Adam K, Author at The Broadcast Knowledge

Video: IP Test and Measurement for ST 2110 Systems

Posted on 30th October 2019 by Adam K

As the transition to IP-based transport for video, audio, and data continues. The early adopters have already demonstrated the operational and commercial benefits of COTS IP infrastructure and SMPTE ST 2110 video-over-IP standard suite becomes mature now. However, configuration and troubleshooting of IP systems requires a completely new skillset. Broadcast engineers need to gain an understanding of the technology and the new techniques required to monitor these signals.

In this video Kevin Salvidge from Leader shows what test and measurement tools you need to ensure you continue to deliver the same quality of service that can be achieved with SDI systems.

Kevin looks at the main differences between traditional and IP systems which stem as much from a move from synchronous to asynchronous infrastructure as the way you measure how well the system is working.

The following topics are covered:

Frame Check Sequence (FCS), Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)
Packet jitter measurement (avoiding buffer underrun)
Monitoring ST 2022-7 path delay between the two feeds
PTP synchronization (offset and delay graphs, synchronisation accuracy)
Checking that video, audio and ANC signals are synchronised with PTP and RTP timing measurement
Packet Header Information looking at MAC, IP, UDP, RTP as well as the payload
SFP Information (10/25 Gb, multimode / single mode etc.)
IP Event Log e.g. Grand Master change
Hybrid IP and SDI Video and Audio Test and Measurement

You can see the slides here.

Watch now!

Speaker

Kevin Salvidge
European Regional Development Manager
Leader

Video: What’s New in NMOS? – A Tutorial on the Latest in Video over IP Control and Security

Posted on 21st October 2019 by Adam K

The Networked Media Open Specifications (NMOS) have been developed to provide a control and management layer along side the SMPTE ST 2110 transport layer. The idea behind NMOS was to deliver an open specification to provide the software layers that abstract a lot of complexities of ST 2110 and make it easy to interface with any control system.

The NMOS family of specifications began with projects for Discovery & Registration, Device Connection Management and Network Control, but has grown to include many other important subjects such as Event & Tally, Audio Channel Mapping and Interoperable Security.

In this video, Jed Deame discusses the latest advancements including IS-08, IS-09, BCP-002, BCP-003 and IS-10. These additions allows NMOS to surpass the level of control provided in SDI while also adding a layer of security.

The following Interface Specifications and Best Current Practices are presented:

IS-04 (Registration and Discovery) – new features: support for GPI over Ethernet (IS-07) and authorisation signalling for security layers BCP-003-02
IS-05 (Connection Management) – new features: MQ Telemetry Transport and WebSocket Transport, support for supplementary externally defined parameters
IS-08 (Audio Mapping) – audio routing / shuffling facility
IS-09 (System Resources) – System ID, server priority, security with HTTPS support, advertisement of system resources such as RDS (Registration and Discovery Server)
BCP-002 (Grouping) – uses tag resources in IS-04 in order to achieve a natural groups of senders and receivers (e.g. to tie audio, video and metadata)
BCP-003-01 (Security) – uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) in order to encrypt communications between API servers and their clients
BCP-003-02 (Security) – covers client authorization for the NMOS APIs
IS-10 (Authorisation API) – accompanies the BCP-003-02 specification to restrict what users are authorized to change in an NMOS system (core technologies: PKI, HTTPS, REST, JSON, Oauth 2.0 and JWT)

The presentation finishes with the customer case study – secure KVM all over an IP network.

You can download the slides from here.

Watch now!

You might also be interested in the following videos we have published on The Broadcast Knowledge:

Speaker

Jed Deame
CEO
Nextera Video

Video: ST 2110 Test and Measurement Super Session

Posted on 2nd October 2019 by Adam K

This IP Showcase super session consists of six presentation from six different vendors which focus on specific aspects of test or measurement that is unique for ST 2110 environment. It is worth noting that these are technology presentations, not product presentations.

The session is led by Willem Vermost from EBU. He describes what kind of issues we need to solve in a SMPTE ST 2110 environment in terms of testing and monitoring. He speaks about PTP accuracy, traffic shaping (SMPTE ST 2110-21) and SMPTE ST 2022-7 redundancy.

Next, Michael Waidson from Tektronix focuses on Precision Time Protocol (PTP) which is a cornerstone of synchronisation of IP media networks. He walks us through Best Master Clock algorithm, boundary and transparent clocks plus PTP fault finding. (You might also want to watch the Monitoring and Measuring IP Media Networks presentation by Michael which we recently published on The Broadcast Knowledge.)

Furthermore, Jack Douglass from PacketStorm talks about ST 2110-21 traffic shaping measurements. He also shows how to use network emulation tools for testing ST 2022-7 link redundancy (the same data is sent through two separate paths of network emulation that are synchronised together, then burst loss are generated using RTP sequence number, with the least important bit different on both paths).

The next speaker is Ståle Kristoffersen from Bridge Technologies. He focuses on live performance monitoring in a ST 2110 network – does the signal make sense? (IP headers, RTP headers, ST 2110-20/30/40 essences), do all of the signals arrive? (packet loss, monitoring packet loss on 2022-7 links), does the signal arrive on time? (late can be just as bad as a packet loss) amongst others.

Moreover, Kevin Salvidge from Leader shows the differences in monitoring in an SDI and an all-IP facility. He compares single essence per BNC with multiple essences per fibre, synchronous and asynchronous transport and causes for errors (cable loss and impedance mismatch vs error packet loss and network overload). He also emphasises the need for accuracy of PTP and explains how to measure it.

Last but not least, Adam Schadle from Video Clarity walk us through video / audio performance and quality methods. He shows how to use picture and sound quality objective tests to understand network behaviour.

The presentations are followed by Q&A session.

See the slides here.

Watch now!

Speakers

	Willem Vermost Senior IP Media Technology Architect EBU
	Michael Waidson Application Engineer Tektronix
	Jack Douglass VP Marketing and Business Development PacketStorm
	Ståle Kristoffersen Lead Software Developer Bridge Technologies
	Kevin Salvidge European Regional Development Manager Leader
	Adam Schadle Vice President Video Clarity

Video: Engineering a Live Streaming Workflow for Super Bowl LIII

Posted on 18th September 2019 by Adam K

Super Bowl 53 has come and gone with another victory for the New England Patriots. CBS Interactive responsible for streaming of this event built a new system to deal with all the online viewers. Previously they used one vendor for acquisition and encoding and another vendor for origin storage, service delivery and security. This time the encoders were located in CBS Broadcast Centre in New York and all other systems moved to AWS cloud. Such approach gave CBS full control over the streams.

Due to a very high volume of traffic (between 30 and 35 terabits) four different CDN vendors had to be engaged. A cloud storage service optimized for live streaming video not only provided performance, consistency, and low latency, but also allowed to manage multi-CDN delivery in effective way.

In this video Krystal presents a step-by-step approach to creating a hybrid cloud/on premise infrastructure for the Super Bowl, including ad insertion, Multi-CDN delivery, monitoring and operational visibility. She emphasizes importance of scaling infrastructure to meet audience demands, taking ownership of end to end workflow, performing rigorous testing and handling communication across multiple teams and vendors.

You can download the slides from here.

Watch now!

Speaker