JT-NM

Video: IP Systems – The Big Picture

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Early adopters of IP are benefiting from at least one of density, flexibility and scalability which are some of the promises of the technology. For OB vans, the ability to switch hundreds of feeds within only a couple rack units is incredibly useful, for others being able to quickly reconfigure a room is very valuable. So whilst IP isn’t yet right for everyone, those that have adopted it are getting from it benefits which SDI can’t deliver. Unfortunately, there are aspects of IP which are more complex than older technology. A playback machine plugged into an SDI router needed no configuration. However, the router and control system would need to be updated manually to say that a certain input was now a VT machine. In the IP world, the control system can discover the new device itself reducing manual intervention. In this situation, the machine also needs an IP configuration which can be done manually or automatically. If manual, this is more work than before. If automatic, this is another service that needs to be maintained and understood.

 

 

Just like the IT world is built on layers of protocols, standards and specifications, so is a modern broadcast workflow. And like the OSI model which helps break down networking into easy to understand, independent layers such as cabling (layer 1), point to point data links (layer 2), the network layer (3) etc. It’s useful to understand IP systems in a similar way as this helps reduce complexity. The ‘Networked Media System Big Picture’ is aimed at helping show how a professional IP media system is put together and how the different parts of it are linked – and how they are not linked. It allows a high-level view to help explain the concepts and enables you to add detail to explain how each and every protocol, standard and specification are used and their scope. The hope is that this diagram will aid everyone in your organisation to speak in a common language and support conversations with vendors and other partners to avoid misunderstandings.

Brad Gilmer takes us through the JT-NM’s diagram which shows that security is the bottom layer for the whole system meaning that security is all-encompassing and important to everything. Above the security layer is the monitoring layer. Naturally, if you can’t measure how the rest of your system is behaving, it’s very hard to understand what’s wrong. For lager systems, you’ll be wanting to aggregate the data and look for trends that may point to worsening performance. Brad explains that next are the control layer and the media & infrastructure layer. The media and infrastructure layer contains tools and infrastructure needed to create and transport professional media.

Towards the end of this video, Brad shows how the diagram can be filled in and highlighted to show, for instance, the work that AMWA has done with NMOS including work in progress. He also shows the parts of the system that are within the scope of the JT-NM TR 1001 document. These are just two examples of how to use the diagram to frame and focus discussions demonstrating the value of the work undertaken.

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Speaker

Brad Gilmer Brad Gilmer
Executive Director, Video Services Forum
Executive Director, Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA)
Wes Simpson Moderator: Wes Simpson
LearnIPVideo.com

Video: ST 2110 Testing Fundamentals

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

When you’ve chosen to go IP in your facility using ST 2110, you’ll need to know how to verify it’s working correctly, how to diagnose problems and have the right tools available. Vendors participate in several interop tests a year, so we can learn from how they set up their tests and the best practices they develop.

In this talk, Jean Lapierre explains what to test for and the types of things that typically go wrong in ST 2110 systems with PTP. Jean starts by talking about the parts of 2110 which are tested and the network and timing infrastructure which forms the basis of the testing. He then starts to go through problems to look for in deployments.

Jean talks about testing that IGMPv3 multicasts can be joined and then looks at checking the validity of SDP files which can be done by visual inspection and also SDPoker. A visual inspection is still important because whilst SDPoker checks the syntax, there can be basic issues in the content. 2022-7 testing is next. The simplest test is to turn one path off and check for disturbances, but this should be followed up by using a network emulator to deliver a variety of different types of errors of varying magnitudes to ensure there are no edge cases.

ST 2110 uses PTP for timing so, naturally, the timing system also needs to be tested. PTP is a bi-directional system for providing time to all parts of the network instead of a simple waterfall distribution of a centrally created time signal like black and burst. Whilst this system needs monitoring during normal operation, it’s important to check for proper grandmaster failover of your equipment.

PTP is also important when doing 2110 PCAPs in order to have accurate timing and to enable analysis with the EBU’s LIST project. Jean gives some guidelines on using and installing LIST and finishes his talk outlining some of the difficulties he has faced, providing tips on what to look out for.

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Speakers

Jean Lapierre Jean Lapierre
Senior Director of Engineering,
Matrox

Video: Introduction to IPMX

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

The Broadcast Knowledge has documented over 100 videos and webinars on SMPTE ST 2110. It’s a great suite of standards but it’s not always simple to implement. For smaller systems, many of the complications and nuances don’t occur so a lot of the deeper dives into ST 2110 and its associated specifications such as NMOS from AMWA focus on the work done in large systems in tier-1 broadcasters such as the BBC, tpc and FIS Skiing for SVT.

ProAV, the professional end of the AV market, is a different market. Very few companies have a large AV department if one at all. So the ProAV market needs technologies which are much more ‘plug and play’ particularly those in the events side of the market. To date, the ProAV market has been successful in adopting IP technology with quick deployments by using heavily proprietary solutions like ZeeVee, SDVoE and NDI to name a few. These achieve interoperability by having the same software or hardware in each and every implementation.

IPMX aims to change this by bringing together a mix of standards and open specifications: SMPTE ST 2110, NMOS specs and AES. Any individual or company can gain access and develop a service or product to meet them.

Andreas gives a brief history of IP to date outlining how AES67, ST 2110, ST 2059 and the IS specifications, his point being that the work is not yet done. ProAV has needs beyond, though complementary to, those of broadcast.

AES67 is already the answer to a previous interoperability challenge, explains Andreas, as the world of audio over IP was once a purely federated world of proprietary standards which had no, or limited, interoperability. AES67 defined a way to allow these standards to interoperate and has now become the main way audio is moved in SMPTE 2110 under ST 2110-30 (2110-31 allows for AES3). Andreas explains the basics of 2110, AES, as well as the NMOS specifications. He then shows how they fit together in a layered design.

Andreas brings the talk to a close looking at some of the extensions that are needed, he highlights the ability to be more flexible with the quality-bandwidth-latency trade-off. Some ProAV applications require pixel perfection, but some are dictated by lower bandwidth. The current ecosystem, if you include ST 2110-22’s ability to carry JPEG-XS instead of uncompressed video allows only very coarse control of this. HDMI, naturally, is of great importance for ProAV with so many HDMI interfaces in play but also the wide variety of resolutions and framerates that are found outside of broadcast. Work is ongoing to enable HDCP to be carried, suitably encrypted, in these systems. Finally, there is a plan to specify a way to reduce the highly strict PTP requirements.

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Speaker

Andreas Hildebrand Andreas Hildebrand
Evangelist,
ALC NetworX

Video: How CBC/Radio-Canada Tested Media-over-IP Devices to Build its New Facility

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Moving video production to IP has been ongoing for over 5 years using both SMPTE ST 2022-6 and now ST-2110 but we’re still in the ‘Early Adopter’ phase, explains the Willem Vermost speaking at SMPTE 2019. Willem is the EBU topic lead for the transition to IP-based studios and he is tracking the upcoming projects with public broadcasters.

Willem talks about what’s motivating these Early Adopters. In general, he explains, they have a building move project and they are faced, as CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) was, with being the last to install an extensive SDI infrastructure – and be stuck with that for 7, 10 or more years to come – or the to be one of the first to use IP. Increasingly, they can’t justify the SDI workflow and IP, for all its risks and uncertainties, is the way forward.

CBC/Radio Canada needs to be ‘on air’ in 2020 so they put in a place a risk mitigation plan to test all the equipment before putting it in. Willem outlines what this test plan looks like and what it covers: AES67, ST 2110-40,-7, -30-, -20, EBU r148 security etc. Testing was also brought up by the BBC’s Mark Patrick when he discussed his work in bring in the BBC’s Cardiff Square building on-air. They found that automated testing was key in project delivery so that testing was quick and consistent to ensure that software/firmware patches were correctly accepted into the project.

Willem talks us through the EBU’s famous Technology Pyramid which shows to what extent each of the technologies on which media-over-IP requires has been defined and adopted by the industry. It shows that while the media aspect has been successfully deployed, there is a lot to do in, for example, security.

Difficulties arose due to different interpretations of standards. To aid in diagnosis of such issues, the LIST project has created a 2110 analysis tool and other related tools. This is created within the EBU and Willem highlights some key parts of what it does. He then shows how that connects in with the automated test programs and explains the underlying structure of how the software is built.

The talk finishes with mention of the JT-NM test plan, a summary and questions lead by Arista’s Gerard Phillips.

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Speakers

Willem Vermost Willem Vermost
Senior IP Media Technology Architect
Topic Lead, Transition to IP-based Studios
EBU
Gerard Phillips Moderator: Gerard Phillips
Systems Engineer,
Arista