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Video: Current Status of ST 2110 over 25 GbE

Posted on 1st August 2019 by Russell Trafford-Jones

IT still has catching up to do. The promise of video over IP and ST 2110 is to benefit from the IT industry’s scale and products, but when it comes to bandwidth, there are times when it isn’t there. This talk looks at 25 gigabit (25GbE) network interfaces to see how well they work and if they’ve arrived on the broadcast market.

Koji Oyama from M3L Inc. explains why the move from 10GbE to 25GbE makes sense; a move which allows more scalability with fewer cables. He then looks at the physical characteristics of the signals, both as 25GbE but also linked together into a 100GbE path.

We see that the connectors and adapters are highly similar and then look at a cost analysis. What’s actually available on the market now and what is the price difference? Koji also shows us that FPGAs are available with enough capacity to manage several ports per chip.

So if the cost seems to be achievable, perhaps the decision should come down to reliability. Fortunately, Koji has examined the bit error rates and shows the data which indicates that Reed Solomon protection is needed, called RS-FEC. Reed Solomon is a simple protection scheme which has been used in CDs, satellite transmissions and many other places where a light-weight algorithm for error recovery is needed. Koji goes into some detail here explaining RS-FEC for 25GbE.

Koji has also looked into timing both in synchronisation but also jitter and wander. He presents the results of monitoring these parameters in 10GbE and 25GbE scenarios.

Finishing up by highlighting the physical advantages of moving to 25GbE such as density and streams-per-port, Koji takes a moment to highlight many of the 25GbE products available at NAB as final proof that the 25GbE is increasingly available for use today.

Watch now!

Copy of the presentation

Speaker

Koji Oyama
Director,
M3L

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: A Study of Protocols for Low Latency Video Transport Over the Internet

Posted on 21st June 2019 by Russell Trafford-Jones

Contribution via the internet is tricky but has great promise. With packet loss and jitter all over the place, how can you deliver perfect video?

Ciro Noronha from Cobalt Digital explains the two ways people get around the unreliability of the internet: FEC and retransmission. Forward Error Correction uses some maths to transmit extra data on top of the stream which allows the receiver to correct for any packet losses. This method is standard in satellite transmission where it is always used to add robustness.

Retransmission is different in that it requires a return channel. When a receiver spots a missing packet, it asks for it to be resent. Being that it has to wait for a reply, retransmission protocols like SRT, ARQ and RIST run with a configurable buffer which needs to be big enough for at least one round trip. FEC schemes also require a buffer as it needs to wait for a number of packets before it can complete the maths required.

Ciro introduces FEC and ARQ before presenting work showing experiments he’s run on both FEC and ARQ to see the limits of their signal-correcting capabilities and latency. He finishes explaining what RIST is and its status.

Bring yourself up to date with RIST!
Watch now!

Speaker

Ciro Noronha
Director of Technology,
Cobalt Digital

Video: ST 2110 – From Theory to Reality

Posted on 30th May 2019 by Adam K

Delivering an all-IP truck is no mean feat. tpc explains what they learnt, what went well and how they succeeded in delivering a truck which takes no longer to fire up than a traditional SDI truck.

A common question among people considering a move to IP is ‘do I need to?’ and ‘how can I get ready?’. Here at The Broadcast Knowledge we always say ‘find a small project, get it working, learn what goes wrong and then plan the one you really wanted to do.’ The Swiss broadcasting service provider ‘Technology and Production Centre’, known as ‘tpc’, has done just that.

tpc is currently working on the Metechno project – a large, all-IP news, sports and technology centre for Swiss radio and television. In order to acquire necessary experience with the SMPTE ST 2110 standard, tpc designed the UHD1 OB van ahead of time which has been used in TV production for 6 months now. In this video, Andreas Lattmann shares the vision of the Metechno Project and, critically, his experiences related to the design and use of the truck.

The UHD1 is a 24-camera OB van with all IP core based on Arista switches with non-blocking architecture. It is the equivalent of an 184-square UHD SDI system however, it can be expanded by adding additional line cards to network switches. The truck is format agnostic, supporting both HD and UHD formats in HDR and SDR. IP gateways are incorporated for SDI equipment.

The SMPTE ST 2110 specification separates video and audio into discrete essence streams which boosts efficiency and flexibility, but we hear in this talk that more attention to latency (lip-sync) is required compared to SDI systems. Andreas talks about the flexibility this truck provides with up-/down-conversion, colour-correction for any video plus how IP has enabled full flexibility in what can be routed to the multiviewer screens.

Andreas spends some time discussing redundancy and how IP enables full redundancy – an improvement over many SDI infrastructures and how SMPTE’s ST 2022-7 standard makes this possible.

The main GUI is based on a Lawo VSM control system which aims to deliver a familiar experience for operators who used to work in the SDI domain. Network training has been provided for all operators because troubleshooting has changed significantly with the introduction of essences over IP. This is not least because NMOS IS-04 and 05 standards were not mature enough during the design of the truck, so all IP connections had to be managed manually. With more than 50 thousand IP addresses in this system, AMWA’s NMOS IS-04 which manages discovery and registration and IS-05 which manages the setup and take-down of connections would have helped significantly in the lean management of the truck.

Lattmann emphasizes the importance of using open standards like SMPTE ST 2110 instead of proprietary solutions. That allows you to choose the best components and not rely on a single manufacturer.

The learning’s the Andreas presents us involve difficulties with PTP, IP training, the benefits of flexibility. From a video point of view, Andreas presents his experiences with HDR->SDR workflows, focussing in HDR and UHD.

Watch now!

Speaker