IS-06 Archives – Page 2 of 3 – The Broadcast Knowledge

Video: SMPTE Technical Primers

Posted on 28th November 2019 by Russell Trafford-Jones

The Broadcast Knowledge exists to help individuals up-skill whatever your starting point. Videos like this are far too rare giving an introduction to a large number of topics. For those starting out or who need to revise a topic, this really hits the mark particularly as there are many new topics.

John Mailhot takes the lead on SMPTE 2110 explaining that it’s built on separate media (essence) flows. He covers how synchronisation is maintained and also gives an overview of the many parts of the SMPTE ST 2110 suite. He talks in more detail about the audio and metadata parts of the standard suite.

Eric Gsell discusses digital archiving and the considerations which come with deciding what formats to use. He explains colour space, the CIE model and the colour spaces we use such as 709, 2100 and P3 before turning to file formats. With the advent of HDR video and displays which can show bright video, Eric takes some time to explain why this could represent a problem for visual health as we don’t fully understand how the displays and the eye interact with this type of material. He finishes off by explaining the different ways of measuring the light output of displays and their standardisation.

Yvonne Thomas talks about the cloud starting by explaining the different between platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and similar cloud terms. As cloud migrations are forecast to grow significantly, Yvonne looks at the drivers behind this and the benefits that it can bring when used in the right way. Using the cloud, Yvonne shows, can be an opportunity for improving workflows and adding more feedback and iterative refinement into your products and infrastructure.

Looking at video deployments in the cloud, Yvonne introduces video codecs AV1 and VVC both, in their own way, successors to HEVC/h.265 as well as the two transport protocols SRT and RIST which exist to reliably send video with low latency over lossy networks such as the internet. To learn more about these protocols, check out this popular talk on RIST by Merrick Ackermans and this SRT Overview.

Rounding off the primer is Linda Gedemer from Source Sound VR who introduces immersive audio, measuring sound output (SPL) from speakers and looking at the interesting problem of forward speakers in cinemas. The have long been behind the screen which has meant the screens have to be perforated to let the sound through which interferes with the sound itself. Now that cinema screens are changing to be solid screens, not completely dissimilar to large outdoor video displays, the speakers are having to move but now with them out of the line of sight, how can we keep the sound in the right place for the audience?

This video is a great summary of many of the key challenges in the industry and works well for beginners and those who just need to keep up.

Watch now!
Speakers

	John Mailhot Systems Architect for IP Convergence, Imagine Communications
	Eric Gsell Staff Engineer, Dolby Laboratories
	Linda Gedemer, PhD Technical Director, VR Audio Evangelist Source Sound VR
	Yvonne Thomas Strategic Technologist Digital TV Group

Video: Securing NMOS Apps

Posted on 9th May 2019 by Russell Trafford-Jones

The still-growing NMOS suite of specifications from AMWA defines ways in which your IP network can find and register new devices plugged in to it (e.g. camera, microphone etc.), manage their connections and control them. They fit neatly along side the SMPTE ST 2110 suite of standards which define the way that the essences (video, audio, metadata) are sent over networks intended for professional media.

As such, they are core to a network and as the market for uncompressed media products matures, the attention is on the details such as whether they scale and security.

In this talk, Simon Rankine from BBC R&D starts by explaining the objectives which means looking at the different aspects of security which is split into three; securing data transfer, ensuring data goes to the right place, ensuring only authorised people can act.

TLS, standing for Transport Layer Security, is the same protocol used for secure websites; those which start with https://. It is also referred to by the name of the protocol it replaced, SSL. Given the NMOS APIs are sent over HTTP, TLS is a perfect match for the use case. TLS provides not only the ability to encrypt the connection but also provides the basis for certificate exchange which allows us trust that the data is being sent to the right place. Simon then covers ciphers and TLS versions before talking about certificate management.

This talk was given at the IP Showcase at NAB 2019.

Watch now!

Speaker

Simon Rankine
Research Engineer,
BBC R&D

Video: A Basic Guide For Real-Time IP Video

Posted on 2nd April 2019 by Russell Trafford-Jones

There are a lot of videos looking into the details of uncompressed video over IP, but not many for those still starting out – and let’s face it, there are a lot of people who are only just embarking on this journey. Here, Andy Jones takes us through the real basics do prove very useful as a building block for understanding today’s IP technologies.

Andy Jones is well known by many broadcast engineers in the UK having spent many many years working in The BBC’s Training and Development department and subsequently running training for the IABM. The news that he passed away on Saturday is very saddening and I’m posting this video in recognition of the immense amount he has contributed to the industry through his years of tireless work. You can see from this video from NAB 2018 his passion, energy and ability to make complicated things simple.

In this talk, Andy looks at the different layers that networks operate on, including the physical layer i.e. the cables. This is because the different ways in which traffic gets from A to B in networking are interdependent and need to be considered as such. He looks at an example network which shows all the different standards in use in an IP network and talks about their relevance.

Andy briefly looks at IP addresses and the protocol that makes them work. This underpins much of what happens on most networks before looking at the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) which is heavily used for sending audio and video streams.

After looking at how timing is done in IP (as opposed to black and burst) he has laid enough foundations to look at SMPTE ST 2110 – the suite of standards which show how different media (essences) are sent in networks delivering uncompressed streams. AES67 for the audio is also looked at before how to control the whole kit and caboodle.

A great primer for those starting out, watch now!

Speaker

Andy Jones

Video: AMWA NMOS State of Play

Posted on 1st March 2019 by Russell Trafford-Jones

With all the talk of the SMPTE ST 2110 standards suite, it’s sometimes forgotten that it only deals with content. If you want a working system, you’ll need to do a few more things – find new devices on the network, work out what they can do, control them, guarantee the bandwidth and often deal with metadata that arrives separately like tallies.

This is what the AMWA NMOS specifications do. Peter Brightwell and Thomas Edwards have been heavily involved in creating them and in this video lead us through what each one does and how they are used.

Watch now!

Speakers

	Peter Brightwell Lead Engineer, BBC R&D
	Thomas Edwards VP Engineering & Development Fox NEO

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