Video: ABA IP Fundamentals For Broadcast

IP explained from the fundamentals here in this in this talk from Wayne Pecena building up a picture of networking from the basics. This talk discusses not just the essentials for uncompressed video over IP, SMPTE ST 2110 for instance, but for any use of IP within broadcast even if just for management traffic. Networking is a fundamental skill, so even if you know what an IP address is, it’s worth diving down and shoring up the foundations by listening to this talk from the President of SBE and long-standing Director of Engineering at Texas A&M University.

This talk covers what a Network is, what elements make up a network and an insight into how the internet developed out of a small number of these elements. Wayne then looks at the different standards organisations that specify protocols for use in networking and IP. He explains what they do and highlights the IETF’s famous RFCs as well as the IEEE’s 802-series of ethernet standards including 802.11 for Wi-Fi.

The OSI model is next, which is an important piece of the puzzle for understanding networking. Once you understand, as the OSI model lays out, that different aspects of networking are built on top of, but operate separately from other parts, fault-finding, desiring networks and understanding the individual technologies becomes much easier. The OSI model explains how the standards that define the physical cables work underneath those for Ethernet as separate layers. There are layers all the way up to how your software works but much of broadcasting that takes place in studios and MCRs can be handled within the first 4, out of 7 layers.

The last section of the talk deals with how packets are formed by adding information from each layer to the data payload. Wayne then finishes off with a look at fibre interfaces, different types of SFP and the fibres themselves.

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Speaker

Wayne Pecena Wayne Pecena
Director of Engineering, KAMU TV/FM at Texas A&M University
President, Society of Broadcast Engineers AKA SBE

Video: Using AMWA IS-06 for Flow Control on Professional Media Networks

In IP networks multicast flow subscription is usually based on a combination of IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) and PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast) protocols. While PIM allows for very efficient delivery of IP multicast data, it doesn’t provide bandwidth control or device authorisation.

To solve these issues on SMPTE ST 2110 professional media networks the NMOS IS-06 specification has been developed. It relies on a Software-Defined Networking, where traffic management application embedded in each single switch or router is replaced by a centralised Network Controller. This controller manages and monitors the whole network environment, making it bandwidth aware.

NMOS IS-06 specification provides a vendor agnostic Northbound interface from Network Controller to Broadcast Controller. IS-06 in conjunction with IS-04 (Discovery and Registration) and IS-05 (NMOS Device Connection Management) allows Broadcast Controller to automatically set up media flows between endpoints on the network, reserve bandwidth for flows and enforce network security. Broadcast Controller is also able to request network topology information from Network Controller, which can be used to create a user friendly graphic representation of the flows in the network.

In this presentation Rob Porter from Sony Europe explains the basics of NMOS IS-06, showing in details how setting up media flows with this specification fits into the IS-04 / IS-05 workflow. Rob emphasise that all AMWA NMOS specifications are completely open and available to anyone, allowing for interoperability between broadcast and network devices from different manufacturers.

The next speaker, Sachin Vishwarupe from Cisco Systems, focuses on the future works on IS-06, including provisioning feedback (such as insufficient bandwidth, no route available from sender to receiver or no management connectivity), flow statistics, security and grouping (similar to ”salvo” in SDI world).

There is also a discussion on extension of IS-06 specification for Network Address Translation (NAT), which would help to resolve problems caused by address conflicts e.g. when sharing resources between facilities.

You can find the slides here.

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Speakers

Rob Porter Rob Porter
Project Manager – Advanced Technology Team
Sony Europe
Sachin Vishwarupe
Principal Engineer
Cisco Systems

Video: ATSC 3.0

“OTT over the air” – ATSC 3.0 deployment has started in the US and has been deployed in Korea. Promising to bring interactivity and ‘internet-style’ services to broadcast TV, moreover allowing ‘TV’ to transition to mobile devices. To help understand what ATSC 3.0 enables, NABShow Live brings together Sinclair’s Mark Aitken, Bill Hayes from Iowa Public Television and SMPTE’s Thomas Bause Mason all of which are deeply involved in the development of ATSC 3.0.

The panelists dive in to what ATSC 1 was and how we get to 3.0, outlining the big things that have changed. One key thing is that broadcasters can now choose how robust the stream is, balanced against bandwidth. Not only that but multiple streams with different robustnesses are possible for the same channel. This allows ATSC 3.0 to be tailored to your market and support different business models.

ATSC 3.0, as Bill Hayes says was ‘built to evolve’ and to deal with new standards as they come along and was at pains to point out that all these advancements came without any extra spectrum allocations. Thomas outlined that not only is SMPTE on the board of ATSC, but the broadcast standards upstream of distribution now need to work and communicate with downstream. HDR, for instance, needs metadata and the movement of that is one of the standards SMPTE has formed. As Mark Aitken says ‘the lines are blurring’ with devices at the beginning of the end of the chain both being responsible for correct results on the TV.

The session ends by asking what the response has been from broadcasters. Are they embracing the standard? After all, they are not obliged to use ATSC 3.0.
Thomas say that interest has picked up and that large and small networks are now showing more interest with 50 broadcasters already having committed to it.

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Speakers

Thomas Bause Mason Thomas Bause Mason
Director Standards Development,
SMPTE
Bill Hayes Bill Hayes
Director of Engineering & Technology
Iowa Public Television
Mark Aitken Mark Aitken
SVP of Advanced Technology,
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Linda Rosner Linda Rosner
Managing Director,
Artisans PR

Video: How IP is Revolutionising Sports Video Production

IP Production is very important for sports streaming including esports where its flexibility is a big plus over SDI infrastructure. This panel discusses NDI, SMPTE ST 2110

eSports, in particular, uses many cameras, Point-of-video cameras, PC outputs and the normal camera positions needed to make a good show, so a technology like NDI really helps keeps costs down – since every SDI port is expensive and takes space – plus it allows computer devices to ‘natively’ send video without specific hardware.

NDI is an IP specification from Newtek (now owned by VizRT) which can be licenced for free and is included in Ross, VizRT, Panasonic, OBS, Epiphan and hundreds more. It allows ultra-low-latency video at 100Mbps or low-latency video at 8Mbps.

The panel discusses the right place and use for NDI compared to SDI. In the right places, networking is more convenient as in stadia. And if you have a short distance to run, SDI can often be the best plan. Similarly, until NDI version 4 which includes timing synchronisation, ST 2110 has been a better bet in terms of synchronised video for ISO recordings.

For many events which combine many cameras with computer outputs, whether it be computers playing youtube, Skype or something else, removing the need to convert to SDI allows the production to be much more flexible.

The panel finishes by discussing audio, and taking questions from the floor covering issues such as embedded alpha, further ST 2110 considerations and UHD workflows.

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Speakers

Philip Nelson Philip Nelson
President,
Nelco Media
Mark East Mark East
Chief Problem Solver,
090 Media
Victor Borachuk Victor Borachuk
Director/Executive Producer
JupiterReturn
Jack Lave Jack Lavey
Operations Technician,
FloSports
Jon Raidel Jon Raidel
Technical Operations Manager,
NFL Networks