www.tvbeurope.com October 2015
24 TVBEurope
REVIEW
Feature
Industry acts on interoperability The transition to IP in live and studio environments is underway but the evolution will be gradual, not a big bang, writes Adrian Pennington
success,” said Ewan Johnston, sales director at Trilogy. “Customers will need to choose between those vendors who provide standards-based systems, but who really still want to deliver
espite IP being routinely used in
the chance to develop an IP-based OB
proprietary systems, and those who genuinely
broadcast centres and mobile facilities
truck for sport,” explained Raymundo Barros,
embrace the standards-based approach and
for functions like content management,
TV Globo’s CTO.
have open systems in their corporate DNA.”
D
browsing, metadata flows, stats integrations and
Nonetheless, there’s a general feeling that
IBC showed an industry prepared to make
file movement, the live environment seems the
IP technologies inserted into live production
unprecedented technical cooperation. The EBU
last area of the broadcast chain to adopt IP for
workflows at studios or venues need to mature.
corralled manufacturers Axon, EVS, Genelec,
end-to-end workflows. The industry is now making
Live is fraught with on-the-fly changes: a
Grass Valley, Nevion, Trilogy and Tektronix
a strategic initiative to close the loop.
late breaking news story with satellite link, for
to support its Sandbox LiveIP project which
instance, or a director requiring a camera
highlights resource sharing, remote production
financial means and the need for ultra-fast and
alteration at a track and field event. The risk
and automation. It implemented an IP studio
responsive live remote production, are paving
of on-air black holes or a missing commercial
at Belgium broadcaster VRT, replicated in
the way for others,” said Nicolas Bourdan, SVP
makes for cautious adoption.
reduced scale on the IBC floor and is a landmark
“Early adopters like those in sports, with the
marketing, EVS.
For CTOs, the heart of the matter is whether
achievement in interoperability by using SMPTE
Among the pioneers are NFL broadcaster
trust in the deterministic, virtually fool-proof
2022-6/ AES67 and PTP to transport feeds over a
ESPN which opened its Digital Center 2 facility
signal integrity of SDI can be matched by
software defined network.
last summer housing a 9,000sqft studio, six
IP. Will resolutions, frame rates and audio be
production control rooms, four audio rooms,
synchronised all of the time? And how is control
think of new ways of making content,” said
40 cameras and 16 edit suites all IP networked
over IP to be managed and monitored by
Simon Fell, EBU director of technology and
around a Evertz routing core. In contrast to the
broadcast engineers unschooled in IT?
innovation. “VRT has built a world that can
performance of a typical baseband router which
SMPTE standard 2022-6 goes some way
“The IP studio gives us an opportunity to
work. Now, manufacturers need to adopt new
can handle about a couple of thousand signals
to address this. It is devised to mirror SDI by
ways of interfacing their equipment to that
at a time, ESPN’s set-up allows it to handle up to
synching video over IP in real time, and provide
world and give us the flexibility we are looking
60,000 signals simultaneously over nearly 1,100
reassurance in workflow and operational
for. At the moment there is a lot of transcribing,
miles of fibre optic cable installed in the facility.
monitoring for broadcast engineers. Reproducing
re-packaging and re-streaming going on to get
It won the IBC Innovation award for Content
current SDI workflows over IP is the first solution
things across the network.”
Management. Another well regarded reference
but it does not unlock the full potential of IP by
site is America’s Pac-12 Networks. It covers 850
offering seamless switching between AV and
Geir Bordalen, head of investment at Norway’s
sports events a year by sending the cameras,
metadata streams. SMPTE, the EBU and others
NRK said, “It’s not all hooked together and that’s
mics and commentators to site but doing all
are working on a new standard (2022-7) which
one of the problems with interoperability. We
production remotely, using T-VIPS and Nevion
may be published later next year.
need to work hard on that and gain the benefits
In a conference session discussing the project,
links to transmit talkback and telemetry to and
“When properly implemented and managed,
from venues up to 2,500km. Doing so saves an
IP technologies for media distribution can match
estimated $15,000 per game or $13 million a year.
the quality and latency standards required
at any other time, declared an IP-based
At IBC, Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo claimed
of working together.” Panasonic and Grass Valley, competitors
by the broadcasting industry today,” stressed
production partnership. Panasonic studio
the first all-IP 4K outside broadcast truck. The
Bourdan. The reality, though, is that if you want
cameras including the Varicam now have a
unit, being built for Rio 2016, will be outfitted with
to deploy IP across the chain you have to install
built-in module for IP and were demonstrated
Sony HDC-4300 cameras - IP connected through
a lot of conversion hardware. That’s due to the
working with a Grass Valley K2 server sending 4K
the CCU, Sony’s IP Live switcher and IP-ready
broadcast equipment vendor’s historic need for
50p via network connection.
monitors. The router will be off-the-shelf IT kit. “It
lock-in solutions and it has to change.
doesn’t make any sense to create a brand new truck based on SDI any more, so we are taking
“Interoperability is the key, and adhering to industry standards is important to ensuring
“Factors such as codecs, synchronisation, identification, registration, discovery and connection management are required for