From headend to backend, passing through contribution and distribution networks, IP is now almost everywhere in broadcast infrastructure, with its use only increasing. On the production and playout side of the business that’s also now set to dramatically increase. This is due to the flexibility of IP-based systems, their relatively low cost and their high performance: they are increasingly prevalent across digital video technologies and installations. However, transmitting data over IP networks is not an easy task. Transmission channel capacity isn’t infinite but a huge amount of data can be required to be sent simultaneously. Even if broadcast networks are properly structured and with enough capacity, IP packets still undergo a lot of challenges to reach their destination. Additionally, the different appliances used in a system can also be the cause of erroneous data in a transmission that operators need to detect and manage adequately.What are the sources of errors in an infrastructure?
Ericsson has extended its relationship with Australian public service broadcaster Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) by enabling automated digital delivery of international content. Under the contract, which followed a competitive tender process, Ericsson will aggregate and prepare material from multiple international content owners and distributors through its broadcast and media services hub in London.
A Broadcast Bridge panel at “Capacity North America” focused on Telcos as CDN providers for OTT television
As the industry continues its slow and steady migration to Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructures, the manufacturing community has coalesced around two initiatives ASPEN and AIMS, each of which is claimed to help ease the conversion from SDI to IP.
While there is plenty of talk about disruptive technologies — the SDI-to-IP migration, for instance — that transition pales in comparison to the FCC’s repack of the DTV broadcast frequency spectrum. For a TV station, what could be more disruptive than having to relocate the entire operation to a different RF channel?
When the ATSC 3.0 broadcast television system replaces ATSC 1.0, the local TV station landscape is going to change drastically. Based on this first standardization effort, broadcasters will be able to deliver a hybrid mix of broadcast and broadband content, opening up opportunities for new media types and services, and subsequently revenue.
Broadcasters are reverting to being engineering driven after some years operating as little more than content houses, but this time the focus is more on software than infrastructure. That conclusion emerged from the EBU’s (European Broadcasting Union) fourth annual software engineering conference called Devcon, which started in 2013 in recognition that the industry was becoming more IT focused.
Consumer off the shelf technology (COTS) is providing broadcast TV facilities an economical foundation for technical growth in all directions.
