Working at the limits of broadcast technology, news providers are constantly stretching systems to deliver their story first. Discover how the winners operate and quickly master the technology they value.
A number of new production facilities are now being designed and built around the ST 2110 standard for video over IP, but the cost has been prohibitive for many others. The engineers at Diversified Systems Inc. (DSI), a veteran systems integrator, were challenged by this when it came to a recent project to add cameras to the recording studios of New York City’s renown Power Station.
IP networks are delivering outstanding success for broadcasters, both in terms of scalable functionality and flexibility. And the recent NMOS suite of specifications is improving integration and control, with IS-06 and IS-07 accelerating the process.
SDI and IP differ fundamentally in their approach to data transport as SDI is circuit switched and IP is packet switched. This provides interesting challenges for us as we start to consider what it means to route IP signals.
IP networks provide us with untold flexibility, but this flexibility presents us with interesting challenges of control. Developments in SDN (software defined networks) are leading the way through the separation of the control and data plane. And as we discover more of what SDN means, we soon realize that broadcasters are closer than they may think in achieving its operation.
Timing accuracy has been a fundamental component of broadcast infrastructures for as long as we’ve transmitted television pictures and sound. The time invariant nature of frame sampling still requires us to provide timing references with sub microsecond accuracy.
Having a collection of PCs and MACs stacked under a desk to facilitate the multitude of operational requirements not only proves difficult to operate but challenges our modern ideas around security and makes maintenance almost impossible.
The industry experienced futureshock head-on in 2020. The impact will take a long time to unwind but it’s already clear that some changes will be profound and not all of them bad. These changes include remote workflow permanency, virtual production shifts from exotic to routine and genuine efforts to save the planet. Here’s hoping.
This time last year, had anyone predicted or suggested what is now normal in live TV news, sports and entertainment, such as fake fans, laugh track-style crowd noise and regular live news reporting and interviews from reporter’s homes, they would have been laughed out of the industry. Who would have thunk?