TORONTO—ASPEN, an open framework developed by Evertz, that enables independent flows for video, audio, and metadata in an IP-based broadcast media facility, has been published by the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE). The ASPEN Community submitted the Adaptive Sample Picture Encapsulation as a Registered Disclosure Document (RDD 37) and then was passed by the Technology Committee Ballot with all affirmative votes, according to the ASPEN Community press release.

ASPEN is designed to expand MPEG-2 transport stream standard to include uncompressed UHD/3G/HD/SD video. The framework also utilizes open standards for transporting audio (SMPTE ST 302) and metadata (SMPTE ST 2038). It also uses SMPTE 2022-2 to encapsulate the transport streams into IP.

“The publication of the SMPTE RDD-37 reinforces our commitment to supporting open-formats in the IP transition,” said Mo Goyal, co-chair of the APSEN Community and director of product marketing for Evertz. “The publication of RDD-37 also enables the ASPEN Community to promote interoperability, and encourages others to participate, to provide the industry a comprehensive open format solution.”

Much of the ASPEN Community, which is a group of companies that support and utilize the ASPEN framework, plan to showcase how the framework works with their products at the 2016 NAB Show. Members of the ASPEN Community include AJA, Broadcast Pix, EditShare, Evertz, Ross Video, Tektronix, TVU Networks and Vizrt.

See Also:
Dec. 17, 2015
"All About ASPEN"
In our continuing series of articles examining the broadcast industry’s transition to IP, this week Broadcast Engineering Extra spoke with Mo Goyal, director of product marketing for Evertz, to discuss the latest progress on ASPEN, the company’s IP transport protocol which it introduced at the 2015 NAB Show and how broadcasters are managing the overall transition to IP.

LOS ANGELES —From the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers: SMPTE announced the publication of its study group report on the high-dynamic-range imaging ecosystem. The work of 170 top international experts, the SMPTE SG report summarizes an extensive discussion on the implementation of HDR in professional media workflows and addresses key questions that will arise for industry members as they move forward in using HDR technology. The report also offers recommendations for further HDR standardization efforts by SMPTE and other organizations.

“HDR is a rapidly emerging and much-debated technology with the capacity to make a greater impact on viewer experience than can higher-resolution formats,” said Alan Lambshead, vice president of standards for SMPTE. “Recognizing the remarkable potential of HDR and the media industry.’s growing interest in this technology, SMPTE created an HDR ecosystem study group and—within just 12 months—delivered a valuable consensus report on implementation of HDR and the creation of efficient HDR workflows.”

The SMPTE SG report on the HDR ecosystem provides consensus guidance on HDR terms and definitions and presents detailed and useful information on HDR technologies that, up to this point, has not been readily available to the media industry. The report acknowledges that although HDR technologies, both proprietary and standardized, are available today and already can be implemented for non-real-time workflows, challenges remain in live or real-time applications.

It further recognizes that implementation of HDR will be complex and affect many systems in a professional media workflow. The report catalogs HDR technologies, examines issues in both live and non-live HDR workflows, and describes the role of HDR metadata. Finally, it recommends industry harmonization regarding HDR technologies and parameters, stressing the importance of standardizing new technologies related to HDR and of updating current standards to enable HDR.

“Interest in HDR has begun to explode, and this report on the HDR ecosystem has been eagerly anticipated by engineers and technologists across the media industry,” said Thomas Bause Mason, chair of the SMPTE Technical Committee 10E SG on HDR Ecosystem. “We are confident that this timely SMPTE publication will answer many of the questions that emerge as HDR is discussed and implemented.”

SMPTE is actively working on the recommendations contained in the report and encourages industry participants to join the effort by contacting 10e-hdr@lists.smpte.org. The report is available for download at https://www.smpte.org/standards/reports.

Also see...
October 19, 2015
Global HDR TV Shipments to Exceed 32 Million in 2019

October 15, 2015
Is HDR Worth It?

October 7, 2015
Rogers to Offer 4KTV with HDR in 2016

October 7, 2015
Vizio Launches $130,000 HDR 4KTV Set

September 1, 2015
ATEME and NexGuard Launch Watermark for Pre-Release HDR Content

August 28, 2015
CEA Defines ‘HDR Compatible’ Displays

August 25, 2015
Thomson Video Network to Demo UHD Broadcasting of HDR Content

June 25, 2015
Amazon Instant Video Adds HDR for Prime Members

June 24, 2015
Technicolor HDR Single-Stream System Available for Testing

May 21, 2015
What the Public Gets About 4K, HDR and More Color

April 11, 2015
NAB Labs to Demo Super Hi-Vision, LDM, HDR HFR

April 9, 2015
Technicolor and Sinclair Demo HDR UHD Live Over-the-Air Broadcast

February 12, 2015
Updated: OTT, HDR, 4K and Last Rites for 4:3

January 30, 2015
HDR Video With Stephan Ukas-Bradley

October 22, 2014
SMPTE 2014: Doing HDR With HEVC

July 8, 2014
EBU’s David Wood Pitches HDR

February 20, 2014
DFT to Unveil Scanity HDR Scanner at the 2014 NAB Show

December 26, 2012
University researchers make real-time HDR encoding reality

June 22, 2012
Sony Sinks Nearly $1 Billion Into HDR-Capable Stacked CMOS Sensors

September 13, 2006
Sony rolls out HDR-FX7 1080i HDV camcorder

March 1, 2006
Sony introduces HDR-HC3 Handycam

LOS ANGELES—The technology of broadcasting is due for a major upgrade once the Advanced Television Systems Committee finalizes the specifications for the proposed ATSC 3.0 standard, designed to replace the 20 year old ATSC 1.0 specification (augmented in 2013 with ATSC 2.0). At the association’s meeting last month, the record number of attendees indicated how crucial this new standard is going to be for the future of TV both over-the-air, on cable, and potentially influencing IT delivery.

MPEG-H Audio offers viewers the ability to turn up or down particular audio elements in a program--such as dialogue or sound effects--as they prefer.

“Our schedule is to get to a ‘candidate standard’ level for all the components of ATSC 3.0 by the end of the year,” said ATSC President Mark Richer. “This will then be voted on before the end of next year by our technology group and then by the whole ATSC membership for the final decision.”

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO

The industry is abuzz with speculation about the upcoming video standard in ATSC 3.0, possibly including High Dynamic Range, multiple frame rates, and wider color gamuts. But the audio component of this new standard has received far less publicity.

Yet the field of competitors for the next broadcast—and therefore production—audio standard which once included Dolby Labs, DTS, Fraunhofer IIS, NBCUniversal, Samsung, Technicolor and Qualcomm, has been whittled down to two contenders: Dolby, with its AC-4 technology, and the MPEG-H Alliance represented by Fraunhofer on behalf of its partners, Qualcomm and Technicolor.

MPEG-H is an existing international standard that Fraunhofer is proposing as the audio part of ATSC 3.0, according to Robert Bleidt, general manager of Fraunhofer USA Digital Media Technologies in San Jose, Calif., a subsidiary of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the renowned German R&D organization. “We are trying to use the MPEG-H approach to bring three primary features to TV viewers: interactivity, greater immersion, and universal delivery.”

As Bleidt explains it, the “interactivity” capability will let viewers adjust the presence of various audio objects in the broadcast signal. This could include bringing an announcer’s voice out of the background for greater clarity, or the option of listening to either the home team or the visitor’s native broadcast mix depending on fan preference, and even the potential of hearing programs in different languages.

Robert Bleidt

The “immersive” factor is a quantum leap over Surround Sound because it adds 3D audio components such as many more channels including ceiling or floor speakers. Fraunhofer’s psycho-acoustic tests have shown this is almost as significant as moving from stereo to surround sound.

To get these sounds to the panoply of big and small screen devices that want to receive them, MPEG-H can optimize its audio reproduction to best match the capabilities of the system to which the viewer is listening.

“One of the primary advantages of the MPEG-H system is that it is designed to work with the existing equipment of today’s broadcasters,” Bleidt said. “We’ve established a four-stage process to gradually put MPEG-H into today’s broadcast workflow. In fact, we showed all four stages working live on-the-air at the NAB Show.”

Fraunhofer accomplished this with the help of some MPEG-H audio monitoring units from Jünger Audio after installing new encoding/decoding equipment to handle the MPEG-H codecs. They demonstrated that with MPEG-H there is no need to overhaul either existing control rooms or outside broadcast trucks, and it can be easily edited on the NLE timelines such as Adobe’s Premiere Pro CC.

The four stages to attain full MPEG-H capabilities start with transmitting Surround Sound using current metadata, but with a 50 percent reduction in bit rate over today’s AC-3 model. Then the broadcaster could add interactive objects to let viewers adjust the dialog or sound effects levels in the audio mix. Step three incorporates the inclusion of 3D sound with ceiling channels and the final step includes the option to introduce “higher order ambisonics” (HOA) to represent the sound environment by determining the accuracy of representation of the pressure field. A spatial encoding is performed on the HOA coefficient signals to fit HOA signals into a studio’s existing SDI infrastructure.

To enable flexible implementation, MPEG-H can use any combination of three techniques to get the audio through a broadcast system: traditional channels such as 5.1, 7.1 or more, audio objects, or HOA. 

“Even though this will require viewers to purchase all new equipment to get these advantages,” Bleidt said, “the MPEG-H Alliance feels if MPEG-H is adopted for the audio component of the ATSC 3.0 standard, it will be a great opportunity to remove the shortcomings of the prior system and give viewers the advantages of these new audio technology features.”

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

Dolby Labs’ candidate for ATSC 3.0 audio revolves around the company’s AC4 technology.

“For us it is all about improving today while enabling tomorrow,” said Jeff Riedmiller, senior director of the sound group, office of the CTO, at Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco. “Three years ago when we started developing AC4, we really went back to the drawing board.”

Jeff Riedmiller

As Riedmiller describes it, the vision of AC4 is based on four pillars, the first of which is to improve reach to enable efficient delivery to all types of devices.

While the Surround Sound technique found in its predecessor, AC3, provided a multichannel living room experience, AC4 offers 50 percent more efficiency, enabling delivery of 2D and 3D sound environments to a wider number of homes and mobile receivers. AC3 delivered stereo sound at 192 Kbps and 5.1 surround at 384 Kbps, but for today’s IT delivery, the market is demanding stereo bitrates at 48-64 Kbps, 5.1 at 100-200 Kbps and immersive multichannel audio like Dolby Atmos at 200-300 Kbps, which is what AC4 enables.

The second pillar is simplified daily operational aspects, such as automatic volume leveling and seamless audio for ad insertions. To comply with the CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act, AC4 has built-in intelligent loudness and multiband dynamic range control without manual intervention.

“These compression curves in combination with the loudness information generated by the encoder produce in real time the dynamic range coefficients desired by the original artist,” Riedmiller said. “The decoder then has the ability to scale across the needs of various playback options ranging from mobile phones to home theater systems.” 

Pillar number three of AC4 allows the end user to choose which components of the audio tracks they want to select to enhance their listening experience, including descriptive video, multiple languages or home field broadcasts, with the ability to enhance and control the center announcer or dialog track’s presence.

Then the fourth pillar delivers immersive 3D object-oriented sound, including height dimensions and potentially speakers providing sound at floor level. 

“Just adding the height element brings us a huge leap toward engaging the senses in a more natural way,” Riedmiller said. “The next system for ATSC sound needs to shoot for ‘audio nirvana,’ sort of a ‘Stairway to Heaven’ beginning with better codec efficiency, improved loudness management, enhanced audio perspective and language substitution, and then the immersive benefits of audio objects throughout the sound field.”

Riedmiller acknowledges that any system based on ATSC 3.0 will not be backward compatible with current ATSC equipment, but added that “we needed to start with a clean slate when designing our audio proposal. 

“TV and set-top box manufacturers should be able to develop additional support capabilities to provide the audience with a satisfactory viewing experience on legacy equipment,” he said.

The proposed technologies from both contenders—Fraunhofer with the MPEG-H Alliance and Dolby Labs’ AC4—are based on years of audio technology experience. Whichever wins the competition for the audio component of the ATSC 3.0 standard will provide a quantum leap in the audience’s enjoyment of future digital audio/video communications.