FedNet is providing live gavel-to-gavel, multi-camera switched coverage of the hearings, plus live interviews with legislators. Multiple event broadcast feeds will be available as a service offering on TVU Grid, with FedNet looking to reach educational institutions with relevant fields of study such as political science and journalism as well as commercial media outlets.

“We needed an infinitely scalable set up,” said Keith Carney, President, FedNet. “With TVU Grid, we can scale to any number of locations to our network without increasing bandwidth requirements at each site. And we can route live video streams using TVU Grid anywhere in the world with sub-second latency. It’s an extremely fluid system, which is perfect for us. And we’re very confident in the robustness of the platform with the number of national media companies currently on TVU Grid.”

TVU Grid provides point to multipoint bidirectional live video distribution over IP. Using the TVU Grid platform, users can view public video sources that are available around the world, and request to take the stream and make it available for their own viewing audience. TVU Command Center, the centralized management platform for all TVU solutions, is also the source of control for TVU Grid. Through TVU Command Center, you can see the status of all transmissions and TVU Servers.

“The hearings this month are a large national and international news event,” said TVU Networks’ CEO Paul Shen. “We’re honored and thrilled FedNet selected TVU Grid for its scalability and centralized control for their first live streaming endeavor. We look forward to what they’ll be able to accomplish with future events such as the State of the Union, political conventions and the 2020 U.S. Presidential elections.”

FedNet is now live streaming the hearings on TVU Grid. Current FedNet and TVU Grid users can access the stream through TVU Gridlink on TVU Grid. Others can preview the live stream by signing up for TVU Gridlink at gridlink.tvunetworks.com.

About FedNet

FedNet is a 25-year-old credentialed news organization and the leading provider of multimedia content of the United States Congress. FedNet’s reputation for solid, innovative products and quality production of footage for a wide client base has persisted. Whether on-site with a camera crew or capturing and processing content, FedNet’s capabilities at the intersection of multimedia, the federal government and Congress have been sought after by a range of broadcast and multimedia clients. Please visit www.FedNet.net

About TVU Networks®

TVU Networks has over 3,000 customers globally. The TVU Networks family of IP transmission and live production solutions gives broadcasters and organizations a powerful and reliable workflow to distribute live video content to broadcast, online and mobile platforms. TVU has become a critical part of the operations of many major media companies. The TVU Networks suite of solutions has been used to acquire, transmit, produce, manage and distribute professional-quality live IP HD footage as an integral part of news, sports and major global events. For more information about TVU Networks solutions, please visit www.tvunetworks.com.

Video production professionals at the school determined that the slow-motion replay system used for in-arena replays and for live ESPN and ESPN+ feeds from home football, men’s and women’s soccer, and men’s and women’s basketball games was not providing a true broadcast look or an optimum training ground for students. As part of the school’s video production unit, Bronco Productions, students are responsible for the school’s sports programming feeds for ESPN and ESPN+.

WMU turned to the Envivo Replay, sports and live event replay solution from Variant Systems, which is sold all over the world, and exclusively by FOR-A in North, Central and South America. Envivo Replay is a complete replay solution with an intuitive user interface that offers support for high-speed slow-motion cameras, as well as playlists for highlights playback, built-in branding capabilities, and direct publishing to social media platforms. It allows for multiple camera inputs and multiple controlled outputs.

As of this fall, Envivo Replay is used to capture slow motion footage for Broncos’ in-stadium replays and for its streaming coverage to ESPN and ESPN+.

“We needed a slow-motion system in our truck that was more broadcast ready,” says Devon Doxey, Assistant Director, Bronco Productions. “We were looking for a replay system with the same look and feel as a professional system that was also easy to learn. The students absolutely love to use the touchscreen. I was a little worried about it at first, but it’s impressive how easy it is to use. It makes doing replays fun. I see our students use it all the time. We rely on them. Envivo Replay gives us state-of-the-art tools that lets them produce broadcast-quality video.

“Plus, we’re able to teach students on technology that’s similar to other systems used by broadcasters,” Doxey continues. “Being able to get them broadcast-ready for replay gigs in the future is something we couldn’t do before.”

Doxey cites having a dual playlist mode as another benefit: “Access to more content has made our production quality even better.”

He adds Variant’s game-day support and the system’s pricing as other factors that contributed to the switch. “With Envivo, we don’t call a technical support line to talk to someone who may or may not know what we’re talking about. We have the guy who created the system as our tech support. That’s incredible.”

Doxey serves as the Director and Producer for all ESPN streams at Western Michigan University, as well as leading all video production for scoreboard and social media content.

Envivo Replay is part of a complete live event workflow with FOR-A’s HANABI series of video switchers, ClassX 3D graphics, and video writer telestrators. 

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.

“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.

Nevion offered its support with its software defined network infrastructure as well as its Flashlink CWDM technology, which allows optical bi-directional IP-streams to be modulated on a single 10 km long fiber optic cable. During the broadcast, 25 Gbit/s of IP data were transported in each direction, connecting four IP cameras, 10 microphones, intercom, control signals, camera return signals and a visual intercom system.

The concert venue was located in the Bozar Center for Fine Arts in Brussels and was connected to the LiveIP control room at VRT’s studios by a 10 km long fiber optic cable. This project was an extension of the LiveIP full IP local studio that was set up in August 2015.