Digital audio interfaces were developed as a way of avoiding generation loss between devices.
The Need For Sync - In any audio environment where multiple pieces of equipment are being used together, it is imperative that they are synchronized. If they do not run in time with each other it will be difficult - if not impossible - to produce a coherent end result where everything fits where it is supposed to.
The last twenty years has seen a lot of film and TV hardware turn into software that runs on workstations and servers. With Apple’s move away from Intel, though, and several other recent attempts to popularize alternative designs, anyone looking at new equipment finds a field in flux.
As broadcast facilities and other organizations that use media to educate and inform continue to carefully make the move to video over IP, they currently face two main options, with a range of others in the wings. They may opt for a full SMPTE ST 2110 design that leverages uncompressed pristine quality video for higher profile productions or lightly compressed NDI networking, which brings with it less costs and easy access to an expanding ecosystem of compliant products and systems.
“You need to be very predictable with the broadcast at all times. When I started doing this you had to be really careful with 5.1; there was no standardization,” he says. Indeed, for a long time, as broadcasters began to switch to HDTV across the U.S., it was not unusual for audio channels to be mixed up during transmission, or for audio processors to be incorrectly set or configured.
Media streaming over the internet is unique. Packet switched networks were never designed to deliver continuous and long streams of media but instead were built to efficiently process transactional and short bursts of data. The long streams of video and audio data are relentless in their network demands and to distribute them effectively requires the adoption of specialist CDNs.
Progress inevitably comes with compromise. We can’t complain about the technology that’s brought us from hundred-kilo tube cameras to the 4K cellphones of today, but anyone who remembers the fuzzy old days of the 1990s might also remember a few things that we miss in 2021. Let’s examine a few.
The pandemic has affected the system design and operations of live sports production in a myriad of ways. At first it was difficult for many to figure out but then evolved into the deployment of innovative types of distributed workflows and crews that drastically altered the physical positioning of technology and human resources.
