, or NDI to exchange video, audio and timed data,” explained Félix Poulin, co-chair of the Dynamic Media Facility Group at the EBU and director, global innovation collaborations, CBC/Radio-Canada. “The idea is not to go outside of the software on one computer; we want applications to share video frames and audio chunks directly within a computer’s memory.”

The concept of exchanging memory between applications isn’t new, but most of the currently available solutions are driven by specific vendors, and some broadcasters are not keen on being tied into one vendor’s way of doing things. MXL, therefore, is a direct response to the need for interoperability, tackling each layer of the DMF reference architecture independently, with media exchange being the obvious first target.

“Using a streaming technology like ST-2110 or NDI requires a lot of computer resources,” Poulin added. “You need to packetize the image and organize it in a certain way, and then you need to serialize it and send each packet one by one. To reconstruct the video and audio, buffering happens, which takes time, so there’s latency building up in a complex system.

“But using direct memory access, like memory sharing, saves all of this work,”
he continued. “You save compute, therefore power, therefore efficiency. You solve latency, because the application will put parts of the video image in its memory as it’s working on it, and then that image is available to be picked up there. There’s no additional process.”

Early experiments have shown latencies of less than 1 millisecond for each transfer of video, a significant improvement over the 20 milliseconds per device typically expected with ST-2110.

Why Broadcasters Are Embracing MXL
For broadcasters, MXL is crucial in future-proofing their operations. CBC is currently working on a major project for its Toronto headquarters, Poulin said, aiming for a dynamic and adaptable technology platform. “If we were going to be a static, purpose-built facility like before, with studios that are a certain size and have a certain number of cameras, we would be limited if we decided two years later to do another kind of show with that facility,” he said.

The industry’s shift to software, alongside the issue of getting different vendors’ technology to talk to each other, made it clear that accelerating interoperability was paramount. MXL became the key to “unlock that vendor ‘lock-in’ problem,” Poulin said.

MXL will also help broadcasters like BBC, which has resources in multiple locations across the U.K. “Networks are so fast these days, you get hundreds of gigabits per second down inexpensive fiber,” explained Peter Brightwell, lead engineer at BBC research and development and co-chair of the DMF Group. “We have the option of being able to move our resources around the country, to wherever there is the most capacity.

“What we really want is to not just do things in different ways depending on where they are, whether they’re local, within the cloud and so on,” he added. “That’s the idea of a Dynamic Media Facility. About a year ago, we had a workshop in Geneva, then CBC hosted another one in Toronto at the beginning of this year, where we brought together several of those key vendors to challenge the industry to work together. It’s gone very well.”

Open-Source Approach
Instead of the traditional, lengthy standardization process, the EBU and its partners have opted for an open-source approach to MXL. “We decided to go with an open-source approach because usually our industry would have gone through a standardization process at this stage,” Poulin said. “We’d bring in standards bodies, write the text about the solution; eventually we get it ratified and then start to see first implementations.”

Instead, a software development kit (SDK) has been developed, and making it open source means the kit can be used by all vendors and thus become automatically interoperable. “The vendors we approached were enthusiastic and I think most of them were ready to go in that direction,” he said. “The EBU called the first meeting in November to test how far we could go, and everybody in the room said, let’s do it!”

Added Brightwell: “In an open-source project, everybody can see everything that’s happened. And like the best open-source projects, you get to influence it by doing work and actually contributing something to the community.”

But what does this mean for standards such as SMPTE-ST 2110 and NDI? Both Poulin and Brightwell said ST 2110 should continue to play an important role in the industry. “2110 is not going to go away,” Brightwell said. “It’s there at the inputs and the outputs and now the edges.”

Poulin added: “2110 was an enabler to get there. It was the move to get out of industry-specific connectivity like SDI, to go to IP connectivity. It will still be the interface of choice between compute clusters. 2110 will still be used.”

The first release of MXL code is expected towards the end of this year, very likely in the fourth quarter. “In terms of the other layers, we’ve identified a couple of immediate priorities,” Brightwell said. “One is to work on the joined-up timing model. One of the great things about working in software is you can add this sort of thing very easily, the hooks are there to put time stamps into MXL payloads, as they’re called, so that they can be used downstream.

“One of the questions we’re often asked is, if you have two separate pieces of technology, how do they find each other?” he continued. “That’s a fundamental part of what we call the control layer and that is going to be our immediate next step.”

At IBC2025, the EBU announced a partnership with the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) to create the Joint Taskforce on Dynamic Media Facilities (JT-DMF), which will bring together vendors, end users and system integrators, and aims to ensure that the next wave of live production infrastructure can benefit users and vendors alike. “There are a lot of questions surrounding orchestration,” Poulin said.
“We need to solve a number of these problems in that category. The joint task force now begins working on these different aspects by priority.”

The momentum behind MXL is undeniable. “It’s been so fast from when we started with the idea, to a number of vendors being willing to work in open source, to releasing an early version of code in June,” Poulin said.

Multivendor demonstrations at IBC showcased the progress, and work is underway to finalize a production-ready Version 1. Poulin hopes that by NAB Show in April, vendors will have solutions incorporating MXL available for purchase.

MXL represents a significant leap forward for the broadcasting industry, promising greater interoperability, efficiency and adaptability in an increasingly software-driven world.

This article originally appeared in TV Tech sister brand TVBEurope.

Cloud workflows for live video are no longer experiments; they are workhorses, constantly refined for technical and financial efficiency. File-based supply chains were first to embrace this shift, but cost, connectivity and business drivers have converged to make live cloud production and 24×7 linear workflows ready for adoption.

Yet this progress has come despite a capability gap which breaks an underlying principle, key to television’s success for the past century: the ability to choose best-of-breed solutions without compromise.

Why MXL Matters
SDI solved that problem for hardware. Standardized in the late 80s, it carried uncompressed video over a simple cable, but its real power came from ubiquity, which enabled decades of growth and innovation. Without SDI, even connecting a camera to a vision mixer could have required bespoke engineering, adding cost and delay.

In the cloud, that same effortless interoperability is missing. Every integration between vendors’ software adds friction and latency.

MXL, the Media eXchange Layer, is designed to restore that SDI-like simplicity for software. Its approach is called "shared memory" where applications write and read live media from a common buffer in a standard way. That turns complex interconnection into something instant and vendor-agnostic, just as SDI did in hardware.

Built in the Open
MXL is not being built behind closed doors. The EBU and North American Broadcasters Association (NABA), working with the Linux Foundation, have made it an open-source project with vendors and broadcasters collaborating on the SDK.

That openness means challenges such as connection setup, memory management, and signaling are solved once, in the open, rather than by each vendor alone. Broadcasters can trust it as a durable foundation, not proprietary lock-in.

At IBC, momentum was clear. Demonstrations from the EBU, BBC, Techex and others showed different vendors’ software exchanging live media seamlessly. More than proofs-of-concept, they showed a new model of interoperability taking shape.

Looking Ahead: RDMA
The first milestone for MXL is shared memory within a single server. But broadcasters do not build infrastructures on one box, and scaling MXL across servers is the next challenge. That is where RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) comes in.

RDMA, and specifically RoCEv2 (RDMA over Converged Ethernet), allows one machine to directly access another’s memory across an IP network. By bypassing the kernel and avoiding CPU overhead, it moves data at high throughput with minimal latency. RoCEv1 has long been used in hyperscale data centers; RoCEv2 adds IP and UDP layers that make it usable across routed networks. For media, that means extending MXL’s shared-memory principles across distributed compute infrastructures.

The contrast with today’s methods is sharp. Traditional data movement relies on forwarding through the kernel, with CPUs shouldering the packetization load. That is costly in compute cycles and becomes a bottleneck as throughput demands rise.

More Than Raw Transport
Raw access to memory is only half the story. MXL addresses the other half: how to represent, signal and manage media in memory so applications can use it in real time. How do systems announce intent to read or write? How long should data be held? How should it be indexed and retrieved? These questions are being answered collectively through the open-source SDK, ensuring vendors adopt the same methods rather than reinventing them.

MXL sits within the EBU’s Dynamic Media Facility (DMF) initiative which takes a multi-layer approach to enabling media organizations to move to a completely software-based infrastructure both on the ground and in the cloud. From application semantics down to networking, the ability to share and orchestrate live data efficiently between compute nodes is central to enabling software-defined broadcasting that is interoperable, scalable and flexible, without locking organizations into monolithic systems.

The past few years have seen multiple merges and splits in large, multinational organizations, while publicly funded broadcasters are under more pressure than ever to excel despite funding squeezes. To deal with organizational change at the same time as continued movement in consumer behaviour, the financial and technical flexibility that software-defined infrastructure offers is a key enabler – not to mention a differentiator for those that can embrace it first.

The Promise Ahead
At Techex, we see that MXL has the potential to become the standard for live media exchange inside data center environments, giving broadcasters and studios the same freedom of choice in software workflows that SDI guarantees in hardware. It is efficient, it is open, and it is being built collaboratively by the industry.

The first demonstrations have shown the concept works very well. The next phase, with RDMA, will extend its reach across distributed environments. Beyond that, the shared foundation being built today points to an era where media organizations can once again build infrastructures from best-of-breed components without compromise. That possibility, moving from vision to prototype, is why momentum around MXL continues to accelerate.

This article was originally published on TV Tech's sister brand, TVBEurope.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said this year’s Eurovision Song Contest broke records, both in terms of share and engagement in individual countries.

The 69th contest, staged in Basel, Switzerland, reached 166 million people across 37 public-service media markets, the EBU said, 3 million more viewers than in 2024.

The viewing share of the 2025 Grand Final was 47.7%, the highest since 2004, and more than double the average for the same group of broadcast channels (19.9%).

Among 15-to-24-year-olds, the Grand Final achieved a viewing share of 60.4%—the highest on record, the EBU reported.

The May 17 final delivered viewing shares above 50% in 19 of the 37 markets where the event was broadcast, led by Iceland (97.8%), Finland (90.5%), Sweden (89.6%), Norway (85.4%) and Denmark (75.1%).

In host country Switzerland, an average audience of 1.1 million viewers watched the Grand Final—a 57% year-on-year increase.

(Also Read: What the Hell Just Happened: TVBEurope Visits Eurovision)

In the week following the broadcast, the Grand Final attracted 12.1 million views on the Official Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel, up 8% on 2025. Peak concurrent viewership on the night reached 1.58 million, up from 1.51 million in 2024.

“This year’s Eurovision Song Contest has once again demonstrated its extraordinary power to unite millions across continents through the joy of music and shared celebration,” Martin Green, director of the Eurovision Song Contest, said. “In a fragmented media landscape, the ESC stands out as a unique global moment—bringing viewers back to live television while simultaneously thriving across digital platforms and reaching new generations in new ways.”

In the U.S., the event was streamed live and on-demand exclusively via Peacock. Viewer numbers have not yet been released.

This article originally appeared on TV Tech's sister brand TVBEurope.

Aldous Huxley’s classic novel “Brave New World” is a science fiction thriller set in a murky future with a highly ordered society. While Huxley and other sci-fi writers tended to focus on futuristic societies and novel personal interactions, they didn’t quite predict the mix of technology that we have today.

Yet the recent creation of artificial intelligence systems that can create new audiovisual content from just a written description is the brave new world that we face in the film and television industry. Like any other technology, it is used by people—some of whom are good, some are bad, and most are a mix in which it is hard to separate the difference.

People in the industry, from the smallest players to the biggest moguls, are watching AI and expecting big changes. One of the biggest is Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of Dreamworks and the former chairman of Walt Disney Studio, who recently participated in a Bloomberg-sponsored forum.

“I don’t know of an industry that will be more impacted than any aspect of media, entertainment and creation,” Katzenberg said. “In the good old days, you might need 500 artists and years to make a world-class animated movie. I don’t think it will take 10% of that three years from now.”

Multimedia Building Blocks
One application that can create graphics—or a whole family of graphics—from written content is called Lore Machine. Although it is predominantly for graphics and not moving images, it can create a graphical story based on a few sentences of description.

“Lore Machine is a web application that transforms story text into multimedia adventures,” said Thobey Campion, founder of the Los Angeles-based startup. “At the helm of Lore Machine, a writer can enter natural text like a novel, a screenplay, a resume, song lyrics or a blog post, and generate galleries of imagery, animation and audio all with persistent character, location and art styles. These multimedia building blocks can then be assembled into every audiovisual story format imaginable, including multimedia articles, graphic novels/manga, presentations, children’s books, RPG games and video.”

Campion said that Lore Machine is the first AI system to achieve multimedia generation at story scale, and that it can transform still imagery into 5- to 10-second videos.

Concern Over Ethics
Ethics are a major concern regarding AI in the film and television industry. In other words, how do we prevent an AI system from creating content using the likeness of well-known people, or using copyrighted content?

For example, with an AI system capable enough, it could create scenes from the latest Jack Reacher novel using an on-screen person that looks an awful lot like Tom Cruise. And that is just the tip of the iceberg that we can discuss in a respectable trade journal—let’s leave the 90% that’s below the surface unmentioned for the moment.

Lore Machine has safeguards in place to maintain originality and prevent ethical problems, Campion said.

“Lore Machine is BYOL: Bring Your Own Lore,” he said. “That means the first thing a user does is enter original text, which ensures original authorship. The ‘Preset Palace’ is filled with ethically trained image models that [prevent creation of certain content scenarios]. Over the course of the next several months, we are releasing some styles in partnership with artists that cost extra money. All of those proceeds go to the artists.”

Further, Lore Machine is not simply a one-click creation tool, Campion said.

“It’s a workflow that requires many decisions to get to your outputs, which in turn ensures sufficient transformation,” he said.

AI has already been visible to television viewers around the world, including in North America. However, it is entirely possible that you didn’t recognize that AI was at work.

“One visible way in which AI is being used in broadcasting, particularly during sports events, is through content enrichment features such as real-time statistics and graphic overlays,” said Alex Rouxel, senior project manager for data and AI at the European Broadcasting Union. “AI algorithms analyze the game in progress and provide instant statistics.”

Guiding What the Viewer Sees
Furthermore, broadcasters use AI behind the scenes in ways that ultimately guide what the viewer sees.

“AI is used in content recommendation systems that analyze viewing habits and metadata to personalize content suggestions for viewers,” Rouxel said. “This increases user engagement without being visible on the screen.”

It’s impossible to say where AI might take us several years from now, but Rouxel has some thoughts on broadcasters’ use of AI in the near future.

“Broadcasters are likely to increasingly use AI for automated video editing and enhancement, speeding up the production process by quickly sorting and editing footage,” he said. “Editing can be tailored to the audience on the social networks where the content is posted.”

This use of AI is treating it as though it is an assistant that will tirelessly work on projects that actual people could do. It is valuable work that frees up creative people to do more creative things, but it is not the sort of AI that might take creative work from creative people.

So is creative work by creative people safe from the challenge of AI?

“AI is going to bring on the greatest change in the history of the media industry,” said Roy Folkman, director of technical sales for CineSys.io, a Houston-based systems integrator specializing in digital media. “The only way we are going to be able to navigate the overwhelming changes brought on by AI is through thoughtful and respectful exchange of ideas.”

In an online presentation in March, Folkman made his point about changes in the film and television industries with a simple end title graphic that showed all the components of the film being created by AI. He went on to say that he and many others value human creativity, and that actual art created by actual humans will always have a place.

Channel 1.AI
Later this year, a project called Channel 1.ai will begin news broadcasts using AI-gathered information and delivered by AI-generated “talent.” Calling itself “a new personalized global news network, powered by generative AI,” Channel 1.ai has a demo that looks uncannily like a first-class news operation, using “talent” that mixes the right amount of attractiveness with the gravitas we expect from news anchors and reporters.

The lengthy Channel 1.ai demo shows off one of the benefits of AI: It can deliver the news with the same “on-camera talent” in any language. The demo has one of the anchors speaking in English, then what I assume is perfect Greek, Tamil and Filipino. Even Walter Cronkite couldn’t do that.

It could be possible for the entire world to consume the same news broadcast, in each country’s native language. I don’t know if that is wonderful or scary, but it is mind-blowing.

Channel 1.ai promises that its news will be sourced and delivered in accordance with accepted news reporting standards and verified by real journalists. However, what is to stop some organization with more nefarious goals from delivering bogus news polished up with a pleasant AI sheen? It’s all too easy to imagine dozens of competing AI newscasts in every language, with “on-camera talent” racing to pander to the lowest-common denominator.

To learn more about Channel 1.ai and form your own opinion, visit www.channel1.ai.

As I write this, no one can predict exactly how AI will affect the industry. It is certain that any limitations put on it by corporations or governments will be quickly either ignored or bypassed. Clearly, any government or well-funded entity can create something along the lines of Channel 1.ai. And not every government or well-funded entity has the best intentions toward our fellow earth dwellers.

As a content creator myself, I am curious about how generative AI can help me visualize the stories I have in my head. I already use AI-powered software to improve resolution, and make videos and photos better looking. (In fact, I used AI-driven software to improve the clarity of a couple of the photos associated with this article.) Generative AI, if I could get a handle on it, could let me tell a story that I could not otherwise tell using the basic tools I have.

The next five years look to be very exciting—or nerve-wracking for some—with respect to the use of completely AI-generated content. I am convinced that it will be an eye-opening experience for all of us. l

Bob Kovacs is a long-time television engineer, video creator and writer. You can find him on YouTube at youtube.com/bob%20kovacs.

NAPLES, Italy—The 30th EBU Technical Assembly has elected a new technical committee, which oversees the EBU’s technical work, as well as a chair at its annual meeting here hosted by Italian broadcaster RAI, June 13-14.

Michael Eberhard, CTO of German EBU member organization ARD/SWR, was elected chair of the technical committee. He takes over from Michael Nugent of ERT, who led the committee from 2022 to 2024. Brian Wynne from Irish public broadcaster RTÉ and Annsofi Eriksson from Swedish Radio were elected first and second vice chairs, respectively, EBU said.

Newly elected committee members include:

• Gino Alberico (Rai, Italy)
• Morten Brandstrup (TV 2, Denmark)
• Deividas Grabauskas (LRT, Lithuania)
• Harald Kräuter (ORF, Austria)
• Monica Palomo (RTP, Portugal)
• Ivana Prpic (HRT, Croatia)
• Robin Ribback (SRG/SWISS TXT, Switzerland)
• Victor Sanchez (RTVE, Spain)
• Simon Tuff (BBC, U.K.)
• Willem Vermost (VRT, Belgium)

More information is available on the EBU website.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Motion Pictures Laboratories Inc. (MovieLabs) have collaborated on the publication of “Media in the Cloud: Ontology and Semantic Web Technology Navigation Guide.”

The guide is available for free online from the SMPTE website. It is a primer on the use of ontologies and other semantic web technologies in a modern media landscape where workflow are moving into the cloud, SMPTE said.

"The shift of media workflows to the cloud — an ever more data-driven ecosystem — yields many benefits, including greater automation, agility and scalability. But to realize these, organizations must successfully address challenges related to workflow interoperability, data portability and the management of complex sets of assets," said Jim Helman, CTO of MovieLabs, which is a technology joint venture of the major Hollywood studios. "Media ontologies provide the essential knowledge framework to address those challenges."

It explains media ontologies in simple terms and offers a discussion of mapping data across different information systems. The guide provides practical examples of how media organizations are using semantic web technologies to bring greater efficiency to real-world workflows, it said.

Richer metadata is required to manage and understand the complex relationships between all of the element in the content lifecycle. An ontology provides a framework to support application and service integration, asset and content management and search and discovery, among other functions, it said.

"Consistent and interoperable metadata and semantics are key for connecting data sets along the value chain, managing distributed workflows and integrating applications. They are also crucial for content management and search and discovery," said Hans Hoffmann, head of media fundamentals and production technology at EBU Technology and Innovation. 

"This navigation guide is the result of a great collaboration between EBU, SMPTE and MovieLabs, three key actors in this field, and it will greatly help the media industry in its transformation into a data-driven ecosystem," he said.

The guide explains media-specific ontologies, the ontologies that already exist, where they are applicable and how to deploy them. The document, therefore, offers a starting point for the move to the cloud and towards microservices-based deployments that integrate semantic technologies, SMPTE said.

"SMPTE has played a significant role in improving metadata interoperability, and we view our participation in this ontology work as an extension of that that work," said SMPTE executive director David Grindle. "The navigation guide is a valuable introduction to the current media ontology landscape, the application of semantic technologies, and specific use cases that benefit from them. For many organizations, this will be critical foundational knowledge as they increasingly leverage data and the cloud to support their media workflows."

More information is available on the SMPTE website.

The European Broadcasting Union’s Technical Committee has launched a new project group to investigate how Web3.0 and the metaverse could impact the media ecosystems and consumption behaviors of public service media.

The group has been launched following an EBU workshop on the topic, attended by participants from 70 members of the organization.

The EBU Technical Committee is now inviting members to join the new working group and has appointed Alberto Ciprian from RAI R&D to serve as its chair. Ciprian will be assisted by project coordinator Paola Sunna, EBU T&I, who also organized the workshop.

“Chairing this group is a fantastic opportunity”, said Ciprian. “What we’re looking to do now is to bring EBU Member experts and talent from technology and creative backgrounds together. This will contribute to the success of the group.”

Hans Hoffmann, senior manager at EBU T&I, who also facilitated the interactive workshop, added: “The workshop provided us with a wide selection of possible goals, but together we were able to converge on several key objectives, such as the sharing of uses cases, and the creation of an experimental platform for collaboration and experimenting together in a Web3.0, metaverse and NFT environment.”

This article originally appeared on TVBEurope. 

The Executive Board of the European Broadcasting Union has suspended the membership of Russian broadcasters—RTR, Channel One and Radio Dom Ostankino—for an indefinite period. The decision was made unanimously by the Executive Board at its meeting on May 26 and effectively ends Russian coverage of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. The  EBU had previously suspended Russian ally Belarusian Television and Radio Company (BTRC) last fall over accusations of “politicizing” the annual popular event. 

RTR is the international arm of Russian state media organization VGRTK, which, along with Channel One, resigned from the EBU in late February after the EBU announced that no Russian acts would be allowed to participate in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest. 

The suspension of membership for these media organizations was initiated at a meeting of the Executive Board on April 7. EBU, an alliance of public service media organizations,  said the decision “enters into force immediately and its term will be subject to review. 

“In making its decision, the Executive Board took into account that all three members have the right to appeal the decision of the Council in accordance with the Statute of the European Broadcasting Union, although the suspension of membership will remain in force until the decision on appeal,” the association said.

Mykola Chernotytskyi, Chairman of the Board of Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, applauded the EBU’s decision.

“Public Broadcasting welcomes the position of the Executive Council on the suspension of the membership of the Russian media in the European Broadcasting Union. Because, violating journalistic standards, spreading hate speech and misinformation, these broadcasters are waging an information war not only against Ukraine, but also against the entire civilized world,” she said.

TORONTO—At a time when broadcasters are facing increased security risks, the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU) has issued updated cybersecurity recommendations for media vendors’ systems, software and services.

Based on the original work by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and North American Broadcasters Association (NABA), these recommendations are intended to create a dialogue with media vendors with the goal of achieving more consistent and effective compliance with cybersecurity best practices, the WBU said. 

These recommendations can be used as an attachment to any equipment or service RFP, RFI, or RFQ to help potential buyers ascertain the cyber maturity of the product and supplier.

In releasing the new recommendations, the WBU thanked NABA members Grass Valley, Imagine Communications and Ross Video for leading part of NABA’s negotiating team and in working with Lucille Verbaere and her Cybersecurity team at the EBU on the changes.

The full Cybersecurity Recommendations are available here.  

 GENEVA, Switzerland—The European Broadcasting Union has appointed Wouter Quartier as the head of digital, transformation and platforms. 

Quartier, who will take up the position in August, brings 18 years of experience at the Flemish broadcaster and EBU member, VRT, where he held a number of roles. Most recently, he was manager of strategy and corporate development, where he led the digital transformation for VRT’s radio, TV, news and sports brands and the strategy for VRT’s online video platform, VRTNu. 

“Wouter combines the skills and flexibility to lead the EBU’s activities in this area as we respond to greater challenges and accelerated change within our industry, especially in the context of COVID-19,” Jean Philip De Tender, media director of the EBU, said. “He will work closely with a newly-elected Digital Committee that is committed to supporting the EBU as we advance further in this field and he inherits a solid legacy from his predecessor, Ezra Eeman, who created a culture of digital adoption in our organization and built the foundations that have enabled the EBU and our Members to adapt and react to new challenges so effectively.” 

Quartier will also play an important role as part of the EBU’s Media management team, drawing on his digital transformation and data management experience as well as his public service media credentials. 

Quartier takes over from Ezra Eeman who moves to a new position as change director at Mediahuis in Belgium. Eeman joined the EBU in 2017 from VRT, where he had been Head of VRT Start-Up. 

GENEVA, Switzerland—The European Broadcasting Union has published a new electronic chart to help rapidly identify issues encountered when setting up a High Dynamic Range monitoring system.

The chart has been published as EBU Tech 3374, and is based on a similar chart used at Canadian EBU Member CBC/Radio-Canada.

The EBU said the chart is not intended to accurately measure a display’s Dynamic Range, but as a visual test to see if code values are output as intended.

It added that the new chart helps to verify that the video chain used for monitoring covers the specified dynamic range, regardless of the EOTF (‘electro-optical transfer function’, e.g. HLG, PQ, SLog3) and bit-depth (8, 10, 12 or 16-bit per color) used. White point errors can be spotted, too.

EBU Tech 3374 can be found here.

TORONTO—The Technical Committee for the World Broadcasting Union has unanimously voted to endorse the European Broadcasting Union’s “Technology Pyramid for Media Nodes,” a guidance that spells out the basic steps needed to comply with the SMPTE-2110 standard for audio and video transport over IP.

Similar to the USDA’s “food pyramid,” which prioritized the types of foods recommended for daily consumption, the Technology Pyramid categorizes the minimum user requirements to build and manage an IP-based media facility.

Unlike the food pyramid, however, the Technology Pyramid categorizes the building elements for an IP-facility based on current availability of technologies and the need for future standards work. Hence, media transport is at the top of the pyramid because it is the most widely available and developed standard, while security is at the bottom of the pyramid, characterizing that part of the standard as “rarely available.”

The WBU endorsed the EBU’s use of the pyramid to illustrate the current status of SMPTE-2110, adding that many aspects of the standard related to configuration, discovery and security remain unfinished.

“Broadcasters planning the move to new IP production facilities for Television or Radio should engage manufacturers with the Technology Pyramid for Media Nodes and ascertain their degree of compliance,” said Michael McEwen, Head, WBU Secretariat. “Further, the missing standards need to be completed as soon as possible so that broadcasters can make the important migration to IP with the required assurance.”

LAS VEGAS--This year’s IP Showcase at NAB Show has announced a call for presentations for the event.

The IP Showcase is a joint venture between the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Society of Motion Picture and Technology Engineers (SMPTE), and the Video Services Forum (VSF).

The submission deadline for speaking proposals is Feb. 25. Speaking times are limited during the four-day exhibition; the selection committee is looking for the following types of presentations:

• Tutorial (basic, intermediate, advanced)

• Case study

• Panel discussion

• Market/business case analysis

• Point-of-view/advocacy

• Standards progress/update

Preference will be given to presentations related to the following technology areas on the Joint Task Force on Networked Media (JT-NM) Roadmap:

• AES67

• SMPTE ST 2110 suite of standards for Professional Media Over Managed IP Networks

• AMWA NMOS specifications such as IS-04, IS-05, IS-07, and IS-08

• Timing and synchronization using SMPTE ST 2059-1/2

• JT-NM TR-1001-1 framework for installing, configuring, and interconnecting equipment

More details and the submission form are available at the IP Showcase’s website.

GLENDALE, CA.—National TeleConsultants (NTC) has joined the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), a nonprofit industry group working to foster the adoption of open standards for moving from SDI- to IP-based media networks.

NTC provides strategic technology and operations consulting, engineering design, software development, and systems integration to the media and entertainment industry. Clients rely on NTC's industry expertise to select, customize, develop, and deploy innovative advanced technology solutions. 

AIMS comprises broadcast and media companies and technology suppliers working together to promote industry standards for transmitting video, audio, and ancillary information over IP infrastructure in professional applications, as well as products based on those standards.

"Open standards developed by SMPTE, AES, EBU, and AMWA and promoted by AIMS are an important foundation for the transition to all-IP workflows in television production and distribution," said Ken Long, NTC principal consultant, who led an NTC team that provided systems-integration support for the IP Showcase interoperability demonstration at the 2018 NAB Show and who will represent NTC in the AIMS Technical Working Group. "We believe strongly in the AIMS roadmap, which seeks to tie all those standards together into a single system that benefits all of us."

NTC is expanding its participation in industry-wide activities to accelerate the IP transition.

"We see IP technology as fundamental to our clients' efforts to meet increasing audience expectations for technical quality while improving flexibility and reducing costs," said Laurie Morse, head of corporate strategy at NTC. "That's why we found it so important to be a part of the charge toward an all-IP world."

The European Broadcasting Union will use the upcoming European Championships 2018 to carry out tests using UHD High Frame Rates.

The organization will work with industry partners to shoot, process, record, and distribute live ultra high definition content, with high frame rate, high dynamic range, and next generation audio at the event which runs Aug. 2-12.

The trials involve the world’s first live distribution of UHD content with both HDR (HLG/BT.2100) and HFR (100 frames per second, 2160p100). Current state-of-the-art live broadcasts don’t exceed a field or frame rate of 50Hz in Europe, and HD interlaced (1080i25) is still the dominant broadcast emission format even though commercial encoders and TV sets manage up to 2160p50 resolution.

In Berlin, a 2160p100 HLG/BT.2020 production workflow will be set up in collaboration with EBU Members BBC, France Télévisions, IRT, RAI and ZDF, and a range of technology partners. The 2160p100 feed will be used to derive two additional 1080p100 and 1080p50 signals. These three feeds will then be encoded in HEVC and multiplexed for a live transmission via the Eurovision satellite network to RAI's experimental test bed in the Aosta Valley, Italy, and via the Eurovision Fibre infrastructure to the European Championships Broadcast Operations Centre (BOC) based at BBC Glasgow.

The technology providers working with the EBU and broadcasters include:

• ATEME encoding and remixing technologies for the 1080p100 feed with all NGA flavours

• Dolby immersive and object-based audio technology (AC4)

• Ericsson contribution technology (HEVC, MPEG-H Audio) for 2160p50

• EVS server for near real-time 2160p100 editing

• Fraunhofer IIS immersive and object-based audio technology (MPEG-H Audio)

• Jünger Audio 3D audio monitoring and authoring units (MPEG-H Audio)

• KaiMedia encoding technology (HEVC, MPEG-H Audio) for 2160p50

• Klang and Areitec 3D audio monitoring over headphones

• LG prototype OLED TV sets capable of decoding the live UHD streams with HFR (2160p100Hz), HDR (HLG & PQ), and NGA (Dolby AC-4)

• NTT encoding technology for the 2160p100 signal

• b<>com scene-based production tools and Qualcomm compression technology (MPEG-H Audio)

• Rohde & Schwarz servers for uncompressed recording

• Schoeps and Areitec ORTF-3D microphone outdoor set

• Sony XVS video switcher, PWS Live production server and storage solutions configured for a 2160p100 video production workflow and HDR acquisitions, plus one complete Sony UHD camera and 2160p50 picture monitoring

• Solid State Logic System T S300-32 mixing console with 3D panning and Network I/O

• TPC the Swiss broadcaster’s operational subsidiary, will supply two other complete cameras, and a fourth camera will be provided by AMP Visual.

The EBU said the trials will enable all participants to build their understanding of the state of the art in immersive sports content production and its strategic potential. Some clips may also become available for public dissemination and for technical and scientific testing purposes.

AMSTERDAM—The IP Showcase will return to the IBC for the third year in a row, according to several broadcast technical and standards organizations.

The Audio Engineering Society (AES), Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and Video Services Forum (VSF) will again host the IP Showcase at the annual IBC Show in Amsterdam, Sept. 14-18.

The Showcase, which started out as the “IP Interoperability Zone” at the 2016 IBC Show, will feature vendors and broadcasters who will provide instructional and case-study presentations and an array of IP-based product demonstrations highlighting the benefits of, and momentum behind, the broadcast industry’s move to standards-based IP infrastructure for real-time professional media applications.

[Read: IP Showcase Returns To IBC2017]

Organizers say the event has been instrumental in helping the industry to galvanize behind the standards-based approach to IP. This is the first IBC show since the publication of documents within the SMPTE ST 2110 Professional Media Over Managed IP Networks suite of standards, the foundational standards for essence-based transmission of video, audio, and metadata.

“The broadcast industry reached a crossroads when it faced the choice of pursuing a standards-based approach to IP or pursuing multiple alternatives and directions,” said Brad Gilmer, executive director of the IP Showcase. “Almost unanimously, the industry chose the standards-based approach, uniting behind SMPTE ST 2110/ST 2059, AES67, and AMWA IS-04/IS-05. As we move from watching the progress of the early adopters into seeing how the industry as a whole will move into the IP transition, the IP Showcase is more important than ever.”

The IP Showcase will feature equipment displays and product demonstrations that emphasize everything industry vendors have achieved in support of IP standards and specifications. The displays will showcase the benefits IP can bring to an operation and will comprise equipment from an estimated 50 vendors — one of the most massive assemblies of interoperable IP products ever. Displays will highlight the benefits of IP signal transport and focus on SMPTE ST 2110-10/20/21/30/31/40, the SMPTE ST 2059 Broadcast Profile for IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP), AES67, and AMWA IS-04/IS-05.

The IP Showcase Theatre will provide an education resource of information about the phases of IP adoption. Vendors, broadcasters, service providers, and integrators alike will highlight their solutions to technical challenges related to the transition from SDI to IP. Choosing from a full slate of presentations on IP technology and installations, professionals ranging from broadcast/IT engineers and CEOs to TV producers can learn how to unlock the full potential of using IP for real-time professional media.

The IP Showcase will take place in rooms E106 and E107 at RAI Amsterdam during the show. More information is available at www.ipshowcase.org.

DALLAS—Imagine Communications has jumped on board as a technology partner for the LiveIP Project, a collaboration between Belgian public broadcaster VRT and the European Broadcasting Union. The goal of the project is to advance the adoption of IP-based media systems and production facilities.

VRT and EBU have developed a fully functional IP production studio based on industry standards for a high level of interoperability and leverage the benefits of IP to for efficiencies like automation and remote production. The LiveIP facilities will be used to produce some programming for the upcoming IBC 2016 conference.

As part of the project Imagine is contributing its SelenioFlex Live encoding system and its EPIC multiviewer as part of the LiveIP studio production set-up. The EPIC MV will be used to monitor all video sources and destinations, while SelenioFlex Live will stream content to internet-connected devices.

“Demonstrating that IP-based production facilities are ready for primetime today, as well as providing an environment for media companies to test and validate innovative solutions, is of paramount importance and Imagine Communications is proud to assist the LiveIP project in meeting these timely and vital objectives,” said Brick Eksten, chief product officer for Imagine.

BRUSSELS-VRT has teamed up with the EBU to deliver the ‘first ever’ fully IP live broadcast.

The broadcast was completed via VRT’s Sandbox LiveIP Studio in Belgium.

It was used as part of the programming for Ketnet, VRT’s children channel.

The VRT Sandbox LiveIP is, according to VRT, ‘the first proof of concept of a complete live production that relies exclusively on IP.’

Driven by the VRT and the EBU, the studio is powered by partners including Nevion, Axon, EVS, Grass Valley and Lawo.

Using existing open standards SMPTE 2022-6, AES67/Ravenna, PTP and OpenFlow, it is designed to deliver high interoperability and leverage IP to create efficiency in remote production and automation.

ViedoIPath, Nevion’s software defined network solution, forms the backbone of the set-up used in the live production.

“A year into the project, we remain delighted to be involved and working with VRT, the EBU and other vendors to demonstrate the power and benefits of IP, particularly in a broadcast grade project,” said Geir Bryn-Jensen, CEO, Nevion.

“This live broadcast is the ideal proof point for further adoption of IP throughout the broadcast workflow and in live production, and of course in promoting interoperability and the use of common standards.”

This story originally appeared in TV Technology's sister publication TVB Europe.

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM—The Alliance for IP Media Solutions is reporting a successful implementation of an open-standards all IP-based live broadcast. The group said the telecast involved a performance at Bozar concert hall carried by Flemish Belgian public broadcaster, VRT.

“An outside broadcast unit at the Bozar concert hall in the city center was connected to the VRT production studio five kilometers—three miles—away via IP, using just a single dark fiber cable,” the group said in a press release. “Signals from four IP cameras, 10 microphones via an IP stagebox, intercom, cam control, tally, Internet and more, were transmitted via the 10 kilometer cable at 25 Gbps. The trial proved the capability to remotely produce live broadcast events via IP, without the use of an OB vehicle.”

This is the second report of the deployment of a live IP-based production workflow, the first having taken place last November in Hilversum, Netherlands. There, NEP’s CMI division, DutchView Infostrada, aired a live program on RTL4 with remote-controlled cloud production using SMPTE-2022— the standard for encapsulating video signals for IP transport—over Grass Valley IP camera technology.

NEP referred to its IP-based broadcast as the “world’s first,” as did AIMS. A spokesman for the AIMS group clarified:

“Both of these broadcasts were live,” he said. “The key difference in terms of being ‘first’ is that the [Bozar] ‘trial’ was produced using a workflow based solely on open standards—[SMPTE] 2022-6, AES67, PTP, OpenFlow—which is the essence of the AIMS mission.”

AIMS was formed late last year by a group of television equipment vendors working on transitioning the industry from serial digital interface to Internet protocol workflow connectivity. The purported benefit of using IP versus SDI in TV production is that it is supported by a far wider range of commercial off-the-shelf hardware compared to SDI. Also, as demonstrated by this and NEP’s productions, it enables the creation of what can be characterized as a virtual television truck, eliminating the need to send crew members and heavy gear to onsite locations.

(It should be noted here that the Pac-12 collegiate sports network in the United States uses its own homegrown IP technology for remote live productions. See “Pac-12 Networks Innovates Live Remote Sports With IP Production Model.”)

AIMS is comprised of Imagine Communications, Belden’s Grass Valley, Cisco, Arista Networks, Snell Advanced Media, EVS, and Lawo among others. The non-profit consortium was formed in December and recently appointed its board, with Michael Cronk, senior vice president of strategic marketing for Grass Valley, as chairman.

A second and separate group of vendors is also working together on the SDI-to-IP transition. ASPEN, for “Adaptive Sample Picture Encapsulation,” was created by Evertz last year.

AIMS is supporting the work of the LiveIP Project, a multi-vendor system integration to showcase IP-based live TV broadcast production, and a collaborative project between the European Broadcast Union and the Belgian public broadcaster VRT. AIMS member companies EVS, Grass Valley, Lawo, Nevion and Tektronix, are industry technology partners within the LiveIP Project, which formed last August.

The Jan. 15 concert in Brussels was carried out under the auspices of LiveIP.

Karel De Bondt, project manager for LiveIP, stated that, “All signals were transmitted via the single cable without noticeable delay, such that technically, there was little difference between an OB truck and a remote production room.”

The multi-phase LiveIP Project is part of VRT Sandbox, an international joint platform for collaborative innovation, put together by VRT, EBU and iMinds. Industry technology partners participating in the project provide all the elements of a live production chain driven by IP; these include Axon, Dwesam, D&MS, EVS, Genelec, Grass Valley, Lawo, Nevion, Tektronix and Trilogy.

AIMS said that it “endorses the work of LiveIP as a primary example of the growing momentum in the broadcast and media content industries towards the adoption, standardization, development and refinement of open protocols in the transition to a fully IP-based workflow, as described in the AIMS Roadmap, with support for SMPTE 2022-6, AES67 and VSF recommendations TR-03 and TR-04.”

AIMS Chairman Michael Cronk said LiveIP “…is a major proof-of-concept of just how far the industry has already moved towards a possible future based on open standards. Not only is it another proof point that a multi-camera live production can be achieved with SMPTE 2022-6 and AES-67 technology, it showcases the wide availability of SMPTE 2022-6 and AES-67 technology as 10 different vendors contributed equipment to this production.”

Open standards work for the SDI-to-IP transition also is being carried by the 74-member Video Services Forum, with the support the Society for Motion Picture and Television Engineers and the EBU.

AIMS endorses an IP transition plan that includes support for SMPTE 2022-6, AES67 and VSF recommendations TR-03 and TR-04.

Also see…

Feb. 19, 2016
“HPA 2016” Remote Live Production”
With trucks, when they’re in use, they’re making money. When they’re parked, they’re not. IP technology held the promise of a more efficient architecture versus the truck fleet, if it could work for live TV production.

Jan. 20, 2016
“‘AIM'-ing for Interoperability”
The new, independent trade association was founded to foster the adoption of industry standards that would help facilitate the broadcast and media industry’s transition from SDI to IP.

Jan. 12, 2016
“Video-Over-IP: AIMS, ASPEN Compared”
While both organizations support the idea that the future of video transport will use IP-like protocols for switching and delivery, they differ in how they manage the important requirement of video synchronization. 

Oct. 20, 2015
“SDI vs. IP: Packet to Packet”
If one looks at the delay through an IP switch, it is due to the necessity to buffer the packets as they arrive, are processed and then sent out.

Oct. 14, 2015
“SDI vs. IP: Which Switch is Which?”
The technology and protocols for each were developed for different use cases and thus have evolved as a best fit for the applications intended. 

December 17, 2015
“All About ASPEN”
Broadcast Engineering Extra spoke with Mo Goyal, director of product marketing for Evertz, to discuss the latest progress on ASPEN, the company’s IP transport protocol which it introduced at the 2015 NAB Show and how broadcasters are managing the overall transition to IP.

December 15, 2015
“ASPEN Framework From Evertz and Sony Deployed by NBC Sports”
A recent collaboration on an IP production framework from Evertz and Sony that is based on ASPEN technology will be deployed by NBC Sports starting in February 2016, the two companies announced.

November 6, 2015
“Evertz Launches Aspen Community Website”
ASPEN stands for Adaptive Sample Picture ENcapsulation and was developed as an open framework to build IP facilities.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND—The international body governing global spectrum treaties has affirmed the reservation of UHF channels for broadcasting across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and neighboring nations. In making way for mobile broadband, the World Radiocommunication Conference last week voted to reserve 470-694 MHz (U.S. Chs. 14-51) for broadcasting.

“Representatives reached a consensus that this spectrum, currently used by broadcast services such as digital terrestrial TV and radio microphones, is too important to be allocated to mobile services,” said a statement from the European Broadcasting Union in Geneva, Switzerland.

The World Radiocommunication Conference is an ad hoc body of the International Telecommunications Union that meets every three to four years to review regulations covering radio frequency spectrum and satellite orbits, and revise them when necessary. Around 3,300 participants from 162 of the ITU’s 193 member states attended the four week conference, which concluded Nov. 27. More than 40 items involving spectrum allocation for mobile broadband, ham radio, emergency communications, satellite transmissions, maritime and aeronautical radio and more were discussed.

Revisions were made to allow mobile broadband services in L-band (1,427-1,518 MHz) and C-band (3.4-3.6 Ghz) spectrum, with studies to be done to identify frequencies at 6 GHz and above that would be suitable for wireless broadband.

Further revisions opened up the spectrum between 694 and 790 MHz (U.S. Chs. 52-67) to mobile broadband, with “full protection… [for] television broadcasting as well as to the aeronautical radionavigation systems operating in this frequency band,” according to the WRC’s summary of the meeting’s outcome. (In the United States, these channels were redesignated for mobile broadband and auctioned off in 2008.)

Other revisions included a new allocation for amateur radio in the 5 GHz band, more frequencies between 694-894 MHz for emergency communications, and greater protections for search-and-rescue operations on 406-406.1 MHz. New allocations also were made for earth observation satellites, wireless avionics, gobal flight tracking for civilian aviation, automotive radar and earth stations in motion.

Members also agreed to review coordinated universal time for a report to be considered at the 2023 WRC.

It was the EBU that made clear that WRC members agreed to reserve 470-694 MHz for broadcasting in the 118 countries comprising ITU Region 1. EBU said WRC members “agreed that there would be no change to the allocation in the 470-694 MHz band either now, or at WRC-19 in four years’ time. Instead there will be a review of the spectrum use in the entire UHF band—470-960 MHz—at the WRC in 2023. Only then will it be decided whether to make further changes to the Radio Regulations. This added security will enable many countries in ITU Region 1 to continue with their digital switchover programs without the risk of an impending change in use of the spectrum.”

The National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, D.C., also hailed the decision.

“NAB was pleased by the global unity demonstrated at WRC-15 for the importance of a vibrant system of over-the-air broadcasting,” the NAB’s Dennis Wharton said in a statement. “Of the 162 nations attending the conference, more than 140 countries rejected the wireless broadband industry’s anti-broadcasting UHF spectrum grab and recognized that frequency band is harmonized to provide television services on a worldwide scale. This broad consensus should send a strong message that while wireless broadband services are important for those who can afford the fees, that service should not come at the expense of a ubiquitous over-the air TV service that is available to all for free.”

GILZE, NETHERLANDS—As part of a recent collaboration, the European Broadcasting Union and Belgian public broadcasting company VRT have revealed the LiveIP Project, a multi-vendor system integration showcasing IP-based live broadcast production. EBU and VRT worked with a group of companies to implement a live TV production studio at VRT’s location in Brussels. Using IT hardware and software, LiveIP is designed to produce programs quickly and efficiently.

LiveIP Project

LiveIP uses open standards—SMPTE 2022/6, AES67, and PTP—to transport broadcast feeds through an SDN. It enables switching and limited redundancy of uncompressed video and audio feeds as they are transported over an IP network.

The LiveIP Project is part of Sandbox+, an international joint platform for collaborative innovation organized by EBU, VRT and iMinds. Vendors who contributed to the project include Axon, Dwesam, EVS, Genelac, Grass Valley, Lawo, LSB, Nevion, Tektronix and Trilogy.

EBU will demonstrate a scaled down version of LiveIP at IBC 2015 in booth 10.F20, Friday, Sept. 16.