Standards advanced on two fronts at last month’s NAB2005 convention in Las Vegas, both of which impact newsroom operations, budgeting and distribution.
The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) made public the final version of its next-generation specification, ISMA 2.0. A draft of the specification was announced earlier in 2005 for public review and comment.
ISMA 2.0 incorporates advanced codec technology for audio and video applications, Internet protocols for streaming, and file formats for storage. The specification defines a standards-based approach to developing products for the streaming multimedia market.
For video, ISMA 2.0 adopted MPEG-4 part 10, also known as ITU H.264 or AVC. AVC guarantees greater quality at various bit rates and over multiple connection types. For audio, ISMA 2.0 adopted the high efficiency AAC audio codec (HE AAC), which offers multichannel support for low bit rates.
Separately, the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) formally ratified DVB-S2, its new standard for satellite distribution. This formal ratification paves the way for further commercial implementation of services. DVB-S2 benefits from recent developments in channel coding and modulation that give a 30 percent capacity increase over DVB-S under the same transmission conditions and a more robust reception for the same spectrum efficiency.
DVB-S2 has been optimized for several satellite broadband applications, including satellite newsgathering backhaul.
For more information on the DVB-S2 standard, visit http://pda.etsi.org/pda/queryform.asp.
For more information on ISMA 2.0, visit www.isma.tv.
