For broadcasters that have yet to convert from Serial Digital Interface (SDI) to SMPTE ST 2110 IP production workflows across portions or all of their facilities, three new industry initiatives within and outside SMPTE bode well for accelerating the pace of IP adoption.

While ST 2110 has taken center stage as the driving force behind the industry’s ability to embrace the scaling, remote connectivity and other efficiencies of IP software technology, SDI still serves as the dominant production backbone in 82% of broadcast operations, according to the 2026 edition of Haivision’s annual survey on global broadcast tech trends released last month.

‘It’s a Pain’
As Samuel Recine, Matrox Video’s vice president for strategic partnerships, noted, “It’s not easy to migrate entire facilities to 2110.” Even as new-build requirements and aging SDI facilities unleash inevitable migrations to IP production, ST 2110 users attest to facing hurdles they would rather not contend with.

For example, when executives at a recent industry gathering were asked about their biggest challenges with ST 2110, several singled out problems with using the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) to ensure synchronization across video, audio and metadata streams.

“It’s a pain,” said Peter Wehner, executive vice president of technology operations and engineering at Mobile TV Group, which supplies mobile units for live sports and other productions. “When something goes wrong, there are different reasons every time.”

“I agree; it’s PTP,” concurred Jason Taubman, senior vice president for technology at Game Creek Video, another mobile production fleet supplier. In addition, while “we’re all in on 2110,” another big issue has to do with scaling, where managing “tens of thousands of signals is a huge challenge,” he said.

But the good news is “we’re now feeling comfortable with IP interoperability,” Taubman added. “We can cherry-pick vendors from off the shelf.”

Indeed, there’s every reason to expect the pace of ST 2110 adoption will accelerate as interoperability extends into other areas vital to usage. This includes vendor compatibility enabled by the IP Media Experience (IPMX) standard backed by the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), the Linux Foundation-backed Media eXchange Layer (MXL) software development kit (SDK) and SMPTE’s emerging ST 2138 standard, also known as Catena.

So far, when it comes to live venue-centered production, “2110 in the field is typically limited to large deployments—big trucks, big network centers, where you need lots of streams, lots of devices,” Cobalt Digital Chief Technical Officer Ciro Noronha noted. “All those big guys are going to 2110.”

Bringing Pro AV Into the ‘MiX’
This has been a major step toward minimizing the amount of field-deployed equipment via remote connectivity over IP to core production centers. Now, thanks to IPMX, these benefits can be more readily exploited in smaller live broadcast productions as well as a vast range of other use cases that have been off limits to ST 2110, including Pro AV, corporate media and education productions that traditionally rely on High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) switchers and cable for digital operations.

This year’s ISE in Barcelona demonstrated how suppliers are rapidly adopting IPMX as a software upgrade to existing ST 2110 products and as the foundation for a new generation of products that work at extremely low latencies with asynchronous and synchronous sources in compressed or uncompressed modes without requiring the use of PTP. “I call it ST 2110 made easy,” Noronha said.

At the 2026 NAB Show, Cobalt is introducing IPMX in one of its audio monitoring units along with the new blueCORE “processing box” supporting 2110 input and output gateway functionality. “Everything we do from now on will be
IPMX-compliant,” Noronha said, bringing “all the benefits [of ST 2110] without the big price tag.”

Elsewhere on the show floor, Imagine Communications is promoting features unrelated to IPMX that have been added to its ST 2110 products, but in the broader scheme, the company is highly focused on bringing the new standard into its portfolio, according to John Mailhot, Imagine’s senior vice president of product management. The company will soon obtain certification for products already in line with the standard, he said, while “others will be compatible
over time.”

For now, Imagine will concentrate on touting ST 2110-related advances like a new graphics workflow enhancement to its recently introduced XVR playout engine and an expansion of multiview capabilities in workflows under control of its Selenio Network Processor. In the latter case, Mailhot said, Imagine is leveraging technology obtained with its recent Pixel Power acquisition to “present operations people everything they need to see all their work in one solution,” including low-latency remote feeds from satellites and other sources.

Matrox, another supplier all in with IPMX, has exploited the compatibility between IPMX and ST-2110 to the fullest extent by offering each of its ST-2110-related products as a “superset” that can be deployed with software tuned to either mode.

For example, Recine said, an IP/SDI converter that’s used in a complex ST 2110 broadcast environment where all live flows must be synchronized can also be purchased in IPMX mode for conversions in business, education or other more limited production situations where PTP synchronization isn’t essential, including portions of a broadcast facility that aren’t involved in “the mission-critical part of producing live content.”

Media eXchange Layer
Meanwhile, another realm of versatility that alleviates ST 2110 usage burdens is opening with the introduction of the MXL software development kit (SDK). By creating a template for packaging video, audio and data essences as microservices in container-virtualized data centers, MXL “is a way of breaking down the barriers, not having to encapsulate 2110 every time you want to do another bit of processing in the workflow,” said Daniel Robinson, product manager for MXL at Matrox Video.

MXL has strong industry support with collaboration from the EBU, the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) and a growing coterie of European and Canadian media companies such as CBC/Radio-Canada, BBC, France TV, RTÉ (Ireland), SRG SSR (Switzerland), SVT (Sweden), SWR/ARD (Germany) and VRT (Belgium). Extending the reach to global proportions, including the U.S., are vendor “implementers” Appear, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Grass Valley, Imagine Communications, Intel, Lawo, Matrox Video, NVIDIA, Riedel Communications and Telos Alliance.

Matrox is one of about six vendors “that have actually got it working in our product,” Robinson said. Many components in the Matrox product line were already configured to work in the containerized environment, but there is greater demand for the cost savings that come with such efficiencies in an open-source environment, especially one that avoids a drawn-out standardization process, he noted.

Hardware Control
The third initiative, SMPTE ST 2138, would expand interoperability essential to speeding the transition to IP by defining an open-source media control system that securely connects all devices pertinent to broadcasters’ IP-based production operations, regardless of whether transport is via ST 2110, NDI or something else.

This includes support for connecting everything that receives production output, as well as devices supporting data-center lighting, power maintenance and other operations, noted Chris Lennon, a SMPTE fellow serving as director of standards strategy at Ross Video, who has been a key figure behind the initiative.

“From our perspective, SMPTE ST 2138 is driven by customer demand,” Lennon said. “It’s hard to deny we have a serious problem with well over 200 proprietary control systems in operation.” The open-source OpenGear Protocol (OPG) developed years ago by Ross Video is the foundation for ST 2138, which has been greatly enhanced for today’s cloud operations with microservice-based scalability and other innovations, he explained.

At press time, five documents defining the 2138 protocol stack were slated for posting for input from the community at large, with a tentative cutoff date six months from now, depending on whether there’s enough consensus to merit the final push to standardization. It remains to be seen how broad industry support will be at this early stage, as other approaches to a universal IP device control system take hold in other industries’ forums.

“Luckily, many of them can work with the rapidly growing standards like 2110 and IPMX,” Sam Racine noted. One aspect that could be critical to broadcast industry buy-in to ST 2138 is that it is fully compatible with MXL. “We’ve done proofs of concept to show they are complementary and can work together,” Lennon said.

For many suppliers, the question of incorporating ST 2138 into their software stacks is still on the back burner. “If it’s important to our customers, we’ll support it,” Imagine’s Mailhot said. “Right now, there are a lot of things customers say they want that we’re actively doing.”

But the overall direction in broadcast production is clear. The all-out hunt is on for whatever it takes to make ST 2110 a more viable bridge from SDI to IP.

All of these new initiatives (and more) will be highlighted at SMPTE’s IP Showcase, part of the Tech Chat Theater in the West Hall during the 2026 NAB Show, April 19-22 in Las Vegas. The showcase is sponsored by AIMS, AMWA and the VSF.

SALT LAKE CITY—Utah Scientific will feature its growing portfolio of hybrid SDI-IP routing, conversion, control and signal-management solutions during the 2026 NAB Show, April 18-22, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

This year’s exhibit will focus on live, end–to–end demonstrations of the Utah Scientific’s advanced ST 2110 workflows, featuring On–Ramp, Pass–Through Cards, NBOSS, and the UTAH–400 Series 2 Gateway Router anchored by the company’s 10–year hardware warranty.

Utah Scientific will also showcase complementary high–density signal transport and distribution tools, including the MAXMUX multiplexing system and the UHD configurable distribution amplifier, demonstrating efficient ways to manage UHD and multi-signal environments.

The company’s fully integrated, hybrid SDI-ST 2110 workflow is built around On–Ramp, its 1RU SDI–to–ST 2110 gateway and processing engine. The unit supports hot–swappable encapsulation/de–encapsulation cards and 16 SFP cages on the front of the chassis to enable incremental migration to IP with a routable SDI backup of all signals.

On–Ramp is part of Utah Scientific’s E.D.G.E. (Equally Distributed Growth Environment) platform. Every node shares the same compact footprint, allowing routing capacity to be distributed exactly where needed. Users can connect nodes through a network switch to create a highly scalable routing environment with virtually unlimited growth.

On–Ramp is the newest E.D.G.E. device, which also includes MAXMUX (which can increase CWDM channel capacity from 18 to 72 channels) and UHD distribution amplifier, configurable through Utah Scientific software.

Pass–Through cards deliver hybrid 2110-SDI gateways without needing external gateway devices. They can be installed in any new or existing Series 2 router, providing ST 2110 encapsulation/de–encapsulation in addition to SDI routing. This gives users the option to migrate a single device from an SDI core to a hybrid core to an edge device.

The hybrid SDI-2110 products will be shown under the NBOSS control layer, the company’s NMOS control solution. Built on AMWA NMOS standards, NBOSS provides IS–04 discovery and IS–05 connection management, IS–09 system parameters and IEEE 1588 PTP awareness, enabling operators to switch 2110 flows as easily as SDI using Utah Scientific’s SC–4, hardware panels, Soft–LC or Web Panel interfaces.

See Utah Scientific in 2026 NAB booth N.941.

More information is available on the company’s website.

SALT LAKE CITY—Utah Scientific has introduced a new UTAH-400 Series 2 gateway router configuration that addresses the complexities of setting up an IP core workflow.

The configuration is aimed at facilities requiring hybrid SDI-IP functionality as they transition to SMPTE ST 2110. It consists of a UTAH-400 gateway device and a Serial Digital Interface (SDI) backup in one chassis. Available in multiple frame sizes and configurations, ranging from 72 x 72 to 1056 x 1056, the solution has a 10-year hardware warranty, the company said.

One configuration, for example, is a UTAH-400 gateway router equipped with six Utah Scientific PassThrough cards and six standard input and/or output cards in a 72-frame configuration, which offers up to 72 SDI-to-2110 conversions or 72 2110-to-SDI conversions. In this instance, this capability is available a 72 x 72 SDI router, eliminating the need for multiple separate devices, Utah Scientific said.

Whether switching 2110 or SDI, the new configuration operates like a router, making 2110 routing as easy as SDI. It is configured to operate as either a core router in a SMPTE ST 2110/SDI hybrid solution or as a gateway and an edge device in an ST 2110 core. In the ST 2110 core, it serves as a bridge between SDI and 2110, also providing a traditional SDI router as a backup in case of emergencies, the company said.

The configuration ensures the system will continue to function if there is an interruption to the 2110 core, such as the switch control system crashing. The gateway router can work with other vendors’ SDI-to-2110 gateways or on its own, Utah Scientific said.

“We have seen and been involved with multiple 2110/SDI hybrid workflows,” Utah Scientific CEO Brett Benson said. “They all require gateway devices, and they all require some kind of emergency backup, ideally with control independent of the IP fabric. Why not have both in one product that also includes a 10-year hardware warranty?

“Whether a user is planning to keep SDI workflows or move to ‘all IP,’ the gateway router will provide conversion and peace of mind,” Benson continued. “Wherever they are in the transition to 2110, the gateway router fits. Plus, not only will it be there when users launch their 2110 systems, it will still be under warranty when it’s time to upgrade.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

As the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for NAB Show 2025 nears, it’s time once again for industry suppliers to put forward their solutions and tools for all things content, creation and monetization. AI is, of course, top of mind for anyone in the business of developing and marketing new technologies and will undoubtedly be a big trend to follow before, during and after the big event. But what about the ongoing transition to IP and the promise of greater flexibility, scalability and efficiency?

Not to worry, experts say, IP is here—and here to stay. In fact, according to the annual Big Broadcast Survey produced by industry research and analysis firm Devoncroft, IP networking and content delivery has ranked as the No. 1 most commercially important technology trend for four years running. It’s just that IP isn’t everywhere yet and likely won’t be for quite some time.

Not Just Plug ‘N’ Play
Going IP takes training, according to Stan Moote, chief technology officer for the International Association of Broadcast Manufacturers (IABM), the industry’s trade association for technology suppliers. “With SDI there are patch panels and one can trace/bypass the signal flow in an instant,” Moote said. “With IP it is an entirely different approach, and these skills must be learned.”

Like most innovations and technological transitions, the move to IP has been subject to circumstances and making the right decision based on your respective business goals. Whether you’re operating local, remote, on- or off-prem, using SDI, IP or a combination of both, there are definite challenges and benefits to every scenario.

“I’m super-positive on moving to IP because of the huge benefits,” Moote says. “Actually, though, in some cases, SDI may still make perfect sense, especially if the facility is small, has little interest in live remotes or scalability and has no concern about the constant need for different formats and flavors of both video and audio.”

What, then, can folks planning their NAB calendars expect to see? The benefits of IP seem to be making the largest impact in the production world in several different ways. One is by removing the limitation of distance inherent in SDI connectivity. Using the ubiquitous availability of IP networks to their advantage and leveraging cloud applications as well, broadcasters have incorporated IP into their workflows strategically to gain efficiency. Industry suppliers have countless ways to deliver efficiency with IP.

“There are definitely specific cases now where it’s obvious that IP provides a cost-effective option that didn’t previously exist,” says Imagine Communications Senior Vice President of Product Management John Mailhot, who received SMPTE’s 2024 David Sarnoff Medal for his work in developing the SMPTE 2110 standard.

“For years using SDI, the limitations of the geometry of routers became an impediment—there was constant fighting over who gets which router ports,” he says. “In IP, every single thing is hooked to the network and inherently routable.”

Flexible, Efficient and Infinitely Scalable
This key characteristic of an IP network not only creates enormous flexibility but also makes an IP-enhanced workflow almost infinitely scalable. Former SMPTE President Renard Jenkins, president of I2A2 Solutions and Labs, a technology consultancy and R&D lab focused on innovation, says he has seen this scalability have a tremendous impact on the creative process, as well.

“With video over IP, you can easily increase the number of inputs, which means that you can have better coverage for a single event … more cameras, more microphones, more inputs into your router then you would have if you were dealing with tons of copper cables,” Jenkins says. “This increase in content gathering, especially in live sports and events, allows you to have better, and more, coverage, which on the back-end allows you to create more engaging content and have better creative flexibility.”

This flexibility leads to more efficient workflow setups that enable users to configure their equipment based on the specific needs of one show and then easily reconfigure for another without the need to physically move wires.

One of the keys to capturing these efficiencies is by incorporating a workflow control and orchestration system that allows operators to easily manage a combination of traditional SDI signals along with IP. This is critical not only because the technology works so differently, but because there’s a skills gap—most broadcast engineers weren’t trained to operate within IP networks because they had traditionally been the domain of IT professionals.

Bridging the Gap
Mobile production leader NEP began adopting IP technologies into its workflows early and provided some unique insights in a case study recently published by Cisco Systems.

“We deliver a remote production, a centralized production, where we put product people in one place and we have cameras and lenses in another place across the wide area network—and we’re doing that basically every day,” Marc Segar, NEP Group’s senior vice president of technology, explains. “What we holistically want to do is use hardware wherever it happens to be, and for that you’re going to be completely reliant on the wide area network and the infrastructure you put underneath. But you can’t do that unless you can manage the network and you have control over the network and you have the right tools to be able to do that well.”

Adds Jenkins, “Control and orchestration tools, with an intuitive UI design, that bridge the gap between (networks built using) copper cable and IP networks—along with the knowledge that you need to understand how to operate in both spaces—is paramount for the growth of what we’ve begun to accomplish within our industry today.”

Many vendors will certainly have control and orchestration for IP and hybrid networks near the top of their “things to see” lists at NAB Show. Imagine’s Aviator Orchestrator is one example.

“What Aviator does is it uses ‘cloud-
inspired’ deployment and management mechanics to also deploy and manage applications on-prem,” Mailhot explains. “So, you can deploy on-prem or you can deploy to the cloud over IP. You can use things the same way and create the same on-air look and use the same playout chain.”

The importance of developing consistency in how these so-called hybrid networks are managed can’t be understated. Much as ST 2110 opened the door to interoperability and relatively smooth sailing in IP content transport, standards are needed to ensure the same can be applied to workflow setup and control. IABM and SMPTE are working together to bring this to fruition.

Moote says the IABM, in conjunction with SMPTE, has established a control-plane working group that is developing an open-source, open-standard approach to this challenge. Once it’s ready, a control-plane standard should provide a smoother road to incorporating IP into existing workflows, or new ones, that can easily scale for even the largest and most complex productions.”

Vendors and broadcasters alike are invited to check-in with IABM in the North Hall (N257) while in Las Vegas to learn more.

How’s this for irony? If there is one thing that’s constant in television technology, it’s that nothing remains static.

So, today’s mixed signal transport environment should be nothing new for seasoned video professionals. Whether it’s transport or any other aspect of television technology, things constantly change. That could be film to video, analog to digital, SD to HD, standard dynamic range to high dynamic range—the list goes on and on.

Those responsible for technology and those who control the purse strings in the Media & Entertainment Industry have learned to live with and thrive in this environment of change.

When it comes to signal transport—inside a facility, from the field to a facility, between facilities on a campus or even across facilities separated by many miles—the latest changes have spawned an abundance of options.

While established solutions for these applications, ranging from Serial Digital Interface (SDI) to point-to-point microwave and satellite transmission, are still relevant, the emergence of Internet Protocol (IP) transport is leaving its mark.

Today, protocols like SMPTE ST 2110, Network Device Interface (NDI) and Internet Protocol Media Experience (IPMX) offer additional ways to move signals around facilities and enhance workflows. Frequently those responsible for SDI-based facilities are looking at ways to add these transport options to enhance workflows and derive other benefits.

From the field, contribution leveraging IP protocols like Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST), Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) and others makes it possible to move IP packets to facilities over wireless and wireline networks. These same protocols also offer an efficient way to transport content between buildings on a campus, to remote studios and even to the cloud.

Add to these IP protocols continued development of SDI to address, for instance, the greater bandwidth demands of higher resolution video formats (i.e. 4K and 8K Ultra HD) as well as HDR and the sheer number of protocols and formats engineers and managers must consider can seem overwhelming.

To assist media professionals, Ross Video has published a new white paper, “The Ins & Outs of Today’s Signal Transport.” 

It presents in an understandable way the strengths and limitations of many of the most popular signal transport options available today. Readers will find an informative discussion of the fundamentals of these options, different use cases, the pros and cons of each and a look into where signal transport is headed. 

Written with a full understanding that many M&E businesses will be working in a hybrid signal transport environment for the foreseeable future, the white paper brings an objective perspective to an examination of how different signal transport options can be added to existing infrastructure to enhance today’s media workflows while positioning organizations for the future.

The white paper also includes handy charts that give readers an at-a-glance understanding of the key characteristics of different transport options.

Click here now to download the white paper.

MONTREAL—During IBC2023, Grass Valley will be demonstrating how the company’s critical signal processing, conversion,  and network management solutions enable customers to work more efficiently while also migrating their workflows to the integrated SDI/IP infrastructure of Grass Valley’s Agile Media  Processing Platform (AMPP). 

The company said that the demos show the flexibility of its solutions, which let customers use any combination of on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid approaches. Media enterprises can  select the architecture that best serves their needs today, and that seamlessly adapts to  accommodate their changing needs. 

Among the recent infrastructure additions is an integrated tally management option for GV  Orbit, the Grass Valley IP and SDI configuration, control, and monitoring solution.

This allows users to include tally management capabilities on the same server that controls all signal paths, and that provides configuration and monitoring in a single integrated view. Adding Tally Management to a server a client is already using saves rack space, cabling, power, and installation labor. 

“We’ve partnered with TSL to add GVO-Tally as an option within GV Orbit,” says Steve Bilow,  senior product manager, infrastructure software platforms for Grass Valley. “You don’t need  extra power, rack space, cabling, or installation labor to get a complete tally system that facilitates communication between Grass Valley Production Switchers, Camera tally lamps, and  the labels and properties on UMDs and multiviewer tiles.” 

GV Orbit also features many tools that simplify its use, the company reported. 

For example, it can discover all  connected Grass Valley and NMOS-compliant network devices and will display them  automatically in any of several available views. Rather than having to manually connect each device within a network topology, simply drag the sources you need to the main topology  display and “auto-provision” them. GV Orbit automatically connects all the links between your  IP switches, gateways, and IP devices, while still permitting manual configuration as needed. 

Grass Valley also reported that its drive for greater efficiency and simplicity is apparent in the latest introductions to the Kaleido multiviewer family. 

Kaleido-IP (KIP) already offers the largest number of simultaneous video and audio program decodes in the industry. That tradition of leadership  continues with the new top-of-the-line KIP-X240 1RU platform supporting up to 400G of IP  bandwidth. This breakthrough allows the KIP-X240 to monitor, probe and display up 100  uncompressed inputs with full 2022-7 redundancy, the company said. 

“Kaleido-IP already excelled in compressed workflows. With the KIP-X240 we now offer a  software-based solution that rivals the uncompressed performance of proprietary hardware offerings while maintaining the flexibility to support uncompressed or compressed applications on a single platform,” says Lee Buchanan, vice president of cameras and networking for Grass Valley. “The  KIP-X240 achieves this leap in performance while continuing to support the rich feature set the  industry has come to know. These include best-in-class signal probing and alarming, simple and  flexible layout creation and the Kaleido innovation of `any source, anywhere’ which allows nearly limitless replication and scaling of input sources.”

During IBC2023 at the Grass Valley stand, customers will also see the new MV-1200 Series Standalone and  Modular Multiviewers. 

The MV-1200 Series Multiviewers provide high-density and cost effective options for SDI multiviewing up to 12G. Standalone models include 16 or 32 inputs  with 4 output heads over SDI and/or HDMI in a 1RU form factor. Also available is a 3RU  Modular frame expandable up to 144 12G-SDI inputs with up to 16 output heads. 

There are also upgrades in the KudosPro converter line with the addition of ST 2110 IP  capability in the new ULC2000 and UMC1000 UHD framerate converters. 

Finally, Grass Valley also announced a significant investment in next-generation hardware  processing technology – part of a sustained focus on providing high-quality SDI- and IP-based  infrastructure products. The investment adds 25 additional R&D resources to accelerate  advancements in Densité modular processing, while enabling the continuing development of  advanced hardware products. 

With over 40,000 frames shipped to date, the Densité modular system comprises a wide range  of frames and cards, including the XIP Agile Processing Platform. The XIP hosts software-defined  applications, including JPEG-XS encode/decode, ASI/IP gateway and up/down/cross conversion for SDI/IP workflows. Grass Valley’s IBC demonstrations will include a 5th generation ST 2110  IP/SDI gateway application running on the XIP Platform. 

To see how Grass Valley’s latest network orchestration, multiviewer, routing and signal  conversion products are driving the transition to ST 2110 while maintaining full integration with  SDI, visit stand 9-A01 at IBC 2023 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre between  September 15th and 18th.

More information is available at grassvalley.com.  

SDI is on its way out, right? I mean, anything that’s been around for three-plus decades in the television industry must be either in a museum or just waiting for the final switch to be turned off. Right?

In an industry that has had its technology turned on its head and disposed of at astonishingly fast intervals, somehow the Serial Digital Interface has been one of the few islands in a churning sea of change. First standardized in 1989 as SMPTE 259M, SDI was created to support uncompressed standard-definition television at data rates up to 360 Mbps. It was immediately accepted in high-end products and systems, and eventually found its way down to lower-cost products—as just one example, today you can get an SDI-to-HDMI adapter for less than $40.

Not Dead Yet
Over the years, SDI was modified surprisingly quickly to adapt to changing television standards. Today, the latest version is known as 24G-SDI (SMPTE ST 2083), which supports 4K video at 120 fps and 8K video at 30 fps, using a data rate of 24 Gbps.

Is that enough? As other connectivity options push their way into television systems—and as a new crop of technology specialists with their roots in the IT world become broadcast engineering managers—will SDI’s sunset come anytime soon?

“I remember being at IBC years ago and seeing signs with the slogan ‘SDI is Dead’ or something to that effect,” said Todd Riggs, director of product management at Ross Video. “While eye-catching and a bit of marketing fun, obviously that was an exaggerated statement that has proven to be inaccurate. I don’t believe we will see the end of SDI any time soon, as it is still the dominant transport for most customers worldwide and easiest to deploy.”

Ross Video is a major manufacturer for the broadcast industry, and Riggs has a window into the company’s product planning.

“Manufacturers are still spending a lot of money in R&D to develop new and very powerful products using [SDI] as the primary transport,” he said. “There are certain workflows and system designs that will become more and more IP- or cloud-based, as they lend themselves really well to those topologies. However, I think we are going to live in a hybrid SDI/IP world for a very long time.”

High Comfort Level
Other manufacturers see the same thing.

“SDI still plays an essential role in providing A/V connectivity for many broadcast facilities and mobile production trucks,” said Deon LeCointe, director of networked solutions at Sony Electronics. “Although the industry is already in the midst of implementing IP and cloud technologies for various applications, there’s still a high comfort level with using SDI for ad-hoc applications like flypacks, where the simplicity of SDI allows for faster deployments with minimal configuration.”

And there are additional factors that endear SDI to video facility operators.

“When it comes to professional workflows, SDI is fast, reliable, secure and never buffers,” said Bob Caniglia, director of sales operations for the Americas at Blackmagic Design. “This is especially important in television facilities and broadcast studios where live programming means professionals can leave nothing to chance.”

Yet, we all know that SDI is not the only connection standard in the broadcaster’s toolkit. 

The strongest competition probably comes from SMPTE ST 2110, which defines how professional media can be distributed over managed IP networks. The SMPTE ST 2110 standard specifies the carriage, synchronization, and description of compressed and uncompressed video streams over IP for real-time production, playout and other professional requirements.

Since SMPTE is the standardization body for both SDI and ST 2110, it makes sense that the two standards play well together. Yet as the use of ST 2110 grows, some in the industry see that there is nowhere for SDI to go but down. John Mailhot, CTO and director of infrastructure product management at Imagine Communications, has thought about how the end of SDI might happen.

“SDI will continue for as long as the supply chain produces the transceivers and crosspoint chips—ultimately that will be the limiting factor,” he said. “As SDI use declines over time, some of these chips may become harder to get.”

Mailhot sees ST 2110 as the technology of choice for larger facilities, especially if UHD or HDR is in the requirements.

“The ability to scale to very large, and to integrate best-of-breed offerings across the spectrum of vendors makes ST 2110 a winner,” he said. “[Where there is] a need to integrate some SDI equipment, our Selenio Network Processor has a high-density synchronizing gateway application that allows customers to integrate SDI and IP. This provides a path into IP at a pace that suits the customer’s overall system strategy.”

Yet, not everyone is positive that a future of ST 2110 and IP connectivity is coming quickly.

It Simply Works
“SDI is definitely NOT winding down,” said Joshua Vanarnhem, product manager for routers at Evertz. “We are seeing an increase in SDI router sales, and we are still actively developing SDI solutions and products to answer the needs of our industry. For example, our latest SDI router—the NEXX—leverages the latest technology and provides a full-featured routing platform to meet the demands and workflows of an enterprise-class routing system. Yet it still maintains the simplicity of SDI, where customers can just plug in their SDI input or output and are good to go.”

Vanarnhem pointed out the benefit of SDI that makes it still highly useful in a world where technology specialists so often sing the praises of network topologies: SDI is simple.

“Simple is a great word to explain SDI, as it just simply works,” he said. “Simply plug one wire for one signal; simply patch in a waveform monitor to troubleshoot, and simply be able to meet all the industry’s functional workflow needs. SDI can simply support SD, HD and all the way up to 12G for UHD. HDR? No problem.”

What we can make of this is that SDI is still here, it still works, and it works at the highest-quality signal levels used in professional facilities today. Manufacturers are not only still making SDI products, they are designing new SDI products to meet the growing and changing demands of modern television production and distribution. That a 34-year-old technology is slugging it out and still relevant is impressive—it speaks to the good work done by SMPTE and its technology groups.

So many things have disappeared since SDI was first standardized: SD broadcasting, CRT displays, cameras with tubes, robotic devices that used a grabber arm to pull a videotape from a rack and feed it into a player. And remember necessities like timebase correctors, proc amps and delay lines? They have all vanished into the cloud of modern video production and distribution… which is often described as “in the cloud.”

However, SDI is still with us, modified along the way to keep pace with our rapidly improving quality and production standards. It would be interesting to know if the product that was once marketed using the slogan “SDI is Dead” is still being made. Wouldn’t it be ironic if that product struggled and died, while SDI is still meeting the needs of broadcasters?

MONTREAL, Quebec—Matrox has announced four new multi-channel SDI video input and output (I/O) cards in its broadcast OEM developer card lineup. 

Featuring full-height and low-profile cards supporting up to four and eight I/O channels, these new 12G/6G/3G SDI cards enable broadcast equipment manufacturers with more I/O variations to build a wider range of broadcast graphics systems, channel-in-a-box platforms, and capture/playout video servers.

“Recognizing that the push to IP is strong, Matrox also sees many workflows in the broadcast and media space where SDI is the answer,” said Francesco Scartozzi, VP of sales and business development, Broadcast and Media Group at Matrox Video. “Whether it be 12G/6G, or even 3G-SDI, with this new lineup, we are enabling our broadcast customers with the flexibility needed to face the new landscape.”

Matrox X.mio5 12G and Matrox DSX LE5 12G cards provide broadcast OEMs with unprecedented multi-channel, reconfigurable 12G/6G/3G SDI I/O to support various HD and 4K workflows, the company reported.

The new full-height and low-profile SDI cards include:

• The X.mio5 12G/8 card providing 4x 12G/6G inputs and 4x 12G/6G outputs or 8x 3G-SDI reconfigurable SDI I/O to operate simultaneously on a single full-height, half-length card. X.mio5 12G/8 also features on-board multi-channel HDR conversions, motion adaptive de-interlacing, pristine scaling, and powerful compositing engines for high-density 4K video processing.
• The DSX LE5 12G/8 card offering 4x 12G/6G inputs and 4x 12G/6G outputs or 8x 3G-SDI reconfigurable SDI I/O to operate simultaneously on a single full-height, half-length card
• The DSX LE5 LP 12G/8 card delivering 4x 12G/6G or 8x 3G-SDI reconfigurable SDI I/O to operate simultaneously on a single low-profile, half-length card
• The DSX LE5 LP 12G/4 card enabling 4x 12G/6G/3G reconfigurable SDI I/O to operate simultaneously on a single low-profile, half-length card

The company also reported that the Matrox DSX SDK is designed to provide the reliability and stability required for demanding on-air broadcast operations. A unified architecture that is common across all Matrox SDI I/O, ST 2110 NIC, and H.264 codec cards, the DSX SDK supports key functions—including file reading/writing, memory management, and a range of file formats, codecs, and effects—to facilitate an agile development effort. A prototyping tool is also available to rapidly simulate and test use cases without writing a single line of code.

The new Matrox SDI I/O cards are now available for shipping. 

For more information visit https://www.matrox.com/video.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Live production over IP is not exactly a new idea—the SMPTE ST2110 standard for IP video was finalized in its present form in September 2018—but time has allowed manufacturers and producers to figure out the best practices. This means that SDI is now not the only accepted technology for interconnecting equipment for a live production system.

Increasingly, broadcasters and remote truck operators are opting for IP systems to handle the signals in their new facilities.

“IP certainly provides the same levels of reliability and quality as traditional SDI workflows, thanks to significant advances made in IP platforms and IP-based solutions,” said Marco Lopez, general manager for live production at Grass Valley. “IP workflows unlock unprecedented flexibility and scalability, with many world-leading broadcasters already recognizing its transformational potential.”

Lopez pointed out that NBC Sports recently upgraded its Stamford facility with an IP-first infrastructure, while earlier this year several media enterprises delivered live production for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics over IP, including NBC Olympics and Discovery Eurosport.

“But this doesn’t only apply to fixed facility live production,” Lopez said. “We’re seeing the increased adoption of all-IP workflows from multiple mobile production companies, including NEP, Game Creek Video and All Mobile Video.”

STANDARD OF CHOICE
SDI has been the interconnection standard of choice for broadcasters and production trucks, and there is no denying the reliability the made-for-television standard has had over the years.

However, there have been several SDI upheavals as the standard adjusted first from standard definition to 1.5G HD to 3G to 6G, and most recently to 12G connection speeds. Moving up to the next generation of SDI usually meant new cable and connectors, not to mention replacing the gear where the cable and connectors terminated.

“Even though SDI is still being specified for new installs, it is safe to say that IP is the protocol of choice for greenfield projects and broadcasters that want to leverage the advantages of future-proof decentralized, distributed (remote) production, combined with centralized production and processing resources in affordable, off-premise areas,” said Andreas Hilmer, chief marketing officer for Lawo. “On the whole, SDI is today chiefly used for small-sized facilities and small- to medium-sized OB trucks.”

Given the resounding success of continent-wide or even continent-hopping remote production setups for events watched by billions around the globe, Hilmer said that few broadcasters will argue that IP is less reliable than SDI. Most agree that it is more convenient, thanks mainly to reduced cabling efforts. 

“Using SDI-to-IP gateways can turn the migration from SDI to IP into a gradual process, allowing broadcasters to keep using their SDI equipment (cameras, switchers, etc.) until it reaches end-of-life,” Hilmer said.

ALREADY PROVEN
Although IP broadcast standards will probably adjust over time as well, it is starting out with the ability to support 4K live broadcasts, and has already proven itself at several high-profile live events. The current maximum speed with copper cables is 10 GbE (10 Gbps), which requires Category 6 or 6a cables. For faster speeds than that, fiber cables must be used for 25 GbE, 40 GbE and 100 GbE.

In concert with faster data speeds available with IP production systems, there has also been a lot of work in signal compression to reduce the data needs while maintaining image quality.

“4K Ultra HD over IP technology is reliable for live production,” said Ronan Poullaouec, chief technology officer at AVIWEST. “[We have] two new products: the RACK400 4K Ultra HD encoder and the PRO460 4K Ultra HD and 5G transmitter, which are both dedicated to live production. Both these products support 4K UHD and multicamera workflows for up to four HD, fully frame-synced feeds, as well as the latest generation of H.265/HEVC and H.264/AVC compression standards.”

Cameras have jumped on the IP production bandwagon as well. For example, the Grass Valley LDX100 and LDX150 NativeIP cameras connect over a standard SMPTE hybrid fiber cable and also have IP functionality that can provide uncompressed or compressed streams.

You can go live with IP connectivity with much more modest cameras—cell phone cameras, for example.

“The integration of incoming IP feeds from any device anywhere is now seamless and easy to implement with Avid’s MediaCentral|Stream for contribution over bonded cellular, Wi-Fi, 4G/5G, and standard internet,” said Ray Thompson, senior director for partner and industry marketing at Avid. “For media companies using any camera, backpack unit [LiveU, TVU, Sony, Dejero, etc.], encoding device [Teradek, Haivision and more] or mobile device, contribution into the MediaCentral platform production environment is as easy as sending an SRT or RTMP stream.”

IS CLOUD A CHEAPER OPTION?
An interesting possibility to arise in the last couple of years is the option of doing a live production in the cloud. There are services and products that allow for switching, editing and quality control from the cloud, with a minimal layout of equipment.

“Live production in the cloud is bringing a new level of flexibility to different types of playout workflows,” said Jérémy Krein, product manager for live video and graphics solutions at Dalet. “With production tools hosted in the cloud, it is now easier and cheaper to produce a live broadcast directly from the event location. A cloud production environment is also faster to deploy and does not impact the on-premises infrastructure. With such solutions, customers can spin up new channels quickly to deliver specific events.”

Krein pointed out that, with cloud platforms being accessible from anywhere, disaster recovery can be better addressed. If there was a major interruption on-premises, production workflows in the cloud can provide program continuity.

The security of working in the cloud might deter the timid, but Krein stated that the right design will be secure.

“Disruption is always a possibility so it’s important to plan appropriate redundancy and protection,” he said. “A well-planned solution architecture is critical to ensure security in a cloud playout workflow. For added security, cloud infrastructure can be part of a virtual private network, separate from public networks and protecting all network connections via SSL.”

Time and chance may happen to all, but the race generally does favor the swift. Broadcasters that embrace IP production will find it is faster to create, revise and target their offerings.

“Broadcasters should absolutely be planning and using a cloud-based workflow for on-air events,” said Jared Timmins, senior vice president of solutions at TVU Networks. “It’s more reliable, flexible and less labor-intensive than traditional workflows. It also allows for business model experimentation, such as tailoring a channel toward a specific demographic or area of interest. You don’t need to wait years to amortize equipment costs—with a cloud-based workflow you can make new content decisions and monetize content in a way you can’t in a fit-for-purpose world.”

STANDARD FOR LARGE OPERATIONS
Timmins said that live production over IP is not only available today, it is the standard for large-scale operations.

“The cloud is now, not in the future,” he said. “We’ve had solutions that address this for at least two years, with our TVU RPS synchronized multicamera remote production and TVU Producer cloud-based live production tools. Virtualization is so advanced that every large-scale production now uses cloud-based tools to some extent. Who’s touching what equipment for remote production is being completely re-imagined.”

The rapid growth in capabilities of computers and the networks to which they are attached has revolutionized how big productions are structured. At the moment, the savings in time and expense really makes sense for the largest operators. However, tools for small-to-medium program producers will fall, as cloud capacity grows and costs decline.

The Museum of Once-Popular Broadcast Technologies needs to start preparing a space for SDI—probably right next to 1-inch recorders and standalone character generators. 

 Newbury, UK—Phabrix has released a V4.3 software update for its Qx and QxL hybrid IP/SDI rasterizers that adds a multitude of new supported formats including RGB SDI and ST 2110 IP standards support as well as a unique and comprehensive 2110 IP Generation Toolset.

Phabrix CEO Phillip Adams noted that “this new software is the first in an intense six-month release roadmap. With a new powerful ST 2110 IP generation toolset, and a huge quantity of new SDI and IP standards supported, the Qx Series offers our customers a future-proof technology investment to stay ahead of the rapidly changing IP environment.”

The Qx Series is available in two platforms, the Qx and QxL, both with a common look and feel, providing an accessible user interface and intuitive toolsets for full operational flexibility and easy migration from an SDI to an IP centric operation, the company reported. 

The flexible architecture of both the Qx and QxL offers in-field license upgrades for SDI-UHD/4K, HDR as well as engineering grade data view and ANC packet inspection tools.

A factory fitted hardware option provides RTE real time SDI eye and jitter analysis with the further option of a highly advanced SDI-STRESS toolset. 

The Series’ comprehensive feature set supports HD/3G/6G/12G-SDI, 10G/25G IP interfaces, and HD/UHD, IP SMPTE 2022-6, SMPTE 2110-10/20/30/31/40 with ST 2022-7 and AMWA NMOS.

For more information see: www.phabrix.com/

Four or five years ago, an exhibitor at IBC booked a lot of poster spaces for a sticker that read, in very large letters, “SDI must die.” Well, that is one view.

SDI is an incredibly successful interconnection technology. It has been adopted universally for digital video, and—within its limitations—it works very well indeed. It has served the industry for more than 30 years and has evolved over that time with a 40x increase in capacity. 

Because of this, there is a vast wealth of equipment installed in production and delivery facilities around the world, which talks to other pieces of equipment through these one-signal-per-wire coaxial SDI cables. SDI equipment works.

ESTABLISHING THE GROUND RULES

Throughout my long career in broadcast, I have learned one universal truth: If a piece of equipment still has an ounce of life left in it, a broadcast engineer will not throw it out. SDI hardware—and SDI itself—still works.

So, my first point is that, despite what some might say, we are not facing a war between the old guard of SDI and the new kids doing IP. Those kinds of words are attention-grabbers on the walls of busy convention centers, but this is not the reality on the ground. It is now time for the right conversation, about how SDI and IP fit into our future plans.

The second point I make anytime I can is that while sometimes we use the term “IP” for convenience, what I really mean is equipment and architectures conforming to the SMPTE ST 2110 standard, and more broadly―the AIMS roadmap. As the editor of the standard within SMPTE during its development, I am personally committed to ST 2110. But ST 2110 is the future because it is an agreed standard that the industry has comprehensively backed, and it has been proven through hundreds of high-profile projects.

THE MEDIA INFRASTRUCTURE EVOLUTION

So, if SDI works, what drives a need for IP/2110 in media infrastructures? It is an enabling technology: a new tool for doing things that stretched the bounds of SDI historically.

I noted earlier that SDI works well within its limitations. By that I mean it handles signals up to HD (1080p) very well, with excellent cable reach and plenty of fiber options. Beyond that, there are limitations—12G SDI for UHD is a great interconnection within a rack or a flypack, but the reach is a bit shy for a big facility. Additionally, the scalability of 12G SDI routing systems is limiting for a large facility. As content production and distribution evolves into UHD and HDR at scale, SDI will not do it for us without causing problematic workarounds.

The nature of SDI crosspoint routing has some built-in breakpoints. If you have designed a system around, say, a 288x288 SDI router, then as sure as the sun rises in the morning, someone will discover a pressing need for a 289th source. Once again you are facing workarounds and production limitations. Then someone will need a 290th source, and so on. Meetings are held and shouting matches happen over the allocation of router ports in an SDI facility.  

One of the widely acclaimed benefits of SDI is that it carries audio embedded in it, so it stays together and stays in sync―which is fine in parts of the media workflow where the audio is actually tightly bound to the video. But in production, the audio is just as often produced separately, and then reunited with the video right at the end of the chain. 

So in the production workflow, you have to add a stage that pulls the audio streams out of the video, maps them into (typically) MADI transport and takes them out to the audio room. Mixing and merging alongside all the other audio processes happens there, and then back through MADI to re-embed the audio streams (hopefully still in sync and only a little bit late) in every place where you need to hand off video with audio.  

The complexity of embedders and de-embedders—the care, feeding and constant tweaking of delays—is the reality of daily life in production today. It’s a source of unnecessary complexity that translates into errors and scaling challenges. 

REAL ESTATE ECONOMICS

SDI with embedded audio is clearly the evil we know, but it’s still sometimes nefarious. When do we need to think about changing up? Where does the conversation around IP start?

The decision to build out new facilities from scratch at greenfield sites is often driven by real estate economics, workforce considerations and other non-technical factors. Today, there are many new, large-scale production and delivery facilities around the world designed to operate at a scale and interconnectedness that would have been unthinkable with SDI alone. Even the typical new “large” OB trucks being built today have staggering numbers of sources and destinations and a need to support UHD and HDR―requirements that push well past the limitations of SDI.

If you are starting with a blank sheet of paper, like these projects did, then you have to consider what will and could happen in the future. Consumer transmission of UHD, for example, feels a long way away—until it’s not. But just like the early days of HD (while consumers were still viewing 99% of content in SD), UHD for production is here today, with the collateral benefits of higher resolution, improved gamut and HDR. Producing in UHD and HDR makes a better original, even if the distribution is “only” HD. Content produced in UHD and HDR today will have a longer repurposing life, into more formats than HD, while looking better getting there.

DELIVERING ACROSS PLATFORMS

Talking of online, any new production facility will not just be creating and delivering material to a linear broadcast channel. Viewers expect to be able to watch over-the-air or on the device (and resolution) of their choosing, either as it happens or whenever they want to watch. That means multiple outputs and multiple versions—and would have required an explosive growth of router ports in a traditional SDI workflow.

All said, for any new facility, one must guess what the future holds and then be reasonably ready for it. SMPTE ST 2110-based IP works today and passes the test of being reasonably ready for UHD, HDR and scale-up.  

There is another column on the scorecard for flexibility. In SDI, equipment is frequently built into “chains” to reduce the number of router ports. But in an IP environment, everything connects through the switches, so every interconnection point is essentially a routing point—maintenance and sparing can become a route-around. Reorganizing to a new workflow is just routing. 

At least it is when you have an ST 2110 architecture. Rather than being bound by a fixed number of crosspoints and a limited number of roads leading back to the router, you have a network topography that can reasonably grow and is bound by bandwidth, not switchports. The separation of video, audio, timing and data signals sharing a common fabric enables each device to only get the signals it needs for a given job.

EVEN GREENFIELDS ARE NOT ENTIRELY GREEN

Every operation today needs to have an opinion about UHD and how they could do it. Special projects can crop up that will likely require UHD or HDR at some point soon. Special projects beget special channels, and soon the experiment becomes the requirement. Recent global events have caused some delay, but it seems inevitable that one day, some sports rights-holders or high-profile events will insist on coverage in UHD and HDR. ST 2110 provides the infrastructure capability to meet the demand.

But here is the important point. As broadcast engineers, thinking ahead and anticipating the emerging requirements is part of the job—the idea of adding capabilities to existing infrastructures has always been at the heart of what we do. And we can still do that.

For greenfield projects, the scale and possibility of SMPTE ST 2110 architecture is manifest—but even greenfield sites are not entirely green. For economic reasons, even greenfield projects tend to bring in some legacy kit, e.g., we might have bought a new set of studio cameras only a couple of years ago. 

Greenfields are a luxury, not the norm—infrastructure refreshes and upgrades are the reality—and indeed a real necessity. A common approach is to add ST 2110 islands and beachheads as you redevelop your legacy architecture, gradually moving toward IP, but interconnected with the SDI plant of today. All this works perfectly well, because SMPTE designed ST 2110 to make interoperability reasonable with SDI.

TIME FOR A NEW METAPHOR

The war metaphor between SDI and IP was never appropriate. I am certain there will still be significant amounts of SDI equipment in operation the day I retire from this industry. But television engineers are not afraid of the new—in fact, television engineering over the last 30 years has been a constant integration of new technologies and development of “new normals.” 

Today, ST 2110 technology is widely available from all the vendors you are likely to deal with, and it is field proven—not a science experiment. Major systems integrators the world over all have experience in building systems based on SMPTE ST 2110.  At this point, there is plenty of expertise to lean on, but ultimately it is down to you. 

What are your requirements? How much flexibility do you need to build into your architecture decisions? What combination of SDI and IP is appropriate for your next project? Answering these questions will help you maximize the life of your SDI investments and transition to IP at whatever pace works with your business.

John Mailhot is CTO & Director of Product Management, Infrastructure & Networking, Imagine Communications and is on TV Tech’s 2021 “Watch List.”

YOKOHAMA, Japan—A a series of updates have been added to Leader Electronics products, including enhanced IP measurement and enhanced measurement of SDI.

The boost in IP measurement has been added to Leader’s LV5600 waveform monitor and its LV7600 equivalent rasterizer. The video over IP measurement function, which is specified in SMPTE ST 2110 and SMPTE ST 2022-6, provides nine extra tools:

• Buffer measurement based on SMPTE ST 2110-21; 
• Packet error and packet jitter insertion to the IP test signal generator; 
• Addition of lip-sync test pattern to the SER32 option; 
• IP to SDI conversion insertion of payload ID;  
• Simultaneous display of ports 1 and 2 packet jitter and PTP measurement; 
• Event log displayed in PTP time; 
• PTP grand master clock information displayed from the PTP announcement message; 
• Graph data, like packet jitter and PTP, are output as a CSV file; and 
• Audio and ANC displayed on the ST 2110 packet jitter graph 

The toolset is available as a free downloadable upgrade.

Leader has also introduced a new plug-in for the LV5600 and LV7600, the SER31, which provides enhanced measurement of 12G/6G/3G/HD-SDI. With this, operators can check chroma levels beyond the BT.709 or DCI-P3 gamut, simplifying the identification of reproduction errors that can occur when transmitting video content produced in BT.709, DCI-P3 or BT.2020 wide color gamut, or when converting content from BT.2020 to narrow color gamut.

In addition, enhanced measurement of SDI is being introduced for all five models of Leader’s ZEN series that provides two new tools. The first is a BT.709-compatible vector scope scale for color bars to be checked easily and can be used in BT.2020 and BT.709 video content production. The second is enhanced support for EIA-708/608 closed-caption data in 4K, with support for 3G-SDI quad-link and 12G-SDI. This is also available as a free download.

For more information, visit www.leader.co.jp/en.  

Stand A41-7, NATEXPO, Russia, 5-7 November 2019: Cinegy, the global leader for broadcast playout software on premise, hybrid and in the cloud, will demonstrate its award-winning Cinegy Air PRO, Cinegy Capture PRO , Cinegy Multiviewer, as well as Cinegy Desktop and Cinegy Newsroom on the Bavarian Pavilion at NATEXPO in November.

Cinegy products can process mixed SD, HD, 4K/UHD and 8K formats - as well as handle HDR - for capture, playout, monitoring, news, editing, or MAM. All technology being shown at NATEXPO is available immediately.

In addition, Cinegy has now optimised its entire product line to be 8K-ready and deployed in the cloud. One of the early adopters of the open source SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) protocol, Cinegy has SRT baked into all technology, including the license, which removes any concerns about whether users have the legal right, proper subscription, or adequate bandwidth to deploy the software.

“We are proud of our reputation in this region and always value NATEXPO as a good opportunity to meet with existing, as well as new customers”, explained Tanya Zolotuskaya, Sales Manager, Cinegy GmbH. She added “This is an exciting time for our technology which matches the ambition of broadcasters in the region”.

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About Cinegy
Cinegy develops software solutions for collaborative workflow encompassing IP, capture, editing and playout services tools, integrated into an active archive for full digital asset management. Either SaaS, virtualizable stacks, cloud or on-premises, Cinegy is COTS using standard IT hardware, and non-proprietary storage technology. Cinegy products are reliable, affordable, scalable, easily deployable and intuitive. Cinegy is truly Software Defined Television. Visit www.cinegy.com for more details.

Media Contact:
Jennie Marwick-Evans
Manor Marketing
jennie@manormarketing.tv
+44 (0) 7748 636171

Stand 14.D10, IBC 2019, RAI, Amsterdam: Intinor Technology, Sweden’s leading developer of products and solutions for high quality video over IP networks, has announced that ESL, the world's largest esports company, has deployed a combination of Intinor’s Direkt router, Direkt router lite, and Direkt receiver units to cover its linear broadcasting needs.

ESL wanted to move away from a rigid managed service model for traditional linear broadcasting and expand its internal distribution workflows for the web and, for the first time, take care of linear broadcasts internally.

ESL Director of Streaming, Steven Jalicy, said, “We wanted a solution that could dynamically scale and deliver high quality and high reliability without generating out of control service costs and technology bottlenecks. Furthermore, we wanted the future capacity and potential to merge our online and linear workflows into a single ecosystem.

“To achieve this, we needed a hardware system that was protocol and service agnostic. Something we could build into our own infrastructure and workflows to deliver traditional linear content to traditional linear takers, but deploy it using the same concepts that have been so successful for ESL when it comes to delivering content to our core audience on online platforms. Intinor was the perfect partner for this project.”

Intinor’s solution for ESL was to use a combination of Direkt router, Direkt router lite, and Direkt receiver units. The receiver units enable ESL’s takers to receive content via IP transport, which then breaks out to an SDI output that conforms to the respective traditional broadcast standards required. The routers enable ESL to contribute and distribute content from live events directly to takers worldwide and are the backbone of the deployment as they handle SDI source inputs onsite; perform live video encoding; process IP contributions; and ensure content distribution across the vast ESL network.

With the Direkt system, ESL can now directly manage and operate its own linear content distribution network without an expensive managed service, and without investing in the traditional infrastructure and hardware that would normally be required for linear content delivery.

Additional benefits include the ability to use Intinor’s proprietary Bifrost Reliable Transport (BRT™) protocol for 100 percent redundant transport over the public internet while also staying flexible and agnostic with options for RTP, HLS, RTMP and SRT protocols. Owning the hardware also enables ESL to integrate Intinor technology with ESL’s own workflows, which can then deliver key functionality for innovative broadcast concepts without increased costs for services and development.

Jalicy added, “Set against a backdrop of an almost impossible deadline - we had to go from fundamental design, through proof of concept and then onto a full scale deployment in less than four weeks - Intinor has been a great partner throughout this process and we will soon deliver our first live event using the new Intinor system, which takes place 28th-29th September 2019, live from the Barclays Center, New York. This represents just the beginning of our plans and we are confident that Intinor technology is going to play a crucial role in ESL’s continued innovation in the live broadcast space.”

Intinor CEO Roland Axelsson said, “We are delighted to have delivered such a robust and well-received Direkt system for ESL that eliminated their need for an external, restrictive, and expensive managed service provider. Having freed them from such hold-ups, we very much look forward to even more exciting applications and deployments for both companies.”

ESL will feature prominently in The IBC Esports Showcase on Tuesday 17 September, which will include information and discussions on entry into esports and managing the complexity of production through to the seamless technical delivery of an esports broadcast.

Intinor will feature the Direkt router, Direkt router lite, and Direkt receiver on Stand 14.D10 during IBC 2019.

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About ESL
Founded in 2000, ESL has been developed into the world’s largest esports company leading the industry across the most popular video games with numerous online and offline competitions. It operates high profile, branded international leagues and tournaments such as ESL One, Intel® Extreme Masters, ESL Pro League and other top tier stadium-size events, as well as ESL National Championships, grassroots amateur cups and matchmaking systems, defining the path from zero to hero as short as possible. With offices all over the world, ESL is leading esports forward on a global scale. ESL is a part of MTG, the leading international digital entertainment group.

About Intinor
Intinor develops its own products and comprehensive solutions for high quality video over IP networks. With solutions for contribution, as well as for distribution and web TV, Intinor has customers ranging from small production to major television channels. Intinor also work as consultants with product development and has extensive experience in developing custom-designed systems to meet specific needs. For more information, visit www.intinor.com.

Company Contact:
Martin Weber, European Sales Manager
Sales and Marketing
+49(0)176-231 322 65
+49(0)8122-84 700 59
martin.weber@intinor.se

Media Contact:
Jennie Marwick-Evans
Manor Marketing
jennie@manormarketing.tv
Phone: +44 (0) 7748 636171

IBC 2019, 13-17 September, Stand 7.A01: Cinegy, the global leader for broadcast playout software in the cloud, has announced that it will showcase the full scope of its 8K recording, capture, archive, and encoding capabilities during IBC 2019.

On its IBC stand, Cinegy will feature the eye-popping Sharp 8M-B80AX1E 8K displays, the first 80-inch 8K professional display to be mass produced. The Sharp 8M-B80AX1E has 33 million pixels (7680 x 4320), four times that of 4K UHD and sixteen times the resolution of full HD.

Cinegy CEO Jan Weigner said, “Earlier this year we announced that our entire software-defined television product range is now 8K capable. We had an opportunity to thoroughly test and confirm those capabilities on Sharp’s new 8K displays at their Hamburg offices.

“We connected a small PC running our Cinegy Player 3 software and played 8K clips that had been filmed by a Sharp 8K camera and the results were astonishing. I can confirm that Sharp’s 8K displays are the only ones to date that legitimately display a true 8K picture using existing NVIDIA graphics cards on a Cinegy software-powered PC or workstation.”

Peter Heins, Senior Product Manager, Visual Solutions, Sharp Information Systems Europe, further clarified, “We are proud to be working with Cinegy, showcasing our latest addition to Sharp’s 8K ecosystem. We are delivering on our vision to charge the world with 8K, offering resolution that transforms our ability to display reality and Cinegy is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this vision. The new 80-inch 8K display will support new and exciting business applications that rely on ultimate image precision and clarity, and we look forward to seeing the benefits of our collaboration with Cinegy.”

In addition to showcasing real-time 8K imagery on its stand, Cinegy will also feature other 8K-ready products that are expanding Cinegy software’s appeal in enterprise IT and professional AV markets.

Weigner added, “All of this is to clearly illustrate, rather than just talk about, the fact that working in 8K from end to end – in real time - has never been easier. Affordable 8K SDI cards are readily available, Sharp’s display is the current 8K benchmark, and our software, in combination with our Daniel2 GPU codec, eliminate any obstacles to 8K production. Furthermore, by bringing the Daniel2 codec to Adobe Premiere for Windows and Mac, we open up the world of 8K production to millions of existing Adobe users.”

Cinegy will demonstrate its 8K capabilities on in Hall 7, Stand A01 during IBC 2019. For more information, visit www.cinegy.com

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About Cinegy
Cinegy develops software solutions for collaborative workflow encompassing IP, capture, editing and playout services tools, integrated into an active archive for full digital asset management. Either SaaS, virtualizable stacks, cloud or on-premises, Cinegy is COTS using standard IT hardware, and non-proprietary storage technology. Cinegy products are reliable, affordable, scalable, easily deployable and intuitive. Cinegy is truly Software Defined Television. Visit www.cinegy.com for more details.

About Sharp Information Systems Europe
Sharp Information Systems Europe (SISE) is a division of Sharp Electronics Europe, which offers a unique portfolio of award-winning document management and display solutions to help organisations transform the way they engage with information. Sharp’s industry-leading MFPs and large production systems sit at the heart of integrated applications for digital transformation, while our display solutions include innovative video walls, digital signage displays and interactive flat panel displays for collaborative presentations. Our mission is to develop new products that support individual expression; creating life enhancing experiences that let you be original. For more information, please visit www.sharp.eu


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AMSTERDAM—When it comes to production needs, Crystal Vision may just have an app for that now. The company plans to showcase a series of new software apps designed for its Marble-V1 media processor hardware that can offers services that include video delay, synchronization, color correction, IP to IP processing and gateways; different versions of the apps are available for those working in IP, SDI or mixed SDI/IP environment.

Eight of the apps that Crystal Vision is unveiling at the conference are video delays. They are available with different numbers of channels (single or dual) and delay lengths as well as SDI, IP or both SDI and IP connectivity; all include a framestore synchronizer. The Vivid1-IP and Vivid2-IP app offer IP connectivity with the apps handling single (Vivid1-IP) and dual (Vivid2-IP) channel IP video delay. Then there are the single-channel Vivid1-SDI and dual-channel Vivid2-SDI that introduce as SDI video delay to the Vision frame system while offering an upgrade path to IP. The remaining four apps (Vivid1-SDI-IP, Vivid2-SDI-IP, Vivid1-IP-SDI and Vivid2-IP-SDI) work in mixed SDI/IP environments. All these apps can match any 3Gb/s, HD or SD extended delay systems, while the single-channel versions provide 800 frames of video delay and the dual-channel provides 400 frames of video delay.

Crystal Vision will have eight other apps on display that are tasked with color correction, and like the video delay apps are available in single- or dual-channel and can work in IP, SDI or a mixed environment. The apps are COCO1-IP, COCO2-IP, COCO1-IP-SDI, COCO2-IP-SDI, COCO1-SDI-IP, COCO2-SDI-IP, COCO1-SDI and COCO2-SDI. All eight apps include RGB gain, RGB lift, YUV gain, YUV lift, video gain, chroma gain, chroma hue and overall and individual RGB gamma adjustment.

All of the apps that have IP connectivity work with SMPTE ST 2022 with future upgrade to ST 2110 video.

In addition to the apps, Crystal Vision will display its new Cleanit video and audio profanity delay system, which allows for up to 20 seconds of delay for live content, and the Safari 3 real-time chroma keyer that supports resolutions from SD to 1080p.

Crystal Vision will be located at stand 2.B59 during IBC 2019, which will run from Sept. 13-17 in Amsterdam.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—Broadcast facilities are now commencing what many believe will be a global transition from current digital (SDI) infrastructures to an all “IP-based (network)” facility. Not since the migration from analog to digital in the 1990s, has the industry experienced such a change.

On the surface, the transition seems logical, expected, and maybe even straightforward, given the level of IP/IT-integration already present at many facilities. Yet under the hood, both IT and broadcast technical professionals are in for a paradigm shift in concept, facility design and support practices.

This two-part article discusses the issues associated with next-generation IP-based facility design. The topics are not going to detail the transport of media over long distances nor the practices involved with file-based workflows, storage transfers or even OTT—which all use components of IP in an IT-domain. Instead, this article explores what broadcast and IT professionals will need to know about their future commitments to next-gen network-centric infrastructures.

CURRENT IP MEDIA PRACTICES

Professional media environments provide multiple means for moving video (i.e., compressed-files or streaming media) from point A to point B. Those points might be across the campus, between cities, to arbitrary distribution points—or anywhere between. In most applications, signal transport of the audio/video is a compressed video format of which there are dozens available. Some formats are highly compressed for Internet delivery and others are mildly compressed contribution- quality, e.g., from sporting venues to studios or for production integration prior to broadcast.

Manufacturers’ products for compressed media transport prepare the data for the subsequent stages in the content production chain. Few (if any), provide a means to transport uncompressed, high-bit rate content end-to-end over the network. This article doesn’t address the discussion for the absence of this form of transport.

With that preface, we’ll focus on the latest applications for high bandwidth, real-time, live broadcast production using IP over a media-centric network.

HIGH BIT RATE–UNCOMPRESSED VIDEO TRANSPORT

Broadcast production is beginning to use new capabilities for the transport and manipulation of high bit rate (HBR), uncompressed (UC) signals over an IP-network topology. These applications are specifically for live/real-time production activities. Recent SMPTE standards (ST 2022-6 & -7 and ST 2110 published year-end 2017), alongside industry forums and initiatives are driving new technological efforts that will reshape the broadcast facility.

“Internet Protocol” (IP) network technologies are already in use at many media facilities. The approaches are applicable to file-based workflows, data migration, storage and archive, automation and facility command-and-control. Previously, these weren’t necessarily called “IP.” Once the capabilities for UC/HBR video transport came about; that nomenclature evolved. Now, it seems, “everything” is IP, irrespective of how that terminology is applied to which application.

With that said, we’ll set the stage for what is happening in the future, and that ‘future’ is now.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT—IT CHANGES EVERYTHING

IP is a “set of rules (“protocols”) which govern the format of the data sent over the internet.” For broadcast or studio facilities, “internet” is more appropriately called the “network.” Essentially, the application of certain constrained IP technologies will fundamentally address the facility infrastructure changes associated with studio/ live media-production and their content-chain processes going forward.

Designing and building an IP facility will require a renewed technological approach to IT-networking accompanied with a new mindset compared to those for traditional SDI-facilities. To comprehend what it takes to design, build and operate the IP-based professional media facility, an understanding of what “real-time” (RT) IP is and how it is differentiated from conventional SDI implementations (including file-based workflows or data storage) is necessary.

One key-target in this will be to keep “audio and video (over IP networks) acting precisely the way it does in an SDI-world” without the burdens or constraints of traditional SDI infrastructures. Fundamentally, facilities will leverage the advantages of network-based IP/IT structures for agility, flexibility, cost, and extensibility/expandability.

WHERE ARE THE DIFFERENCES?

SDI, born out of standards from the 1980s, was intended to permit transport and synchronously switch audio/video from source to destination without disturbances and to mitigate the generational quality issues associated with analog video and audio. The isochronous nature of SDI is straightforward for live, continuous video inside the studio and for long distance transport. However, these capabilities are not as easily accomplished in a file-based, non-real time, or streaming media environment.

Frame-accurate (undisturbed) transitions with compressed video, while somewhat possible in streaming media, is generally accomplished using peripheral equipment which essentially receives compressed video, then decompresses it to a “baseband” (SDI) form, where then seamless transitions from A-source to B-source are completed (Fig 1). Resulting signals may again be compressed to another format depending upon the application.

[Read: SDN: Not Just Another Three Letter Acronym]

These processes each take time, adding latency to the non-real-time chain. It is impractical for most live applications to cleanly switch sources and maintain timing and synchronization.

Program videos on YouTube or Netflix leverage sophisticated receiver buffering techniques or will make use of adaptive bit-rate (ABR) streaming functions to keep their “linear delivery” as seamless as possible to viewers. However, the ability to provide live and glitch-free source-by-source video possible is curtailed due to GOP (group of pictures) issues and compression/decompression latency.

For professional media IP systems—real-time/live signals, on a network, are transported over isolated, secondary or virtual networks (VLANs). For live and real-time, HBR signal transport, new network topology and timing rules must be adhered to. These “rules” (protocols) are defined in SMPTE ST 2110 and/or ST 2022 which include applications of IETF RFCs as defined in the new standards.

DIFFERING DATA TRAFFIC STRUCTURES

Another key point in understanding next-gen facility design is that differing data traffic types are not (generally) mixed on the same VLAN/network. Packet structure and formatting is different per each data type’s intended uses.

Real-time transport networks are conditioned to carry HBR traffic. Packets from senders (transmitters) are constructed based on IETF RFCs (Fig. 2) such as “real-time transport protocols” (RTP) and “session description protocols” (SDP); and supporting IEEE and SMPTE standards. Coupled with conditions identified in the SMPTE ST 2110 or ST 2022 standards— timing, synchronization, latency and flow control is managed so that the transport of media packets over professional media networks is possible.

One differentiator from previous IT-like network designs is that HBR traffic must run continuously at non-wavering data bit rates. File-based and streaming media is intended to, or can run at variable data rates. The data is likely to be randomly delivered and is often “bursty” in nature. In file-based transport, data from senders need not “arrive” at receiver input(s) in an isochronous (time bounded) nature. Streaming media acts in a similar fashion with fluctuating rates that are stabilized at the receiver end. Buffer sizes, connectivity bandwidth and variable file-data rates are accepted in these applications—but cannot be tolerated in real-time HBR applications.

In streaming media delivery, occasional interruptions or “buffering” is expected. That is a non-starter for live real-time video which must be synchronously time-aligned to allow for real time seamless switching.

Thus, a major difference in facility design is in how the various “network” segments are thought of. With that said, we’ll set the stage for what is happening in the future, and that “future” is now.

System designs now include distinct considerations for real-time and non-real time signal flows. Real time management and flow control associated with the endpoint peripheral devices must be “orchestrated” and will differ from non-real time delivery. File-transfer, storage and/or file-based workflows will likely reside on a different, less constrained network (segment).

Part one has now introduced broadcast and IT professionals to the differences and conditions associated with IP-centric professional media transport for studio and live operations. In part 2, we’ll discuss how next-gen design for IP-facilities differ and what engineers will need to know about their future in a multicast IP world.

Karl Paulsen is CTO at Diversified and a SMPTE Fellow. He is a frequent contributor toTV Technology, focusing on emerging technologies and workflows for the industry. Contact Karl atkpaulsen@diversifiedus.com.

LUXEMBOURG—Broadcasting Center Europe is a leader in media services, system integration and software development for television production and post production, radio, telecommunications, and IT. Our current facility houses a staff of more than 200 and we serve about 400 clients in various sectors that include television channels, radio stations, film distributors, producers, advertising companies, telecommunications operators, and public services. Core to the business is providing playout for more than 35 different television channels.

However, with different customers, come different demands.

What we see in our industry today is a continuously changing landscape in terms of technologies expected by our clients. Specifically, we are seeing a growing need for OTT and 4K capability.

SIMPLE AND COMPREHENSIVE

To meet these needs on the technical operation, system maintenance and support side we wanted to provide a flexible and high-end system that not only delivered the product, but could accurately synchronize and monitor critical points along the workflow. To make this a reality we built what we believe is the world’s first installation—in terms of size and scope—that is fully video-over- IP based and built on the SMPTE 2022-6 standard with SMPTE 2022-7 utilized for redundancy.

The company that helped us build out this impressive and exciting workflow is Tektronix.

The reality is that mixed SDI/IP environments still exist, and as such we are using existing SDI equipment hooked into the IP infrastructure through gateway converters. What we needed for this type of setup was a monitoring solution that worked across multiple types of feeds, as well as a team that wanted to partner with us long term and who understood the complexity of the service we are offering. In short, we needed a simple and comprehensive approach to monitoring our feeds.

Tektronix is a leading-edge partner in critical operations such as synchronization and monitoring, and they were thrilled to provide the technology to monitor our system. We worked with them to implement multiple features, including the capability for Black Burst timing for the SDI infrastructure and for a PTP Grandmaster interface. However, the most critical component of the build was the addition of the Tektronix PRISM.

The PRISM provides us with visibility, analysis and monitoring across the entire network through real-time IP/SDI media monitoring. The analysis platform provides objective information that our teams can trust is accurate as we strive to produce error-free content.

SOFTWARE-BASED ARCHITECTURE

Further, the system is built around a software-based architecture for easy upgrades to meet our growth requirements, and to keep up with the constant state of evolution in our field. With PRISM we don’t have to worry about being outdated as we continue to grow and update to cutting edge technologies. The software-based build also means we can access the system through a web interface at any workstation. Monitoring for potential video issues is now an undertaking that can be completed from anywhere on the network.

Taking it a step further, we were able to fully customize the system we use through the PRISM API. With Tektronix we have a specific tool to meet our specific needs.

The PRISM solution has saved us a ton of time in our network deployment, and we know if we ever have any problems we will quickly get the feedback necessary to fix the issue through easy to understand graphs and displays.

Tektronix strongly contributed in the success of our full video-over-IP workflow. Working on the cutting edge of broadcast technology, it is paramount to work with reliable partners.

Costas Colombus is the technology projects and support director for Broadcasting Center Europe in Luxembourg.

For more information, visitwww.tektronix.comor call 800-833-9200.

NANJING, CHINA—Magewell has introduced the Pro Convert SDI 4K Plus, a low-latency encoder that converts up to 4K Ultra HD signals into full-bandwidth NDI streams.

"Many video professionals would like to take advantage of the flexibility and efficiency of IP-based production but have significant investments in SDI equipment such as cameras,” said company CEO and CTO Nick Ma. “Pro Convert SDI 4K Plus helps them maximize these investments by providing an easy-to-deploy and reliable bridge between their existing products and the thriving NDI ecosystem."

The new converter supports video up to 4K at 30 frames per second with embedded audio over a 6Gb/s SDI interface, the company said.

The Pro Convert SDI 4K Plus automatically detects input format and performs DHCP-based network configuration, making manual setup unnecessary, Magewell said. Once a video source is connected to the encoder, its signal is converted automatically at its native resolution and frame rate.

SDI loop-through enables the input signal to be sent to additional equipment simultaneously without the need for splitters or routers, thereby enabling users to establish an IP workflow without disrupting their existing traditional video infrastructures, the company said.

The new product has an intuitive browser-based interface, which provides access to status monitoring and advanced settings, giving users greater control over the conversion process.

Up/down/cross-conversion, de-interlacing and image adjustments are performed directly within the hardware.

The Pro Convert SDI 4K Plus offers a ¼-inch, 20 thread for use with standard camera-mounting accessories and preview and program tally lights to indicate when the NDI output stream is being use by another application.

Power can be supplied via Power over Ethernet (PoE) or the included power adapter.

More information is available on the Magewell website.

CHAMPAIGN, ILL.—At the 2018 NAB Show New York, Cobalt Digital will demonstrate the 9904-UDX-4K-12G UHD 12G/3G/HD/SD-SDI up/down/cross-converter, the company’s latest generation of advanced image and audio processors for the openGear platform. The base card provides quad 3G-SDI and 12G-SDI I/O with SDI muxing and demuxing and up/down/cross-conversion. Options include RGB color correction and SDR-to-HDR up-mapping via Technicolor’s HDR Intelligent Tone Management (ITM) processing.

Also on display will be Cobalt’s new 9971-MV18-4K series of openGear multiviewers. These support the latest signal types with a high-density modular design that can be expanded as required. The MV18 is equipped with 18 4K 12G-SDI auto-detect inputs, which the company says can be scaled as needed across a full 3840 x 2160 UHD raster output.

The 9992-ENC-4K-HEVC H.265 Streaming Encoder for openGear will be demonstrated. The platform supports quad 3G-SDI and 12G-SDI inputs and is also configurable as a multichannel encoder (up to four channels) for 1080p60 signals and below using MPEG-2, H.264 or HEVC, with all channels using the same compression standard.

The new Cobalt Digital OG-PC computer card is an x86 computer on an openGear card. The OG-PC takes advantage of the redundant power and cooling features of the openGear frame. The card’s modular form-factor saves on rack space by replacing bulky 1RU PCs.

Cobalt Digital will be on the show floor in booth N626.

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PITTSBURGH—Networking for media professionals continues its evolution as the broadcast industry gradually and incrementally moves from serial digital interface (SDI) infrastructures to one steeped in the world of Ethernet, IP, and software based managed.

With the 2017 year-end publication of SMPTE ST 2110—the new standard for IP video over a managed network—engineers, network administrators and broadcast technicians are now faced with learning how to address the growing features and capabilities found in a managed, high-bit-rate, real-time professional media network environment. Having the necessary tools at their fingertips, along with the understandings of how to build, operate and manage these systems using commercially available, common off-the-shelf hardware, will be essential in helping these new users adapt to a paradigm shift in the way media transport, at a stream/flow level, operates.

AMWA, NMOS AND SDN

In harmony with the physical network topology comes the software-based control and management platform we’ll be using in the future. Solutions such as those developed by the Advanced Media Workflow Association and identified as NMOS (Networked Media Open Specifications) Interface Specifications IS-04, IS-05, and IS-06 are built upon the foundations of software-defined-networking or “SDN.”

This overview introduces SDN and how it fits with IP video in a professional media network. The term SDN is not the marketing term augmented with extra letters and used by several manufacturers to describe their control/management solutions. Instead, and more succinctly, SDN is associated with the wide-ranging concepts for the network infrastructure and managed operations. In this context, SDN offers capabilities for the identification, registration, and flow management of the network—in its entirety. The principles of SDN therefore apply to the entire network and not just to controlling specific devices or components that live on that network.

ST 2110 standards clearly address the physicality of the network from the interoperability perspective. It ensures that those devices residing on the network can successfully send and receive packets in an unconstrained manor. None of the ST 2110 standards contend with the control or application planes of the network. Hence, significant work is still needed to achieve useful interoperability and automation in professional networked media environments.

MODELS AND BEST PRACTICES

In 2013, several industry bodies came together to formulate the Joint Task Force on Networked Media (JT-NM), which was tasked with coordinating how network control mechanisms and applications planes might be addressed. JT-NM’s output was the formation of a “reference architecture” (RA) for interoperability (i.e., “JT-NM RA”).

At its most basic level, the JT-NM RA identifies models and best practices for what may be needed at four layers: operation, application, platform and infrastructure. Those resolutions and their development are entirely software-based and bring forward the roots of SDN.

SDN is an emerging architecture that is dynamic, manageable and cost-effective and can adapt to the environment in which it is applied to, making it ideal for the high-bandwidth, dynamic nature of today’s applications. SDN is applicable to high-performance computing (HPC), asset management, to transaction management, and to media-centric environments—such as those found in the ST 2110 standards.

What is fundamental to SDN is that the architecture decouples the network control and forwarding functions, enabling the network control to become directly programmable (i.e., “programmatically enabled”) with an underlying infrastructure which is abstracted for applications and network services (Fig. 1).

SDN architectures are directly programmable. In other words, network control is directly programmable because it is decoupled from the forwarding actions found in other conventional network systems.

TRAFFIC FLOW

SDN by nature must be completely agile. By abstracting control from the forwarding elements, administrators can dynamically adjust the traffic flow on a network-wide basis. This means the administrator (which is likely an automation solution versus a human) can adjust the flow of the network traffic to meet changing needs. For example, if the network traffic flow for a signal system is built up for a 3G (1080p60) data packet flow, it means up to three 3G signal flows can be provisioned on a single 10G link. Should another signal be requested to flow through the same port, over-subscription (connecting multiple devices to the same switch port to optimize switch use) would occur. SDN would have knowledge of these limitations and reroute (as necessary) the traffic through an alternate, less congested port. Ideally this is done automatically, with the user never knowing the flow attributes or paths. Switches become an agile, flexible component of the overall network—something that in traditional networking might require reprogramming at the switch-console level.

Programmatic configuration is another key component in SDN. This allows network administrators the ability to configure, secure, manage and optimize all their resources quickly and dynamically. Utilizing automated SDN applications, programs which users can write themselves (or “interfaces” like those in NMOS) no longer depend on proprietary software or hardware controllers, such as those required in traditional SDI-video matrices. Configurations now become “vendor neutral” and applicable to multiple switch vendors, end-point devices and other resources. Fig. 2 summaries what SDN is and is not.

CLOUD-BASED

SDN need not necessarily be associated with cloud computing services; albeit most cloud services depend upon SDN to automate and manage their own resources dynamically. Essentially, SDN replaces those “static architectures” found in traditional networks, decentralizing the hard-set nature of the network and allowing for a flexible, adjustable and extensible architecture—further promoting the differences previously expected from the traditional SDI-video routing solutions.

Karl Paulsen is CTO at Diversified and a SMPTE Fellow. He is a frequent contributor to TV Technology, focusing on emerging technologies and workflows for the industry. Contact Karl atkpaulsen@diversifiedus.com.

The most commonly cited advantage of deploying IP video networks in production and other operational applications is the ability to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) IT-based infrastructure, which takes advantage of the economies of scale of the IT industry when compared with the relatively small broadcast industry. Additional advantages include reduced cabling cost and weight along with the much greater routing flexibility that offers more flexible production options. These advantages have captured the industry by storm and broadcasters are already working on early deployments of IP video networks. Not far behind deployment is the need to efficiently diagnose and resolve faults.

As I discussed in a previous article, Implementing a Hybrid IP/SDI Production Infrastructure, IP introduces new technical and skills challenges. These include jitter, latency and the risk of dropped packets and network asymmetry which results in different path delays upstream and downstream.

Deploying IP for video production applications is effectively the collision of the two worlds of video engineering and network engineering. Video engineers are comfortable with the use of SDI, coax., patch panels, black burst and tri-level for timing and above all, monitoring signal quality. The challenge for the video engineer is to understand IT technology and impact of an IT infrastructure on the video.

On the other hand, network engineers are familiar and comfortable with, IP flows, protocols, network traffic, router configuration and Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and Network Time Protocol (NTP) for timing. The biggest difference however is that in most data center applications, lost data can be re-sent—this is not the case with high bitrate video. The challenge for the network engineer is in understanding video technology and its impact on IT infrastructure.

OVERCOMING JITTER

In any digital system, jitter is any deviation from the regular periodicity of the signal. In IP networks jitter is the variation of the packet arrival interval at a receiver. If the network routers and switches are all configured and operating correctly, the most common cause of jitter is network congestion at router/switch interfaces.

The application within a network element will likely require the data to be received in a non-bursty form and as a result, receiving devices adopt a de-jitter buffer, with the application receiving the packets from the output of this buffer rather than directly. As illustrated in Fig. 1, packets flow out of the buffer at a regular rate, smoothing out the variations in the timing of the packets flowing into the buffer.

Fig. 1: Packet jitter is deviation from the periodicity of the packet arrival interval.

The rate of packets flowing out of the de-jitter buffer is known as the “drain rate.” The rate at which the buffer receives data is known as the “fill rate.” If the buffer size is too small then if the drain rate exceeds the fill rate, then it will eventually underflow, resulting in stalled packet flow. If the sink rate exceeds the drain rate, then eventually the buffer will overflow, resulting in packet loss. However, if the buffer size is too large, then the network element will introduce excessive latency. 

Jitter can be measured by plotting the time-stamps of the packet inter-arrival times vs. time as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2: Packet inter-arrival intervals plotted versus time

This is useful to identify variances in jitter over time, but it is also useful to be able to plot the distribution of inter-arrival intervals vs. frequency of occurrence as a histogram. If the jitter value is so large that it causes packets to be received out of the range of the de-jitter buffer, then the out-of-range packets are dropped. Being able to identify outliers such as the example in Fig. 3 helps to identify if the network jitter performance is either likely to or already the cause of packet loss.

Fig. 3: Packet inter-arrival intervals plotted vs. frequency of occurrence

A series of packets with long inter-arrival intervals will inevitably result in a corresponding burst of packets with short inter-arrival intervals. It is this burst of traffic, that can result in buffer overflow conditions and lost packets. This occurs if the sink rate exceeds the drain rate for a period of time that exceeds the length of the remaining buffer size, when represented in microseconds.

ESTABLISHING DE-JITTER BUFFER SIZE

To establish the necessary de-jitter buffer size, an alternative form of jitter measurement known as delay factor (DF) is used. Delay factor is a temporal measurement indicating the temporal buffer size necessary to de-jitter the traffic.

In IP video networks, the media payload is transported over RTP (real-time protocol). One form of DF measurement takes advantage of the fact that the RTP header carries time-stamp information which reflects the sampling instant of the RTP data packet. This is known as “time-stamped delay factor” or TS-DF (as defined by EBU Tech 3337) and represents temporal buffer size in microseconds as shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4: TS-DF represents temporal buffer size in microseconds.

The TS-DF measurement is based on the relative transit time, which is the difference between a packet's RTP timestamp and the receiver's clock at the time of arrival, measured in microseconds. The measurement period is 1 second, with the first packet at the start of the measurement period being considered to have no jitter and is used as a reference packet.

For each subsequent packet, the relative transit time between this packet and the reference packet is calculated and at the end of the measurement period, the maximum and minimum values are extracted and the Time-Stamped Delay Factor is calculated as:

TS-DF = D(Max) – D(Min)

FINDING ROOT CAUSES

To establish root causes, it is necessary to understand whether visible impairments are being caused by IP errors or if some other fault is causing the impairment. Fig. 5 shows how a network monitoring tool can be used to track time-correlated video and IP errors. This is made possible by correlating the time stamps of the video errors and the RTP packet errors.

Fig. 5: Time-correlated video and IP errors

A video CRC error does not in itself confirm that the video is impaired, making it desirable to use traditional monitoring methods such as picture and waveform displays as well as audio bars.

Fig. 6: Traditional video monitoring and audio bars are useful in confirming errors.

TRACKING PTP ERRORS

Device clocks in IP video networks have no inherent concept of system time, so precision time protocol (PTP) is used to synchronize these clocks. The most recent version is IEEE 1588-2008, also known as PTP version 2 with the SMPTE ST 2059 PTP profile being specifically intended for broadcast applications.

In effect, PTP provides a genlock functionality equivalent to that delivered by black burst or tri-level sync in SDI networks. The overall PTP network time server is referred to as a “PTP grandmaster,” with devices that derive their time from PTP being referred to as “PTP slaves.” PTP grandmasters are usually synchronized to GPS, GLONASS or both.

For the foreseeable future, many video networks will use a combination of SDI and IP. To allow frame-accurate switching between SDI and IP derived content, it is essential that the timing of the Black Burst/Tri-Level Sync is not offset relative to the PTP clock.

This is achieved by measuring the timing offset between the PTP clock and BB/Tri-Level Sync and then making any necessary correction by skewing the SDI syncs with reference to the PTP clock.

Fig. 7: Measuring the time relationship between BB/Tri-Level and PTP

A FINAL CONSIDERATION

In live production applications, network experts may not be present on the production site and networking equipment also may not necessarily be in a location that is easily accessible. It is desirable that any diagnostic equipment can be controlled remotely by network and video engineers.

Fig. 8: Remote control ability enables on-location access to network expertise.

An all IP infrastructure is the vision for most broadcasters around the world and is already starting to happen in many facilities. The reality is however that the transition won’t happen overnight leading to the need to manage hybrid SDI and IP infrastructures, and thus a need for IP and video engineers to work closely together to ensure seamless operation and quickly track down faults.

Paul Robinson is a 29-year veteran of the test and measurement industry. In his current role, Paul is CTO for Tektronix’ Video Test Business focused on developing test, measurement and monitoring solutions aimed at the enabling the deployment of digital television and helping to bring IP video products and services to market. 

Paul joined Tektronix in 1986 as an Applications Engineer and has held a wide variety of senior roles within the company both in Europe and the U.S. Paul started his professional career in the broadcast industry and prior to joining Tektronix, he worked for the BBC as a senior systems engineer. Paul has a B.Sc. in Applied Physics and a DUniv from Buckinghamshire New University.

LOS ANGELES—This is the second installment of a contribution from Jim DeFilippis on SDI versus IP. For Part 1, see “Which Switch is Which?”

DELAY and JITTER
The second tale-of-the-tape issue is delay or latency. There is delay in every device and process. It comes from the fact that electrons move at a fraction of the speed of light and that it takes more power—which generates heat—with each increase in clock speed, so to lower the power and heat, devices convert serial video (data) to parallel video (serial-parallel conversions).

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. Depending on the switch design, the traffic load, and the packet size, the performance required in terms of packet loss dictates the buffer sizes. Smaller packets mean less total buffer but require an increase in the processing speed of the switch. Larger packets may require less processing speed, but necessitate larger buffers due to their size.

We assume at least a buffer large enough to handle multiple packets, like three or four. The statistics of real-time video are also a challenge for an IP switch. Most IP data traffic packet arrival times are assumed to be uniformly distributed from minimum to maximum delay (Poisson). However, in live video, the packet delivery rate at each port is a constant. Worse, because many of the video signals are synchronized, the packet arrival times will bunch up and may cause collisions resulting in dropped packets. Video statistics don’t mesh well with typical IP switches designed to carry small randomly spaced packets of asynchronous data, not the firehose-like torrent of live video.

What will be the resulting delay? There is usually a minimum delay quoted for an IP switch, which is the lightly loaded case, and a maximum delay, which is the total buffer lengths. There maybe multiple buffers in a large, staged switch). Thus, the delay will be variable but bounded. The packet delay is on the order of 5-15uS. By the way, if a packet can’t get through the IP switch within the maximum buffer delay time, it will be dropped, i.e., a lost packet.

In SDI terms, this variable latency is known as ‘jitter’. The variable arrival times of the packets to an end receive device (such as a production video switcher or effects unit) will require not only re-alignment in terms of plant synchronization (because that’s still required to do a clean cross fade or insert a graphic overlay) but will also need to re-sample and re-clock the reconstituted video signal to remove the jitter. If the overall delay variation is within a fraction of a TV line time (15uS for 1080p60), typical video equipment will be able to handle this variation. If the packet delay exceeds a TV line time, it could result in effects similar to a non-synchronous switch.

SDI has jitter, but on a much smaller scale (1-5nS). SDI signals may be offset in time from the production switcher video reference, but the offset will always be consistent and stable.

FUTURE PROOFING
There is no doubt that upgrading a SDI router to increase the port bandwidth is a forklift type of operation. The general expectation is that an SDI router will last through a typical plant lifetime of seven to 15 years. The promise of an IP switch solution is that it is future-proof from the outset; that the routers can be upgraded by software, that they have no intrinsic limitation other than the physical maximum bandwidths and port count as discussed in Part 1. If today, there are affordable IP switches available with excess capacity, then the future is covered, right?

Well, two things to consider. One is that the half-life of IP devices is somewhere around 18 months to three years. Within that half-life, it may be possible to upgrade or expand the system. After the half-life period, there are new better models, usually at a lower cost/higher performance point. So if the future use is not within the half-life of the IP switch design, it may be better to right size the IP switch and wait for the next development cycle. Or just install a conventional SDI router.

The other point to take into account is that the only way an IP switch can compete with an SDI router, port for port, is to overdesign the switch and the switch fabric. (I’ll leave IP switch topologies for a future discussion.) When the future requirement comes up, say UHDTV, it may push the overdesigned IP switch to its limit, and may not meet the original performance specs for delay, jitter and packet loss.

Another future-proof concept that has been proposed is to use mild, low-latency video compression. A 4:1 reduction of bandwidth means a current 1080p60 plant can handle a UHDTV signal. However this adds the cost and complexity of encoding/decoding at all points in the signal flow, including monitoring points. This might be a stop-gap solution. In the history of serial digital and live production, mezzanine compression for signal distribution has not taken hold in the long run.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Having laid out a few of the issues, it should give us pause to consider carefully these two alternatives. How soon will a video production facility have to implement live video requiring more than 3Gps? What advantages and disadvantages will an all IP switch fabric represent? Will the IP vendor support the product including upgrades and for how long?

We know SDI routers work and do the job it was designed for. IP switches do what they do very well for what they were designed to do. It’ll be some time and effort until we know how IP switches perform in the fast paced world of live TV.

When the director calls for camera 3, will there be a signal for the TD to punch it up on line?

We’ll see.

One last thought. A chief technology officer from a well-known broadcast equipment vendor said in a presentation the other day that, “We have to make IP work because that’s what they are teaching to future engineers in schools today.” So we best be prepared for IP eventually.

P.S. As I wrote this article, I wondered, ‘What is the IP equivalent of a SDI Distribution Amplifier?” Thoughts? — jd

LOS ANGELES—I’m sure you’ve heard about how everything is going IP e.g., Internet of everything. Even live (real-time) video signals are going IP. Sure, SMPTE 2022 has been around for a while and gee, IP switches that can do 10 or 25 Gbps are available, with 40 Gbps just around the corner, so why not? Isn’t this the smart choice?

So I thought, let’s compare the two technologies. For now, I’ll frame this discussion based on 3 Gbps SDI and 10 Gbps IP switches. First, I’d like to describe what a traditional SDI router is designed to do:

• Deliver serial digital input signals, one per input port to one or more output ports;
• Provide consistent delay and performance, no matter how many active signals are being routed and switched; 
• Provide deterministic switch times.
  

Now what is an IP switch designed to do:

• Manage multiple input and output ports;
• Keep track of all routing table entries (network status);
• Process or sort IP data packets and deliver to appropriate next routes.
  

So it seems these are two devices have differing use cases. Yes, in fact, the technology and protocols for each were developed for different use cases and thus have evolved as a best fit for the applications intended.

So why try to put a square peg in a round hole? Proponents of video-over-IP will say that commercial-off-the-shelf hardware reduces overall costs. They’ll also say that IP technology is the prevalent technology in general use, thus more R&D results in more innovation and future improvements. It’s also available from many large and small manufacturers, and offers flexible design of large switch fabrics.

Not to refute these points—as they are true—the key question is what should we be skeptical of? If major industries, including manufacturing, transportation, telecommunications, commerce and banking, have adopted IP, why not real-time video production?

TALE OF THE TAPE: BANDWIDTH
Let’s tell the tale of the tape. The first tale of the tape I’d like to address is bandwidth. Not just the port bandwidth or the internal processing bandwidth, but the total aggregate bandwidth (TAB) of each solution. For SDI, it’s fairly simple:

TAB = (No. of Input Ports) x (No. of Output Ports) x port bandwidth

As an example, a typical large plant video router is now a 1024 x 1024 3G SDI router with a TAB of 3.15 Pbps. That’s 3.15 million Gbps. This bandwidth is available, on command, finite and deterministic.

Of course, not all of these Gbps are in use all the time. In fact much of the time, the video signals maybe color bars! But when called for, there is never a delay or limit to any input going to any output.

From the IP side, bandwidth is a bit more difficult to calculate. What is typically specified in an IP switch is the “line rate;” that is, the physical interface maximum data bandwidth that can be either input or output from the port or ports. But this doesn’t give us the TAB or throughput of the switch. There are many factors that go into the throughput of an IP switch, such as backplane bandwidth, processing speed, buffering and to an extent, the power supply.

One major IP switch vendor’s specification for a large enterprise IP switch—16 slots, 10 Gbps per slot—can handle a maximum aggregate processing bandwidth of 320 Gbps. Each slot can be equipped with different line cards, but for our discussion, let’s assume a 4-port 10 Gb Ethernet card. So we have the possibility of a 64x64 (4x16x2) video switch, with a TAB of 320 Gbps. This works out to just under 3 Gbps per port, input or output. By the way, this switch occupies 7 RU with a maximum power consumption around 4.5 kW.

For comparison, a SDI 3 Gbps 64x64 router fits in a 4U frame, consumes 0.25kW and has a TAB of 12.3 Tbps.

So far, it seems SDI is a better value in terms of TAB, power and size.

(Continued in “SDI vs. IP: Packet to Packet.”)

SAN ANTONIO—NewTek is offering users a choice for how they utilize the TriCaster Mini multimedia studio with new HD-SDI hardware. The newly launched TriCaster Mini HD-4 sdi provides the option between an SDI I/O and portable HDMI version of the TriCaster Mini.

TriCaster Mini HD-4 sdi

With the addition of the HD-SDI hardware, broadcasters can use the TriCaster Mini to produce multi-camera content from anywhere using SDI cameras. It can also convert to HDMI without adding adapters. The SDI version also provides longer cable runs and professional-standard BNC connections that lock in place.

The TriCaster Mini HD-4 sdi is now available for $9,995. NewTek will also demonstrate the new model at booth 7.K11 during IBC 2015, which runs from Sept. 11-15 in Amsterdam.

The Tektronix MTS4EAV7 HEVC/AVC Video and Compressed Audio Analyzer PC-based software package provides deferred time analysis of encoded video and audio elementary streams.

PADUCAH, KY.—It doesn’t really matter what is broken these days, it’s either deemed disposable or worthy of repair. Certainly with broadcast and media facilities, viewer QoE (Quality of Experience) and budget bottom lines are equally important. Whether it’s at a transmitter site, in the field, in the studio, at the tech core, at the end of a CDN, or edit suite, there are always problems about to pop up.

When those problems occur, someone has to identify the problem, notify someone, or resolve the issue. At those times, guessing just won’t work. Fortunately, test and measurement manufacturers are pushing their technologies ahead, just as other manufacturers, and in some cases, a bit faster.

For SDI, 4K and real-time video test instruments vary from WFM/vector to rasterizers, as witnessed by the recent release of Leader’s LV 7390 four-channel 3G/HD/SDSDI multistandard rasterizer that can measure up to four SDI signals simultaneously, and is compatible with 3G-SDI, HD-SDI and SD-SDI. At the 2015 NAB Show, Leader also unveiled the FS 3102 analyzer, which can perform real-time checking of up to four HD-SDI or SD-SDI signal streams, and for 4K, Leader offers the 5490 waveform monitor.

INCREASING ARRAY OF FEATURES

Leader Instruments LV 7390 four-channel 3G/HD/SD-SDI multistandard rasterizer
Paul Robinson, chief technology officer for Tektronix said that for broadcasters and related media, SDI is still going strong. Many later model Tektronix SDI WFMs in the field have the backbone for 4K built in, they just require a few firmware upgrades to accept the quad link cabling, according to Robinson. “For quad-link, timing is critical for proper operation,” he said. For transmission, Tektronix offers the Sentry product line for QoE/QoS.

In addition to manufacturing monitors with built in WFM’s and audio metering, Marshall has recently introduced the Titan 4K Generator, which has been very well received, according to Devan Cress, director of broadcast sales AV for the El Segundo, Calif.-based company. “The unit is currently HDMI only, but SDI is coming as an option in Gen 2 [scheduled for October release], along with a larger preview screen.” Marshall is also adding IMD [in-monitor display] for their WFM feature, allowing both video and WFM/audio metering to be viewed at the same time on their monitors.

Triveni Digital is no stranger to IP and file-based workflows, according to Ralph Bachofen, vice president, sales and marketing for the Princeton Junction, N.J.-based provider of monitoring technology. “Triveni will be offering video over IP management tools,” he said, adding that IP will fit right in, not only with the next-generation ATSC 3.0 standard, but with bandwidths exceeding 10 Gbps, of particular interest to cable providers. For today though, test tools like the StreamScope with closed-caption compliance measurements are as popular as ever, and very scalable, according to Bachofen.

IMPACT ON THE VIEWING EXPERIENCE
Tektronix’s Robinson said while SDI is still going strong, IP is gaining traction. IP “is the new way of doing everything [and] will impact the viewing experience more than ever,” he said. While IP products don’t heavily populate Tektronix’s product line yet, Robinson says that the company has several prototypes around the world in “proof-of-concept” facilities. According to Robinson, products in the wing also include hybrid sync generators with baseband, tri-level, and PTP (Precision Time Protocol IEEE 1588-2002) for IP, and analyzers for SMPTE 2022. Recently, Tektronix introduced the Aurora QC and Hydra player, featuring faster throughput, scalability, and improved usability.

At this year’s NAB Show, Leader unveiled their FS 3103 software package which allows MXF audio/video media files to be processed faster than real time. According to Young, a combined system incorporating an FS 3102 and FS 3103 can process up to four files simultaneously. The FS 3102 and FS 3103 provide automatic checking and analysis of image characteristics.

When it comes to evaluating the output of encoders and transcoders, Adam Schadle, vice president of Video Clarity, a Campbell, Calif.-based developer of monitoring technology has a couple of questions for broadcasters: “How will multiple resolutions look, in different display types, after having been transcoded multiple times? And how can you know ahead of time?” Schadle points to the company’s recently re-engineered RTM Manager for the answer.

“Our new RTM Manager has a new way of taking measurements in real time, and a better way to evaluate,” he said. In short, according to Schadle, Video Clarity tools provide real-time evaluation of quality between competing encoders and providers, using the human perceptual test (QoE), along with averages of QoS scores and new log graphing tools for Clearview and RTM.