V-Nova explains that the volume of premium live sport and event contribution has been growing steadily in recent years and has been primarily reliant upon dedicated dark fibre backbones. However, the bandwidth requirements of low-latency contribution encoders have meant the cost of these dedicated connections has been prohibitive for many. Lower-quality, higher-latency encoders often have to be used to mitigate against this. 

“The combination of V-Nova’s P.Link contribution solution based on SMPTE VC-6 compression with AWS Elemental MediaConnect and AWS Direct Connect addresses these challenges directly,” says Guido Meardi, CEO and co-founder, V-Nova. “P.Link offers Intra-frame low latencies and equivalent quality at up to 70% lower bitrates than JPEG 2000 solutions. 

“Transporting these feeds with AWS enables mission-critical one-to-one or one-to-many links that are easy to set up and are available in a cost-effective on-demand basis. SMPTE VC-6 encoding also notably reduces processing power requirements providing higher-density and lower operating costs. Extensive testing conducted so far has demonstrated excellent low-latency performance for feeds including 4Kp60 transport at less than 200ms between London and Sydney.

He adds, “The significant cost of dedicated leased connectivity is one of a number of key barriers to the rollout of more live UHD channels and richer remote-production setups. The combination of SMPTE VC-6 encoding and the on-demand flexibility of AWS increases the feasibility of these services and help to satisfy the ever-growing consumer appetite for premium video experiences.