Adam K, Author at The Broadcast Knowledge

Video: Monitoring and Measuring IP Media Networks

Posted on 23rd July 2019 by Adam K

The transition from point-to-point SDI based infrastructure to IP essence flows requires a very different approach to fault-finding. Although new IP diagnostic tools are already available on the market, engineers need combined broadcast and IT knowledge to fully understand the flow of video, audio and data across the switching fabric – including packet jitter, latency, and buffer over/underflows causing dropped packets.

In this video Michael Waidson from Tektronix presents methodologies involved in monitoring IP media networks. The following topics are covered:

Strategies for choosing IP Address, Port Number and Payload Type for easier identification of the streams
Troubleshooting basics (fibres and SFPs types, checking switch ports)
PTP synchronisation
Checking syntax of decoded streams (Layer 5 RTP, Marker Bit, Payload Type, Sequence Number, Timestamp)
Packet transmission (multiple paths, out of order packets in receiver, jitter, PIT Histogram)
Timing (reference clock, RTP timestamps, checking PTP lock, PTP and RTP offset, transmission traffic shape models)

You can download the slides here.

Speaker

Michael Waidson
Application Engineer
Tektronix

Video: Network Automation Using Python and Google Sheets

Posted on 10th July 2019 by Adam K

“I’m lazy and I’m a master procrastinator.” If you sympathise, learn how to automate network configuration with some code and spreadsheets.

In this video, the EBU’s Ievgen Kostiukevych presents a simple way to automate basic operations on Arista switches working in a SMPTE ST 2110 environment. This is done with a Python script which retrieves parameters stored in Google Sheets and uses Arista’s eAPI to implement changes to the switch.

The Python script was created as a proof of concept for the EBU’s test lab where frequent changes of VLAN configuration on the switches were required. Google Sheets has been selected as a collaborative tool which allows multiple people to modify settings and keep track of changes at the same time. This approach makes repetitive tasks like adding or changing descriptions of the ports easier as well.

Functionality currently supported:

Creating VLANs and modyfying their descriptions based on the date in a Google Sheets
Changing access VLANs and interface descriptions for the ports based on the date in a Google Sheets
Reading interfaces status and the mac address table from the switch and writing the data to the spreadsheet

The script can be downloaded from GitHub.

Speaker

Ievgen Kostiukevych
Senior IP Media Technology Architect and Trainer
EBU

Video: Live Closed Captioning and Subtitling in SMPTE 2110-40

Posted on 25th June 2019 by Adam K

The ST 2110-40 standard specifies the real-time, RTP transport of SMPTE ST 291-1 Ancillary Data packets. It allows to create IP essence flow carrying VANC data known from SDI (like AFD, closed captions or triggering), complementing the existing video and audio portions of the SMPTE ST 2110 suite.

In this video, Bill McLaughlin introduces 2110-40 and shows its advantages for closed captioning. With video, audio and ancillary data broken into separate essence flows, you no longer need full SDI bandwidth to process closed captioning and transcription can be done by subscribing to a single audio stream which bandwith is less than 1 Mbps. That allows for a very high processing density, with up to 100 channels of closed captioning in 1 RU server.

Another benefit is that a single ST 2110-40 multicast containing closed captioning can be associated with multiple videos (e.g. for two different networks or dirty and clean feeds), typically using NMOS connection management. This translates into additional bandwidth savings and lower cost, as you don’t need separate CC/Subtitling encoders working in SDI domain.

Test and measurment equipment for ST 2110-40 is still under developmnent. However, with date rates of 50-100 kbps per flow monitoring is very managable and you can use COTS equipment and generic packet analyser like Wireshark with dissector available on Github.

Speaker

Bill McLaughlin
VP Product Development
EEG Enterprises

Video: JPEG-XS and ST 2110

Posted on 11th June 2019 by Adam K

JPEG XS is a brand-new, ultra-low latency standard delivering JPEG 2000 quality with 1000x lower latency; microseconds instead of milliseconds. This mezzanine compression standard promises compression ratios of up to 10:1, resolutions of up to 8K plus HDR and features frame rates from 24 to 120 fps.

Jean-Baptiste Lorent from intoPIX shows how JPEG-XS can be used with SMPTE ST-2110 stack. Part -22 of ST 2110 allows for transport of compressed video essence as an alternative to uncompressed essence – all the other elementary streams stay the same, just the video RTP payload changes. This approach saves a lot of bandwidth and keeps all the existing advantages of moving from SDI to IP at the same time.

Based on TICO which arrived in products four or more years ago allowing HD products to support UHD workflows, JPEG XS was also designed for visually lossless quality and maintaining that quality over multiple re-encoding stages. The combination of very-low microsecond-latency and relatively low bandwidth makes it ideal for remote production of live events.