VSF

Video: Monitoring and Measuring IP Media Networks

Posted on by Adam K

nn

The transition from point-to-point SDI based infrastructure to IP essence flows requires a very different approach to fault-finding. Although new IP diagnostic tools are already available on the market, engineers need combined broadcast and IT knowledge to fully understand the flow of video, audio and data across the switching fabric – including packet jitter, latency, and buffer over/underflows causing dropped packets.

In this video Michael Waidson from Tektronix presents methodologies involved in monitoring IP media networks. The following topics are covered:

  • Strategies for choosing IP Address, Port Number and Payload Type for easier identification of the streams
  • Troubleshooting basics (fibres and SFPs types, checking switch ports)
  • PTP synchronisation
  • Checking syntax of decoded streams (Layer 5 RTP, Marker Bit, Payload Type, Sequence Number, Timestamp)
  • Packet transmission (multiple paths, out of order packets in receiver, jitter, PIT Histogram)
  • Timing (reference clock, RTP timestamps, checking PTP lock, PTP and RTP offset, transmission traffic shape models)

You can download the slides here.

Speaker

Michael Waidson
Application Engineer
Tektronix

Video: TR-1001 Replacing Video By Spreadsheet

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Here to kill the idea of SDNs – Spreadsheet Defined Networks – is TR-1001 which defines ways to implement IP-based media facilities avoiding some typical mistakes and easing the support burden.

From the JT-NM (Joint Taskforce – Networked Media), TR-1001 promises to be a very useful document for companies implementing ST-2110 or any video-over-IP network Explaining what’s in it is EEG’s Bill McLaughlin at the VSF’s IP Showcase at NAB.

This isn’t the first time we’ve written about TR-1001 at The Broadcast Knowledge. Previously, Imagine’s John Mailhot has dived in deep as part of a SMPTE standards webcast. Here, Bill takes a lighter approach to get over the main aims of the document and adds details about recent testing which happened across several vendors.

Bill looks at the typical issues that people find when initially implementing a system with ST-2110 devices and summarises the ways in which TR-1001 mitigates these problems. The aim here is to enable, at least in theory, many nodes to be configured in an automatic and self-documenting way.

Bill explains that TR-1001 covers timing, discovery and connection of devices plus some of configuration and monitoring. As we would expect, ST-2110 itself defines the media transport and also some of the timing. Work is still to be done to help TR-1001 address security aspects.

Speaker

Bill McLaughlin Bill McLaughlin
VP Product Development,
EEG Enterprises

Video: Network Automation Using Python and Google Sheets

Posted on 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 Simple Description of SDP in SMPTE ST 2110

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones


Often overlooked, but very important for IP streams such as SMPTE ST 2110, is SDP – Session Description Protocol.

SDP describes the stream by transferring a small text file from the sender to the receiver which defines what the media is (audio, video etc.) the IP address of the sender and other data.

Sithideth Viengkhou from Embrionix takes us through some of the details, shows some examples and explains and why it’s so useful.

Watch now!

Speakers

Sithideth Viengkhou Sithideth Viengkhou
R&D Project Manager,
Embrionix