VSF

Video: 2019 What did I miss? – Introducing Reliable Internet Streaming Transport

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

By far the most visited video of 2019 was the Merrick Ackermans’ review of RIST first release. RIST, the Reliable Internet Stream Transport protocol, aims to be an interoperable protocol allowing even lossy networks to be used for mission-critical broadcast contribution. Using RIST can change a bade internet link into a reliable circuit for live programme material, so it’s quite a game changer in terms of cost for links.

An increasing amount of broadcast video is travelling over the public internet which is currently enabled by SRT, Zixi and other protocols. Here, Merrick Ackermans explains the new RIST specification which aims to allow interoperable internet-based video contribution. RIST, which stands for Reliable Internet Stream Transport, ensures reliable transmission of video and other data over lossy networks. This enables broadcast-grade contribution at a much lower cost as well as a number of other benefits.

Many of the protocols which do similar are based on ARQ (Automatic Repeat-reQuest) which, as you can read on wikipedia, allows for recovery of lost data. This is the core functionality needed to bring unreliable or lossy connections into the realm of usable for broadcast contribution. Indeed, RIST is an interesting merging of technologies from around the industry. Many people use Zixi, SRT, and VideoFlow all of which can allow safe contribution of media. Safe meaning it gets to the other end intact and un-corrupted. However, if your encoder only supports Zixi and you use it to deliver to a decoder which only supports SRT, it’s not going to work out. The industry as accepted that these formats should be reconciled into a shared standard. This is RIST.

File-based workflows are mainly based on TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) although, notably, some file transfer service just as Aspera are based on UDP where packet recovery, not unlike RIST, is managed as part of the the protocol. This is unlike web sites where all data is transferred using TCP which sends an acknowledgement for each packet which arrives. Whilst this is great for ensuring files are uncorrupted, it can impact arrival times which can lead to live media being corrupted.

RIST is being created by the VSF – the Video Standards Forum – who were key in introducing VS-03 and VS-04 into the AIMS group on which SMPTE ST 2022-6 was then based. So their move now into a specification for reliable transmission of media over the internet has many anticipating great things. At the point that this talk was given the simple profile has been formed. Whist Merrick gives the details, it’s worth pointing out that this doesn’t include intrinsic encryption. It can, of course, be delivered over a separately encrypted tunnel, but an intrinsic part of SRT is the security that is provided from within the protocol.

Despite Zixi, a proprietary solution, and Haivision’s open source SRT being in competition, they are both part of the VSF working group creating RIST along with VideoFlow. This is because they see the benefit of having a widely accepted, interoperable method of exchanging media data. This can’t be achieved by any single company alone but can benefit all players in the market.

This talk remains true for the simple profile which just aims to recover packets. The main protocol, as opposed to ‘simple’, has since been released and you can hear about it in a separate video here. This protocol adds FEC, encryption and other aspects. Those who are familiar with the basics may whoosh to start there.

Speaker

Merrick Ackermans Merrick Ackermans
Chair,
VSF RIST Activity Group

Video: RIST Main Profile Description

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

RIST solves a problem by transforming unmanaged networks into reliable paths for video contribution in an interoperable way. RIST not only improves reliability through re-requesting missing packets, but also comes with a range of features and tools, not least of which is tunnelling. Cobalt Digital’s EVP of engineering, Ciro Noronha explains how the protocol works and what’s next on the roadmap.

Ciro starts with a look at the RIST Simple Profile covering the ARQ negative acknowledgement (NACK) mechanism, link bonding and seamless switching. He then moves on to examine the missing features such as content encryption, authentication, simpler firewall configurations, in-band control, high bitrates, NULL packet extraction. These features define RIST’s Main Profile.

Tunnelling and Multiplexing is a technique to combine Simple Profile flows into a bi-directional tunnel, providing simpler network and encryption configuration. Using a GRE (RFC 8086) tunnel, RIST provides a full, protocol agnostic tunnel and a UDP-only reduced overheard mode which only requires 0.6% data overhead to implement. Ciro explains a number of setups, including one where the connection is initiated by the receiver – something that the Simple Profile doesn’t allow.

Authentication and Encryption are covered next. DTLS us the UDP implementation of TLS which is the security mechanism used on secure websites. This provides security to the tunnel so everything which travels through is covered. Ciro explains the pre-shared key (PSK) mechanism in the Main Profile.

The talk finishes by covering NULL Packet removal, also known as ‘bandwidth optimisation’, header extension which extends RTP’s sequence number to allow for more in-flight packets and questions from the audience.

Watch now!
Speaker

Ciro Noronha Dr. Ciro Noronha
Executive Vice President of Engineering,
Cobalt Digital

Video: Implementing AES67 and ST 2110-30 in Your Plant

Posted on by Adam K

AES67 is a flexible standard but with this there is complexity and nuance. Implementing it within ST 2110-30 takes some care and this talk covers lessons learnt in doing exactly that.

AES67 is a standard defined by the Audio Engineering Society to enable high-performance audio-over-IP streaming interoperability between various AoIP systems like Dante, WheatNet-IP and Livewire. It provides comprehensive interoperability recommendations in the areas of synchronization, media clock identification, network transport, encoding and streaming, session description, and connection management.

The SMPTE ST 2110 standards suite makes it possible to separately route and break away the essence streams – audio, video, and ancillary data. ST 2110-30 addresses system requirements and payload formats for uncompressed audio streams and refers to the subset of AES67 standard.

In this video Dominic Giambo from Wheatsone Corporation discusses tips for implementing AES67 and ST 2110-30 standards in a lab environment consisting of over 160 devices (consoles, sufraces, hardware and software I/O blades) and 3 different automation systems. The aim of the test was to pass audio through every single device creating a very long chain to detect any defects.

The following topics are covered:

  • SMPTE ST 2110-30 as a subset of AES67 (support of the PTP profile defined in SMPTE ST 2059-2, an offset value of zero between the media clock and the RTP stream clock, option to force a device to operate in PTP slave-only mode)
  • The importance of using IEEE-1588 PTP v2 master clock for accuracy
  • Packet structure (UDP and RTP header, payload type)
  • Network configuration considerations (mapping out IP and multicast addresses for different vendors, keeping all devices on the same subnet)
  • Discovery and control (SDP stream description files, configuration of signal flow from sources to destinations)

Watch now!

You can download the slides here.

Speaker

Dominic Giambo
Senior Embedded Engineer
Wheatstone Corporation

Video: Current Status of ST 2110 over 25 GbE

Posted on 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 Koji Oyama
Director,
M3L