Video

Video: RIST for high-end live media workflows

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

RIST overcomes the propensity of the internet to lose packets. It makes possible very-high-bandwidth, low-latency contribution over the internet into a studio or directly into the cloud as part of a streaming workflow. Broadcasters have long dreamed of using the increasingly ubiquitous internet to deliver programmes at a lower cost than fixed lines, satellite or microwave. Back in the day, FEC tended to save the day but it had limits meaning the internet was still not so appetising. Now with RIST, the internet is a safe medium for contribution. As ever, two paths are advised!

In this talk, Love Thyresson explains how NetInsight use RIST to deliver high bandwidth contribution for their customers. Love focusses on the lower-tier sports events which would attract an audience, but when the audience is small, the budgets are also small meaning that if you can’t use the internet to get the sports game back to your production centre, the costs – often just on connectivity – are too high to make the programme viable. So whether we are trying to cut costs on a big production or make new programming viable (which might even be the catalyst for a whole new business model or channel), internet contribution is the only way to go.

Love talks about the extension done in RIST to the standard RTP timestamp which, when using high bandwidth streams, quickly runs out of numbers. Expanding it from 16 to 32 bits was the way to allow for more packets to be delivered before having to start the timer from zero again. Indeed, it’s this extra capacity which allows the RIST main profile to deliver JPEG 2000 or JPEG XS. JPEG XS, in particular, is key to modern remote-production workflows. Ingest into the cloud may end up being the most common use for RIST despite the high-value use cases for delivering from events to broadcasters or between broadcasters’ buildings.

After a quick retransmission 101, Love Thyresson closes by looking at the features available now in the simple and main profile of RIST.

For more information, have a look at this article or these videos

Watch now!
Speakers

Love Thyresson Love Thyresson
Former Head of Internet Media Transport, NetInsight

Video: Banding Impairment Detection

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

It’s one of the most common visual artefacts affecting both video and images. The scourge of the beautiful sunset and the enemy of natural skin tones, banding is very noticeable as it’s not seen in nature. Banding happens when there is not enough bit depth to allow for a smooth gradient of colour or brightness which leads to strips of one shade and an abrupt change to a strip of the next, clearly different, shade.

In this Video Tech talk, SSIMWAVE’s Dr. Hojat Yeganeh explains what can be done to reduce or eliminate banding. He starts by explaining how banding is created during compression, where the quantiser has reduced the accuracy of otherwise unique pixels to very similar numbers leaving them looking the same.

Dr. Hojat explains why we see these edges so clearly. By both looking at how contrast is defined but also by referencing Dolby’s famous graph showing contrast steps against luminance where they plotted 10-bit HDR against 12-bit HDR and show that the 12-bit PQ image is always below the ‘Barten limit’ which is the threshold beyond which no contrast steps are visible. It shows that a 10-bit HDR image is always susceptible to showing quantised, i.e. banded, steps.

Why do we deliver 10-bit HDR video if it can still show banding? This is because in real footage, camera noise and film grain serve to break up the bands. Dr. Hojat explains that this random noise amounts to ‘dithering’. Well known in both audio and video, when you add random noise which changes over time, humans stop being able to see the bands. TV manufacturers also apply dithering to the picture before showing which can further break up banding, at the cost of more noise on the image.

How can you automatically detect banding? We hear that typical metrics like VMAF and SSIM aren’t usefully sensitive to banding. SSIMWAVE’s SSIMPLUS metric, on the other hand, has been created to also be able to create a banding detection map which helps with the automatic identification of banding.

The video finishes with questions including when banding is part of artistic intention, types of metrics not identifiable by typical metrics, consumer display limitations among others.

Watch now!
Speakers

Dr. Hojat Yeganeh Dr. Hojat Yeganeh
Senior Member Technical Staff,
SSIMWAVE Inc.

Video: Audio networking – ask anything you want!

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

It’s open season with these AES67 audio-over-Ip experts who are all the questions put to them on working with AES67. Not only was AES67 baked in to SMPTE ST 2110-30, it’s also a standard that brings compatability between Dante and RAVENNA as well as other AoIP technologies.

After a quick summary of what AES66 is, this talk quickly moves into answering these, and other questions:

  • How much bandwidth does stereo AES67 require?
  • Can multicast be used within Ravenna
  • Will there be a slipless switching/2022-7 style function?
  • Should receivers automatically adjust to original stream
  • Is it possible to avoid using PTP in an audio-only system?
  • Cost of PTP-capable switches
  • What’s the difference between Boundary Clocks and Transparent Clocks
  • Can AES67 go over the internet?
  • Tools for spotting problems
  • IPMX for Pro-AV update (See this talk)
  • Is NMOS ‘the answer’ for discovery and configuration?
  • Latency for Ravenna and AES67
  • New advancements in the PTP standard.

Watch now!
Speakers

Andreas Hildebrand Andreas Hildebrand
Evangelist,
ALC NetworX
Claude Cellier Claude Cellier
President & CEO
Merging Technologies SA
Claudio Becker-Foss
CTO,
DirectOut
Daniel Boldt Daniel Boldt
Head of Software Development,
Meinberg
Terry Holton Terry Holton
Audio subgroup Chairman,
AIMS
Roland Hemming Moderator: Roland Hemming
Audio Consultant
RH Consulting

Video: NMOS: The API for IPMX

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

IPMX promises a ‘plug and play’ out-of-the-box experience, but with uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 video and audio underneath. Given many tier 1 broadcasters have invested months or years implementing ST 2110. So how can IPMX deliver on its promise to the Pro-AV market?

Andrew Starks from Macnica presents this talk explaining how NMOS will fit into IPMX. Key to enabling a minimal config environment is the added mandatory specifications and standards within IPMX. For instance, while you can build an ST 2110 system without NMOS, that’s not an option for IPMX. The focus is on consistency and interoperability. Optional parts of IPMX cover HDCP carriage, USB, RS232 and IPV6. Many of the things often used within Pro-AV but may not be appropriate for low-cost, small use-cases.

Andrew gives an overview of IS-04 and IS-05 which allow for discovery and control of devices. He then looks at EDID and USB carriage and finishes by discussing why AMWA is choosing to use open specifications rather than creating standards.

Watch now!
Speakers

Andrew Starks Andrew Starks
Director of Product Management,
Macnica Technology,