EXTRA
NextGen TV
November 2020
UPDATE
Lsat month, ONE Media 3.0 took delivery of its first ATSC 3.0-enabled ONE Media Mark ONE Android smartphones.
ONE Media 3.0’s ATSC 3.0 Smartphone Becomes A Reality Mark ONE is a lynchpin in Sinclair’s strategy for making broadcast TV truly mobile By Phil Kurz
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UNT VALLEY, Md.—ATSC 3.0 in smartphones took a big step forward last month with delivery of the first of hundreds of production sample phones to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a key part of the station group’s strategy to ensure that NextGen TV one day is an integral part of mobile phones and other devices. The “ONE Media Mark ONE phone powered by Saankhya Labs” is an Android smartphone with built-in Saankhya Labs SL4000 ATSC 3.0 receiver chip providing NextGen TV reception, tuning and demodulation. The Mark ONE relies on an embedded antenna—not a pull-out or hang-on antenna—and is an unlocked AT&T- and T-Mobile-compatible device, says Mark Aitken, president of Sinclair subsidiary ONE Media 3.0 and senior vice president of technology at Sinclair. “This is the phone that we had hoped we would have had in sample form for the NAB Show,” says Aitken, “but COVID struck— it struck hard and shut things down.” The Mark ONE has been two years in the making, delayed for months because the electronics industry in China where certain components are fabricated was shut down as the virus hit the nation, he says. By jointly developing the underlying technology with Saankhya November 2020 :: Broadcast Engineering EXTRA
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Labs, building the phone and deploying NextGen TV stations around the country, Sinclair in essence has eliminated the chicken-egg problem. “We are both the chicken and the egg,” says Aitken. Continued on 6
In This Issue ONE Media 3.0’s ATSC 3.0 Smartphone Becomes A Reality................................................... 3 Cable-Tec Expo Discusses Opportunities in NextGen TV................................... 7 The Core Message: ATSC 3.0 Can Fuel Cable Growth.......................................... 10 MPAI Aims to Develop Standards Using AI to Improve Data Compression................ 12 How Cloud-Native Technologies Are Enhancing Remote Production Workflows........... 13 Preserving PTP in Remote Production Environments....................................... 15
strate how the standard could have been used to alert viewers in specific neighborhoods of Santa Barbara, Calif., to the threat of mudslides. THE BIGGER PICTURE But until the Mark ONE, such alerts would only Sinclair is in talks with two large MVNOs (Mohave been useful to home viewers. With a 3.0-enbile Virtual Network Operators) that ride on the abled smartphone, the public can stay informed AT&T and T-Mobile wireless networks about offerof emergencies regardless of where they are, says ing the phone, says Aitken, who declined to identify Aitken. the operators. “Very soon, I am going to be sending phones to “There are millions of MVNO subscribers that AT&T and other mobile companies, and I will ask a would be ripe for the picking so to speak with a simple question,” he says. “What is preventing your smartphone of this sort. That’s one of the reasons organization, your business, from manufacturing for pushing so hard to get this phone to a ready a phone that could save lives in the event of natural state,” says Aitken, adding that at the moment the Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media disaster, a public safety situation or crime?” Mark 1 is not ready for mass consumer sales but 3.0 and senior vice president of The offer Aitken made a couple of years ago at that “it’s not far away.” technology at Sinclair the ATSC Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., With a 3.0 smartphone on the way to potentially millions of consumers, it will be easier for the station group to imple- to provide AT&T and other wireless companies with a million 3.0 receiver chips, each, for free stands to this day, he says. ment another key aspect of its NextGen TV deployment strategy: state government mandates requiring smartphones to be built with CONSUMER INTEREST 3.0 receivers. Initially, the Mark ONE will be put into the hands of friends and “We are in the process of getting legislation into multiple states, family of Sinclair staff in markets where it delivers ATSC 3.0 to help specifically state house and senate legislation in New York at the the station group fine tune its NextGen TV service. The phones are moment, for a mandate to include ATSC 3 receivers in smartphones equipped with a return channel so that data collected about reception because of the public safety and public service side of the standard,” levels at various locations can help guide the station group as it makes he says. decisions about deploying ATSC 3.0 single frequenIn July, New York State Senator Kevin Parker cy networks (SFNs) around the country, he says. introduced legislation (S8797) mandating incluHowever, that’s just the start. Aitken anticipates sion of the 3.0 receiver chip in portable electronic strong interest in the phone from consumers. devices defined in the bill as “any handheld mobile “There’s not a person I’ve talked to over the past two telephone…personal digital assistant (PDA), or handheld device with mobile data access.” years of getting to this point who hasn’t said, ‘As “On and after January first, Two Thousand soon as you have it, I want one,’” he says. Twenty-Two, no manufacturer shall provide for The Mark ONE is aimed at the middle of the sale in this state any portable electronic device not market. Target pricing is below $300 if the producequipped with an ATSC 3.0 chip,” the legislation tion run is in the tens of thousands, $200 if it is in reads. the hundreds of thousands of units and even less if The Advanced Emergency Alerting and Informing millions of the phones are produced, he says. (AEAI) aspect of ATSC 3.0 “are not going unnoticed at “We’re not in this for the money [from phone the state level,” says Aitken. sales],” says Aitken. “I guess we are a little bit crazy, In July, New York State Senator Kevin Parker introduced legislation (S8797) but we are not so crazy as to think that we want to mandating inclusion of ATSC 3.0 CREATING LEVERAGE be in the business of selling phones.” receiver chips in portable electronic While the FCC has expressed no interest publicly devices. Beyond the Mark ONE, Aitken envisions the in mandating 3.0 receivers in smartphones, the SL4000 3.0 receiver chip being used in a range of AWARN Alliance and others in the television industry have spent the other consumer devices, such as NextGen TV gateways capable of repast several years educating local, state and federal emergency manceiving 3.0 and retransmitting content via Wi-Fi to tablets and other agers about ways in which NextGen TV can help inform the public home devices, and even into cars for a range of applications from and assist them in the event of a disaster. receiving map and navigation data to enabling wireless firmware Broadcasters and vendors of emergency alerting technology used updates to onboard car systems. by TV broadcasters have stepped up as well. For example, the News“It [the SL4000] is the lowest common denominator that fills the Press & Gazette station group has worked with AWARN to demonlargest number of possible use cases,” he says. ■ Continued from 3
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Broadcast Engineering EXTRA :: November 2020
Cable-Tec Expo Discusses Opportunities in NextGen TV Sessions looked at audio accessibility, what cable operators need to do to prepare By Phil Kurz
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“The win-win or elegant solutions here are the ones that can cover temporary situations in addition to the permanent ones,” said Francisco.
resenters at last month’s virtual SCTE-ISBE CableTec Expo 2020 discussed a pair of ATSC 3.0-related issues of importance to cable operators, includTHORNY ISSUE ing the technical considerations of transitioning headend The cable television industry faces a thorny issue as operations as broadcasters begin to take on NextGen TV the video experiences people have using platforms, such and the opportunities the new broadcast standard offers as streaming services, mobile phones and game devices, to deliver enhanced TV viewing experiences. have advanced faster than those available via cable TV, Perry Priestley, COO/CSO During the “Developments in HDR, IP Video WorkFrancisco added. of Broadcast Electronics/ flows, and ATSC 3.0 Audio Accessibility” session, Mark “The current conventions of ATSC 1.0 were ratified in Elenos Group Francisco, Comcast technology fellow, set the stage for 1996, and they are undergoing revision, but that takes his discussion of descriptive audio by explaining the size of the need time because of the massive scale we are dealing with,” he said. and the opportunity to both do good and benefit financially by better The bottom line with 1.0 is “you can’t fit so much in there” and serving audience members with disabilities. typically that means a primary and a secondary audio service per TV channel, said Francisco. With ATSC 1.0, all of the audio accessibility services are confined to a single auxiliary service that is monaural. Francisco described work Comcast has done with NBC for the last three Olympics during ceremonies and some events to provide live audio description in the SAP channel for those with visual impairments. He also explained audio ducking, which dips the amplitude of a commentator and other audio to enable the video descriptive audio to come in—another technique that has proven successful. But the future of broadcast television audio is more immersive, personalized and inclusive, he said. ATSC 3.0 provides for audio multiplexing of all audio channels, including 5.1 and SAP. All of those bits are intermingled over time with headers that make it possible to pull out those channels. Audio description also can be its own Mark Francisco, Comcast technology fellow, explained the size of the need and substream with metadata to describe what it is, he said. the opportunity to both do good and benefit financially by better serving audience NextGen TV viewers can define their audio preferences and in members with disabilities. the decoder—in their set-top box or television—desired audio can be As relates to the size of the audience with disabilities, 20% of reassembled from those substreams based on what viewers have told Caucasians have disabilities, 25% of Blacks and 33% of American the receiver they wish to hear, such as music and effects, commentaIndian and Alaskan Native, said Francisco, making the point that the tor audio and descriptive audio. Not only does 3.0 open up avenues audience is large and diverse. On the economic side of the equation, a previously unavailable to adding description at a lower cost, but it third of U.S. households have a disability. Those households comenables the more personalization of audio, he said. mand $220 billion, he added. Twenty percent of people with disabilities are over 65 years of age, GETTING TO KNOW YOU and 12 million Americans 40 years and older have some sort of visual During the “What Cable Operators Need to Know About ATSC impairment, he said. 3.0” session, Perry Priestley, COO/CSO of Broadcast Electronics/Ele“A disability is a mismatch between the environment and an innos Group, and Joonyoung Park, vice president and fellow, DigiCAP, dividual’s capabilities at the moment,” he said, noting the mismatch discussed what cable operators need to understand about ATSC 3.0 could be temporary, lifelong and shrink or grow over time. Continued on 11 November 2020 :: Broadcast Engineering EXTRA
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Inter-company content exchange for the modern media supply chain By Rick Clarkson, Chief Strategy Officer, Signiant In today’s media industry, moving large amounts of content swiftly and securely between partners is mission critical. Automated, inter-company content exchange, between companies of all sizes and geographies, is critical in the production and even more so in the distribution of dynamic and diverse films, television shows, video games, OTT/VOD assets, and their associated components and metadata at multiple points in the supply chain and across a myriad of platforms. A fundamental truth today is that no organization is an island. Sports leagues work with broadcasters and media rights licensees around the world; studios distribute content to cinemas, TV stations and cable operators, VOD platforms, and OTT platforms; an army of game developers and testers around the world work together to produce blockbuster gaming experiences. This is not possible without robust and secure content exchange that can work both within and between companies. Moving and accessing content between teams within an organization can be a challenge in and of itself. Being able to do so across diverse organizations only magnifies the complexity. Given the status of the industry in 2020, inter-company operations are the norm and companies need to exchange content securely quickly and seamlessly — that is a must.
Inter-company content exchange: global partnerships, local content Media and Entertainment enterprises know there are growing needs and business drivers that require partnerships to ensure the creation and distribution of their content. The increased demand for localized content on a variety of new platforms further demonstrates the need for connected partnerships across a vast and complex supply chain. Whether it’s the need to produce content for distribution on a global scale or a sports league delivering highlights to a network of broadcast partners, media businesses naturally find themselves more and more interconnected, their ecosystem more and more symbiotic, and the demand to move content more and more essential. That this already tangled web now includes an explosion of different formats and platforms (theaters, streaming sites, mobile media applications) only puts greater pressure on organizations to develop adaptable and secure inter-company content exchange.
Optimizing distribution Today M&E organizations can distribute their content globally across multiple different platforms and providers making inter-company transfer more important than ever before. Whether it’s a VOD platform delivering content to cable operators, film distribution houses sending DCPs to cinemas, or television networks moving content into playout, modern distribution requires a highly connected supply chain supported by automated, inter-company transfer. Follow-the-sun game development Or consider a game developer working with a different studio on their latest blockbuster title. As teams at one organization make changes to the build they’re focused on, their partners must be able to trust that they’ll regularly receive the updated version of the game, so that they don’t suddenly find the hours of work they just put in was on an outdated version. This is especially required with follow-the-sun workflows that rely on teams across multiple time-zones. Making sure the correct version of a game build is where it needs to be when the next people sit down to execute their jobs is vital to streamlining complicated supply chains, meeting deadlines (especially in an industry well-known for major last-minute tweaking), and keeping, what might otherwise look like chaos, ordered and effectual. Complex data sets such as frame-by-frame formats While automated, inter-company exchange happens more often during aggregation and distribution, it can also be a challenge during the content creation process. When post-production studios and VFX houses work on a major blockbuster, they’ll often work with frameby-frame formats such as DPX or EXR. In these cases, folders with millions of files need to be moved back to a studio or even to another post-production house, also in a follow-the-sun fashion. Standard tools struggle with these complex data sets and so the right software to automate these workflows becomes essential.
Connecting the largest media businesses with their SMB partners One challenge plaguing the industry is that advanced technology used by large companies isn’t always accessible to the network of smaller suppliers vital to the industry. Advancements in cloud technology, specifically SaaS solutions, help break down those barriers, offering smaller businesses powerful tools to participate more easily in the global supply chain. The security challenges are magnified when working with multiple companies, many of which are small. Having a common set of tools to meet the high security standards required by today’s industry is not a luxury, but a requirement. Not only must the tools secure the content they
exchange, they must be easy to deploy, manage, and be right-sized and priced to be adopted by any size business.
How Signiant facilitates inter-company content exchange Signiant has long been the trusted broker for cross-company content exchange in the industry. Our Manager+Agents product is used by the world’s top media companies for automated content exchange both within and between companies. Our Media Shuttle SaaS product allows people to access and share content around the world and now connects more than 25,000 businesses of all sizes.
Inter-company content exchange for the modern era The M&E industry has never been more diverse, more global, or more dynamic than it is today, and this trend will only accelerate. The pandemic and its impact on the industry shows the need to be flexible, nimble, and able to connect to larger and more diverse supply chains. So, what do you need to consider preparing you for the next industryimpacting event? Moving highly sensitive, large, complex data sets between companies in the modern era requires a new approach. It requires software that can work for any-sized business, that can take advantage of whatever bandwidth is available, and can work with any storage type. It must provide enterprise-grade security and visibility; a solution that offers reliability when deadlines are tight and conditions are stressful. It must be easy to deploy and operate and allow companies to be agile and respond to the dynamic nature of the industry. Signiant Jet with its inter-company capabilities was designed exactly to meet those needs.
When two different companies establish a cross-trust with Jet in place, they can set up mutually agreed upon transfer jobs where each side is able to maintain complete control of their own storage and their own networks. No sharing of passwords or other sensitive information is required as the handshake is all managed securely in the cloud.
When we launched Signiant Jet™ last year, we brought together our expertise in automated system-to-system file movement with our leadership in cloud-native SaaS. That made Signiant’s advanced automation and acceleration technology accessible to companies of all sizes and significantly reduced the friction for the largest media companies in the world in setting up automated content exchange with their smaller partners. Following the initial rollout, Signiant expanded its inter-company capabilities, adding a lightweight but secure mechanism to Jet for automated content exchange between companies. With this, two companies that both have Jet can easily and securely set-up a cross trust, managed entirely from the cloud. In addition, with more and more businesses adopting Jet, companies can make their endpoints discoverable in our cloud platform further facilitating these inter-company exchanges.
About the Author Rick Clarkson rejoined Signiant in 2018 filling the newly created position of Cwhief Strategy Officer to steer the roadmap for new services that leverage Signiant’s market-leading SaaS platform and huge global footprint in the M&E space. In his previous eight-year tenure at Signiant, Clarkson was one of the leaders in the company’s SaaS transition. His vision of using cloud technology to build a powerfully simple file transfer solution led to the category-defining Media Shuttle product, Signiant’s first SaaS offering. With over 25 years in software technology, Clarkson spent his early career as an engineer and moved into leadership roles in product management and strategy working with companies to include SevOne, VidSys, Motorola, Sightpath, Cisco and others.
About Signiant Signiant’s enterprise software provides the world’s top content creators and distributors with fast, reliable, secure access to large media files, regardless of physical storage type or location. By enabling authorized people and processes to seamlessly exchange valuable content – within and between enterprises – Signiant connects the global media supply chain. Learn more at signiant.com.
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The Core Message: ATSC 3.0 Can Fuel Cable Growth Does the debut of NextGen TV mean it’s time for a ‘cable-broadcast technology refresh?’ By Phil Kurz
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developing an understanding of why a broadcast core is needed and how it relates to ATSC 3.0 terrestrial broadcasting. The team is also charged with identifying use cases and commercial benefits for the core. The broadcast core would enable interoperability with other networks—whether that’s a telecom core network or the cable industry’s core network. “Many of the ramifications of a broadcast core relate to what the convergence will be between broadcaster and cable operation,” said Guglielmino.
he periodic, contentious negotiations between the cable and television broadcast industry over retransmission rights might mask the fact the two have had a fruitful relationship since at least the 1960s. Like any other long-term relationship, however, if it’s to succeed there’s a need from time to time to freshen things up and create a bit of excitement. That’s exactly what Sesh Shimha, vice president, Advanced Technology at ONE Media 3.0, and Peter Guglielmino, Media & Entertainment CTO at IBM, proposed at their session at the virtual SCTEISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2020. Their presentation, “Broadcast Core: A Supplementary Datacasting Enabler for Cable,” painted a picture of the future in which the cable industry can leverage the OTA capabilities of TV broadcasters transmitting ATSC 3.0 to grow its reach and capture new business. “It struck me…that this is really going to dramatically enhance and extend the audience and service capabilities that cable is able to deliver,” said Guglielmino. “Instead of just looking at linear TV, extending it… [offers] all of these datacasting opportunities that give cable operators, really, access to spectrum they… never had before.” For cable engineers attending the session who Sesh Shimha, vice president, Advanced Technology at ONE Media 3.0 presented a simple, yet powerful, might have been unfamiliar with ATSC 3.0, diagram that explained how ATSC 3.0 and a broadcast core could help the cable industry grow. Shimha explained that TV broadcasters adopting 3.0 are required to continue delivering their Planning Team 8 is investigating how to unify data management, main linear channel for free to the public but may devote the rest of handle network slices across various networks and deal with session their bits to providing datacasting services. Further, the FCC made management to enable seamless end-user experiences. The team is also clear with a declaratory ruling in June that the datacasting services looking at how to “make sure that the policies and quality of service broadcasters can offer are “not bound by the ownership rules” that pertain to their TV operations, he said. that are enacted in one network are transported with the same level of “This is where the market will innovate, and this is what I am quality across different networks,” he said. really excited about,” he said. “This is where the [broadcast] core Other goals for the broadcast core are defining and unifying the [network] has meaning.” user plane and providing access and mobility function for wireline services, he said, noting there are “tremendous opportunities for cable working together with broadcast.” THE BROADCAST CORE Chief among the opportunities is leveraging broadcasters’ overBoth Shimha and Guglielmino are members of the Advanced the-air footprint to fill in coverage gaps, said Guglielmino. “From our Television Systems Committee (ATSC) Planning Team 8 tasked with
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perspective, it is really about how can we help our cable colleagues increase their reach and increase their audience,” he added. The planning team also has the goal of building the broadcast core network using open source technologies and virtualization that will enable “web-scale architectures” to ensure broadcasters stay “competitive in this all-IP environment,” he said. At the end of its process, Planning Team 8 will present its findings and make recommendations to the ATSC board of directors, which will then vote on whether or not to authorize work to begin on standards for the broadcast core, said Guglielmino. LEVERAGING BROADCAST
Shimha presented a simple, yet powerful, diagram that explained how ATSC 3.0 and a broadcast core could help the cable industry grow. “You have a cable core, and on the other side you’ve got devices, and what you have in the middle is 210 markets full of broadcasters with towers that deliver very, very reliable and robust wireless,” he said describing the diagram. “So now, if I place a broadcast core, that can connect you to these devices through the ATSC system, then voila, what do we have?” he asked, rhetorically. “We have a very, very powerful supplementary datacasting capability that can deliver content to a host of devices— fixed or mobile—whether that’s a set top box, a television, a phone with a dongle, a phone with a chip, a home gateway [or] a laptop,” he said. Shimha pointed out that Planning Team 8’s work on a broadcast core is not being done in a vacuum. In July, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the umbrella group of standards bodies worldwide that develop mobile telecom protocols, injected “new momentum in the verticals that 3GPP normally does not look at” with Release 16, which covers IoT, Vehicle-to-Everything, or V2X, and media and entertainment, he said. “There is a lot of work 3GPP has done that we are going to borrow from,” said Shimha. Concluding the presentation, Shimha laid out the street cred of ONE Media 3.0 and parent Sinclair when it comes to ATSC 3.0 and the broadcast core. “We are already doing a virtualization of our core as part of a company-wide business transformation,” he said. Further, the broadcast group provides guidance and contributes to many ATSC groups and internationally is engaged with the ITU, 5G-MAG and ATOS/3GPP. “I would like to point out that we are working with IBM on an implementation team that is now focused on India because we think India is extremely important to getting the device ecosystem going,” he said. “Just imagine India is a country that has about 1.2 billion wireless subscriptions—all of that from three operators.” ONE Media 3.0 is working with IBM and other companies to develop several use cases and proofs of concept—all of which are being organized in the cloud,” he said.
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signals, how they are different than 1.0 signals and what they must do to prepare for NextGen TV. Priestly began by laying out the basic difference between 1.0 and 3.0 from a viewer’s perspective, including 3.0 support for 4K UHD, high dynamic range (HDR), wide color gamut (WCG), frame rates up to 120fps, immersive audio and enhanced emergency alerting, captioning and video description. He repeated the comparison from a broadcaster’s point of view: 8VSB vs. OFDM, MPEG TS- vs. IP-based and encryption vs. none. Priestly laid out the benefits as well, including better OTA reception, immunity to selective fading, resilience to interference, spectrum efficiency, simpler channel equalization and support for mobile receivers. The transition from 1.0 to 3.0 will take place in three phases, he said. During the first, a lighthouse will host the 3.0 services of full-power stations in a market while stations channel share to maintain 1.0 service. Phase 2 will see an expansion of the first phase. The final phase will see the shut off of 1.0 service, which Priestly predicted would happen no sooner than in five years. “The cable company receiving ATSC 3.0 will have to get a new receiver that can decode and demodulate the ATSC 3 standard,” he said. “There will be times, and this is going to be a difficult period, where you have to receive some signals from ATSC 3 transmissions and some from ATSC 1 to obtain all of the content you need.” Cable operators may also have to select programs differently because there could be a lot of duplication resulting from 1.0 and 3.0 simulcasts. Those programs will be in different formats, and there will be added complexity because the Emergency Alerting System and program guide will be different between the two, he said. “There will also be a lot of content that may need to be ignored like specialized data—non-real-time data as well [content] that may be being delivered for overnight storage,” he said. “So, there will be data as broadcast apps that may potentially be used by cable companies, or [data that] they would need to… ignore.” Park described a new integrated receiver decoder that will enable cable headend systems to receive and translate ATSC 3.0 signals. “Basically you have two functions, one is the receiver and transmux function and the other one is transcoder function,” he said. Showing a diagram of the IRD, Park explained the functional architecture of 3.0 conversion for cable redistribution. He pointed out how the device can translate 3.0 signaling and metadata to fit into the MPEG transport stream for 1.0 distribution. In addition, he described the management functions that are required. “As Perry explained, there are multiple programs and duplicate programs,” said Park. “So, as you are tuning into ATSC 3 signals there should be a way to control the receiver and transmux functions to receive the right programs and right channels for your cable transmission.” ■
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MPAI Aims to Develop Standards Using AI to Improve Data Compression New group also plans to introduce ‘framework licensing’ to to avoid patent issues By Leonardo Chiariglione
based Audio Enhancement (MPAI-CAE), designed to improve the user experience for a variety of uses such new group tasked with using artificial intellias entertainment, communication, teleconferencing, gaming, post-production, restoration etc. in a variety gence to improve the efficiency of data compresof contexts such as in the home, in the car, on-the-go, sion was announced on Sept 30. Several forces in the studio etc. were behind the establishment of the international Two more projects are in the pipeline. The first is non-profit “Moving Picture, Audio and Data Coding by Integrative AI-based Analysis of Genomic/Sensor ExperiArtificial Intelligence” (MPAI) organization. ments (MPAI-GSA) that defines a framework where One driving force is the need to have an organization AI-based or traditional processing components available responsive to industry needs with the mission to develop Leonardo Chiariglione for free or at a cost can be combined in applicationdata coding standards for a range of applications with specific “processing apps,” thus creating a horizontal AI as its core enabling technology. In the past, the sheer reduction of the amount of data—i.e. compression—has been the suc- market. The second project is AI-Enhanced Video Coding (MPAIEVC), a video compression standard that substantially enhances the cess factor for a variety of businesses that range from broadcasting to performance of a traditional video codec by improving or replacing telecommunications, IT and related industries. traditional coding tools with AI-based tools. In response to the demand for more compression, MPAI plans to develop AI-enabled Additional projects in development include: standards that further 1. Server-based Predictive Multiplayer Gaming (MPAI-SPG) is improve the coding efdesigned to minimize the visual discontinuities experienced ficiency of data types by multiplayer online gaming players by collecting data from that have already the clients involved in a particular game and feeding them to benefited from coman AI-based system that predicts each individual participant’s pression and bring the moves. benefits of coding to 2. Multi-Modal Conversation (MPAI-MMC), a standard that new data types. An defines a framework of AI-based processing components, such example of AI-enabled coding is to “bring out” aspects of the data as fusion of multimodal input, natural language understandsemantics relevant to an application. ing and generation, speech recognition and synthesis, emotion The second driving force is the need to overcome the limitations recognition, gesture recognition, intention understanding of the Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing and knowledge fusion. Appropriate orchestration of these declarations, a burning issue for many standard-developing organicomponents enables forms of communication with machines zations and their industries. MPAI plans to address this problem by that emulates human-human communication in completeness developing, for each MPAI standard, a “framework license,” (i.e. the and intensity. business model), without values, dates and percentages, that standard 3. Compression and Understanding of Financial data (MPAIessential patent (SEP) holders intend to use to monetize their patents, CUF), a standard to filter and extract key information from eventually adopted in the standard. the flow of data produced by companies from data received from outside the company or generated from the inside or USE CASES issued because of regulation compliance. Immediately after the inital announcement of MPAI’s creation last summer, a group of industry colleagues collaborated to create a set of use cases. One project that is quickly taking shape is ContextContinued on 14
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Broadcast Engineering EXTRA :: November 2020
How Cloud-Native Technologies Are Enhancing Remote Production Workflows Container virtualization helps streamline deployment of applications across multiple environments By James Wilson
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o continue operations amid the ongoing pandemic, media companies of all sizes have had to quickly make the switch to remote production to cater to a fully work-from-home environment. Production teams are being challenged to adapt to this significant disruption and work in a very agile fashion. They’re having to collaborate on projects James Wilson remotely, seamlessly share content and assets, quickly roll out different services to different sites, and not be as tethered to physical data centers as they once were. This shift is driving interest in cloud-native technologies and container-based deployments. Platforms such as OpenShift and Kubernetes offer reproducible, high-availability, fault-tolerant infrastructure solutions that allow media businesses to move their workflows to or from any public or private cloud environment without having to rearchitect the infrastructure. With production teams working remotely, the spotlight has also become more focused on high-quality IP-based streaming and cloud security. It’s now more important than ever for media companies to secure their workflows to protect their content and revenues, meaning media businesses have a lot to think about if they want to operate effectively and efficiently amid the ‘new normal.’ CONTAINERS TAKE HOLD
Containers are a virtualization technology that enable users to package and isolate discrete application components with the precise dependencies and configurations required to run, thereby providing a streamlined way to build, test, deploy and redeploy applications on multiple environments. This offers many benefits for media organizations. For example, containers provide the flexibility to efficiently manage new remote workflows and infrastructures consistently across all applications, such as encoding, transcoding, graphics rendering and video transport. Most importantly, they allow businesses to very quickly scale up workflows automatically and on-demand to meet fluctuating requirements and leverage the power of the cloud to apply additional resources when needed. Although there are costs associated, the
flexibility means workflows can be scaled up and down to meet spikes or dips in demand for production traffic. Containers are managed by orchestration platforms, most dominantly based on the open source Kubernetes project. Another area where containers and their orchestration platforms impact the media industry is availability. Media workflows are highly time sensitive, meaning the availability of services is a key concern for production teams in terms of delivering content to tight deadlines. Kubernetes offers a consistent way to ensure an ultra-high level of availability, while removing the complexity associated with traditional, vendor-specific approaches. In the past, businesses had to engage with all their technology vendors independently when developing a strategy for high availability. This required additional resources for infrastructure management, as businesses would have to learn the nuances of each product when monitoring for availability. Evolving to a container-based model streamlines and consolidates the monitoring of critical workflow resources, thereby reducing both complexity and cost. The key for businesses is to make sure that they don’t end up with a bespoke set of tools that’s harder and more complex to manage. This can be avoided by embracing the communities around platforms such as OpenShift. These communities often spearhead new innovations, so staying abreast of the latest trends in the community when building a container-based environment—especially one that comprises different technology vendors and providers—can help guide the process. As a result, businesses will be more likely to adopt a standard toolset that makes it easier to manage the lifecycle of the tools and service in their workflows. THE FULL PACKAGE
These factors are prompting more and more media businesses to work with external partners to evolve their public cloud resources and workflows into container-based environments. Although the media industry has been relatively slow to adopt containers compared to other sectors, we’re seeing growing interest in Kubernetes and the Continued on 14
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ROBUST AI RESEARCH ALREADY UNDERWAY
MPAI’s reliance on AI-based data coding is not only justified by the promises of higher performance but also by the expected ability to tap into the results of thriving research in the AI community in such areas as: • • • • •
Representation learning, the discovery of data coding effective in solving AI tasks; Transfer learning, the adaptation of an AI model to work with different data; “Edge AI,” the deployment of AI models to the edge; Model integration, the creation of larger AI models by combining simpler models, and The ability to reproduce performance, giving an AI model the same level of performance in different contexts.
AI is not vaporware, but rather a stream of technologies fed by global research. MPAI believes that, to ensure the success of its
standards in the fast-evolving AI field, it must leverage its connection with academia and industrial research—Indeed, approximately 40% of the current MPAI members are academic and research institutions. Any entity, such as a corporation and individual firm, partnership, university, governmental body or international organization supporting the mission of MPAI may apply for membership, provided that it is able to contribute to the development of standards for the efficient use of data. Individuals representing technical departments of academic institutions may apply for Associate Membership, stating their qualification in their application. For further information, visit https://mpai.community/ and/or contact secretariat@mpai.community. Leonardo Chiariglione has been at the forefront of several initiatives that have helped shape media technology and business as we know them today. Among them is the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), which he founded and chaired for 32 years. He is CEO of CEDEO.net, a company providing advanced media technologies and solutions and advising major multinationals on matters related to digital media. ■
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consolidation of media offerings onto a single platform powered by containers. But container technology isn’t the only innovation enhancing remote production workflows. IP-based streaming is also taking on a growing importance, particularly in the current climate where remote productions have fewer office-based IT support staff than ever before. Media businesses are operating on skeleton crews, and IP-based streaming offers a flexible and cost-efficient way of operating remote production sites without requiring a full IT staff, while also ensuring a more streamlined workflow. Linked to this, of course, is the issue of security. As productions continue to become increasingly remote with employees working from different locations, security must be considered a central part of any end-toTo continue operations amid the ongoing pandemic, media companies of all sizes have had to end workflow. Ensuring proper identity management is quickly make the switch to remote production to cater to a fully work-from-home environment. becoming incraesingly important, presenting a need to integrate technologies such as intelligent authentication, credentials content in the most effective way possible. encryption and secure key management integration with BYOK Ultimately, it’s becoming clear that container-based deployments (bring your own key) capabilities. will become the dominant infrastructure solution in a remote and BYOK enables businesses to easily and cost-efficiently rotate their hybrid cloud world. These cloud-native technologies are vital to encryption keys, and can be supplemented with other cloud security supporting agile and secure operations, giving media businesses the innovations such as forensic “watermarking-as-a-service” to countools to enhance their remote production workflows and adapt to ter piracy. This all can help businesses ensure security by followany situation that comes their way. ■ ing the principles of zero-trust environments when auditing key workflows, providing a high level of control and protecting valuable James Wilson is Head of Aspera Engineering and Operations, IBM.
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Broadcast Engineering EXTRA :: November 2020
The conventional live production model, in which a team and equipment are sent to the venue, can be costly in terms of both time and money.
Preserving PTP in Remote Production Environments How do you ensure timing and synchronization between sites? By Rafael Fonseca
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ur industry has been talking about remote production for awhile, and for good reason. The conventional live production model, in which a team and equipment are sent to the venue, can be costly in terms of both time and money. Travel is expensive not only because of transportation and lodging, but also because the human and technical resources are tied up all that time and unavailable for any other production. As a result, you’re limited in the frequency and number of events you can produce. Remote production solves many of these issues. While you still send a team to the venue, you can keep specialized staff and equipment in a central location, available to support multiple events throughout the day. With the emergence of COVID-19, and the need to shift to distancing and remote work scenarios, the appeal of remote production has become even greater. IP is a key enabler of remote production applications, as it supports transport of both audio and video, as well as the data, communications, and control signals critical in the production environment. Oftentimes, the challenge lies in connecting two remote sites, each with its own media-over-IP infrastructure but lacking the IP switching and Precision Time Protocol (PTP) implementation essential to preserving timing and synchronization across both sites. PTP specifies a methodology for synchronizing devices to a single shared clock across packet-based networks (using SMPTE ST 2110 and AES67), including Ethernet switches and IP routers. Creating a common time base for multiple AV sources, PTP enables synchronization of device clocks to within nanoseconds, even across a large network. Because PTP is sensitive to delay, the best way to maintain syn-
chronization across the transport network connecting two sites is to deploy PTP generators at each site. (Some facilities do continue to use SDI transport to sidestep this requirement, using IP solely for control, management, and monitoring.) The resulting topology would typically include a PTP generator, PTP-aware switching, and IP transport at each site. The signal flow therefore would look like this: PTP Generator 1 — PTP-aware switching — IP transport — fiber — IP transport — PTP-aware switching — PTP Generator 2. Connected to the PTP generators, the PTP Ethernet switches leverage internal timing circuitry to minimize time drift and maintain highly accurate timing synchronization. In the case of the PTP aware switches, integrated support for QoS and traffic management help to ensure signal reliability and integrity. In this example, each PTP-aware switch could connect to an SDI-overIP multifunction gateway, likely autosensing to support 3G, HD, and SD, with an integrated nonblocking Layer 2/3 switch. Ideally the gateway attaches to the IP network without the need for external network elements. The signal flow in this model is basic, and the components install simply. Even more important, synchronization is maintained across the two sites, ensuring proper handling of audio and video throughout live production. With this problem solved, production teams can focus their time and energy on other aspects of creating a great show using a collaborative remote workflow. The entire organization — and viewers too—benefit from this at-home production model, which increases not just efficiency, but also the expertise and technical resources that can be dedicated to multiple live broadcast events. ■ Rafael Fonseca is vice president of product management for Artel. November 2020 :: Broadcast Engineering EXTRA
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