SNEAK PEEK

After conducting a virtual edition last year, CABSAT is back for an inperson gathering and exhibition. Thomas Löffler, AVP, Exhibitions, Dubai World Trade Centre, takes us through some of the key features this year

How is CABSAT shaping up at in their industry through the present? Will this be a hybrid cornerstone of business networking, version or in-person only? which is of course meeting in-person. CABSAT will reunite the region’s content and broadcast communities What big lessons has DWTC in-person once again at its 26th edition. learned from Covid-19, and Our exhibitors, speakers and visitors are how have they shaped your extremely excited to meet again after strategy for future events? a year that has been defined by virtual Visitor well-being is our number interaction – or, in other words, the one priority at Dubai World Trade missed opportunities that are associated Centre, and CABSAT 2021 will be held with being unable to meet in-person. under stringent safety and hygiene

Technology played a vital role in protocols. DWTC has proven its helping to mitigate the economic capability to curate the safest faceimpact of the Covid-19 pandemic. to-face business environment and While life went on pause for people deliver world-class events with the across the world, online streaming highest safety protocols, as evidenced boomed to unprecedented levels as a by the recent GITEX Technology result of lockdown measures. Digital Week – the only live in-person tech transformation was already affecting event in 2020. Held in December, the every major industry across the world, Thomas Löffler. event welcomed tens of thousands but the pandemic has only accelerated of visitors, with 96% of local and that pace of change. The main challenge international attendees recording for the global broadcast and content communities is to now a ‘safe’ or ‘very safe’ experience. ensure that the increased levels of demand seen during the DWTC’s protocols were further intensified for Gulfood 2021, pandemic for a variety of services can be effectively sustained. the only major F&B industry event to go live in a year and

In terms of the satellite industry, it seems fitting hosted this February, under strict guidance and coordination that CABSAT follows soon after the UAE’s Hope Probe with the Dubai Health Authority and Dubai Municipality, to successfully entered the orbit of Mars, which represents ensure the safest possible business conditions. The wearing a landmark historical occasion for the Arab world and of masks is of course now mandatory, with social distancing a hugely exciting opportunity for satellite operators, enforced to ensure the well-being of all delegates. not only in the region but also internationally. DWTC continues to work with these authorities to

CABSAT plays a key role in sparking international ensure it complies with local regulations, and is also conversations within these communities to ensure that Bureau Veritas-certified, which attests to its commitment stakeholders are able to stay on top of the latest developments to world-class health and safety standards.

How important was Dubai’s decision to press ahead with hosting exhibitions? Dubai was the first city in the world to reopen its events industry, in H2 2020, and has proven that large-scale, in-person events can be safely and responsibly hosted. CABSAT will be the first in-person event for the global broadcast industry since 2019, and we are experiencing great demand from right across the spectrum to meet in-person once again. The abiding theme has been the increased value that CABSAT provides to businesses to meet existing and new customers and bring like-minded sector professionals together.

Could you take us through some of the new topics that will be part of the conference this year, and perhaps mention some of the speakers? The Covid-19 pandemic will spark irreversible global change across so many industries, in the process creating new forms of cross-border collaboration; media, and specifically content, is chief among the realms that will be permanently disrupted. Global lockdowns caused a spike in content consumption, which worked to the advantage of content producers.

Almost ironically, filming in production studios instantly ground to a halt, forcing production houses to think outside the box in order “Visitor well-being is our number one priority at Dubai World Trade Centre, and CABSAT 2021 will be held under stringent safety and hygiene protocols”

to keep consumers satisfied. Now, content producers need to rethink their roadmaps to keep pace with this demand.

Content Congress will deep dive into the survival strategies of smaller OTT players, as well as exploring the current lifespan of linear TV and the ways that Gen Z are disrupting the content industry. CABSAT will also explore the expanding role of artificial intelligence within broadcast, and specifically the ‘4 C’s’ of AI – how it will understand the citizen, content, context and container (device) used.

CABSAT will host a range of international and local broadcast and content expert speakers, including Jamie Cooke, Group SVP and GM, Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Russia, Discovery Inc (UK); Madeleine Noland, President of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (US); Augustus B. Ajibola, Director, Department of Entertainment and Creative Services, Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, Abuja, Nigeria; Fagr Kassim Ali, Director Media Sector Development, Sharjah Media City; Catherine Mwangi, Head of TV Production and Programming, Kenya Television Network; Hans Fraikin, Film and Television Commissioner, Abu Dhabi Film Commission; Majed Al Suwaidi, MD, Dubai Media City, Dubai Studio City and Dubai Production City; and Bernhard Hafenscher, Austrian Partner, Executive Consultant, OnMedia AG, Austria.

What are some of the key focus areas at the event this year? The Content Congress conference will engage a cross-section of senior industry stakeholders with up-andcoming influencers to share insights on how to adapt traditional broadcast models, the benefits of disruptive thinking and the future of worldwide broadcasting. CABSAT will also host its homegrown content marketplace ContentScape, which is set to attract content creators and sellers who will present their ready-to-bereleased content to content buyers, while CABSAT will also explore the impact of AI in the broadcast, content and satellite spaces.

What can we expect at SATEXPO? SATEXPO will launch as a two-day summit and two-day exhibition focused on all satellite communication solutions and technologies for the MENA region. Through the expo, an all-encompassing event experience will cover applications for all areas of satellite communication, Earth observation, satellite imagery, hybrid network technologies, mobile satellite services and security, and space.

SATEXPO will unite all products, solutions and services available and in use across multiple industry sectors, delivering higher levels of ROI to exhibitors, resulting in new target attendee (buyer/ specifier) acquisition per industry vertical from industries includ ing government and military, maritime, aviation and enterprise.

DWTC ushered in the return of major in-person events with GITEX Technology Week 2020.

The AES67 standard has been at the heart of audio over IP since its publication in 2013. Defining a minimum set of requirements essential to interoperability at the IP layer, AES67 fulfils the requirements of professional audio while remaining easy to adopt.

Right about the time AES67 was published, SMPTE was exploring the use of IP for the transport of video, audio and related data. Any media format or media data can be encapsulated into IP, and AES67 proved that this approach could work. AES67 successfully handled key principles of operation related to IP transport – and the critical task of synchronisation, in particular – in a manner that could be applied to transport of video and data as well.

Ultimately, SMPTE adopted the basic transport and synchronisation principles of AES67 and brought them into the SMPTE ST 2110 set of professional-media-over-IP standards. For the audio part (ST 2110-30), SMPTE references AES67 but adds a few constraints, mostly by removing some less important requirements mandated by AES67 and adding optional conformance levels regarding channel number and packet time recommendations, for better accommodation of typical broadcast production requirements.

Because AES67 accounts only for 16- and 24-bit linear PCM formats, SMPTE created ST 2110-31 to accommodate AES3, another format originally defined by AES for serialised audio transfer on a bidirectional link (including MADI). AES3 has bits in addition to 24-bit PCM data that can be used to also carry other data, such as compressed or non-audio data as defined by SMPTE 337 and 338 (e.g., Dolby E, serial ADM). ST 2110-31 was built on the proven RAVENNA AM824 format for bittransparent AES3 transport over IP.

Progressing with PTP Both AES67 and SMPTE ST 2110 are based on Precision Time Protocol (PTP) version 2.0, which dates back to 2008. Officially known as IEEE 1588, PTP outlines a standard protocol for synchronising clocks connected via a network. The release of the backwardcompatible PTP version 2.1 in 2019 introduced new features that allow broadcasters to take advantage of new and future IP-based audio and video solutions without the need to replace all their version 2.0 infrastructure. Broadcasters working with PTP v2.1 will benefit from enhanced accuracy, flexibility, robustness and security.

Enhancing Control via NMOS While AES67 and other standards for IP audio address the transport layer, it is more difficult to agree on a common standard for upper-layer functionality. Nevertheless, recent efforts by AMWA with NMOS – and IS-04, IS-05 and IS-08 specifically – address discovery, registration and connection management, along with audio channel mapping.

These specifications support the move to a common control layer, in turn allowing broadcasters to use a single control interface for multiple devices, even when those devices themselves have proprietary interfaces.

Crossing the WAN Together, AES67 and SMPTE ST 2110-30 and -31 cover virtually any scenario for transporting audio across IP networks. Both standards are designed to work in real-time production environments, mostly running on local or tightly administrated corporate networks.

However, successfully transporting AES67 across a provider’s IP link without complete transparency or the guaranteed performance of a local area link can be challenging. For this reason, AES SC-02-12-M (the same group which developed AES67) is in the process of finalising an engineering document describing the challenges associated with running AES67 across wide area links, including cloud-based distribution.

Embracing Immersive Audio With object-oriented audio becoming more popular, the AES X241 working group has been examining the use of pure AES67 to distribute audio objects along with a separate stream for audio object metadata, with PTP ensuring accurate synchronisation as these elements are reassembled upon delivery. SMPTE is looking at the same challenge, albeit through a wider lens, with ST 2110-41 – ‘fast metadata transport’. The expectation is that these efforts will ultimately yield results that are consistent across AES and SMPTE standards.

Andreas Hildebrand is a RAVENNA evangelist.

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