For East Shore Sound President Bill Saltzer, every week at work is different. Founded in 2001 in Maryland in the USA, East Shore Sound has built an enviable reputation for the design and management of large-scale, temporary broadcast networks.

As the go-to company to design, install and manage on-site networks at live broadcast events like the National Spelling Bee and PBS’s annual A Capitol Fourth concert, Saltzer faces a different challenge every single week. His job is not only having to meet the specific needs of each individual client, but to streamline each network infrastructure to ensure a smooth and efficient build up, while delivering enough flexibility to adapt to changing requirements on the fly.

Having bought into the company’s Artist G2 Intercom system in 2012, Saltzer has been working alongside Riedel for almost 15 years, and as the company developed its staging business to include the rental of video monitors at live televised events, it needed a solution to get signals from the production truck to the displays. Finding that traditional signal hardware fell short of what they were looking for, the answer lay with Riedel’s MediorNet MicroN series, a decentralized mesh network which Saltzer describes as seeming like “a next generation solution for the problem we were trying to solve.”

“We started out with four MicroN units and added a couple of Compact Pros,” says Saltzer. “Since then we have steadily expanded our inventory to accommodate the needs of our clients and we currently have 23 x MicroN frames, five MicroN UHD units, and 11 x Compact Pros.

“Once Riedel made the fiber density a selling point, we really jumped on board. MediorNet’s biggest advantage lies in its approach to fiber management, and it is all about building bandwidth. The system’s secret sauce is that rather than using traditional point-to-point connections that send a program video down one strand and a prompter video feed down another, MediorNet multiplexes the signals and the system automatically allocates available bandwidth to move signals where needed, which simplifies planning and operation.”

Whatever You Need, Wherever You Need It

A totally software-enabled hardware system, Riedel’s MediorNet can turn its hand to a variety of things: it can be a multiviewer or a throw-down signal processor; it can be part of a de-centralized router, a bridge to an IP network, or a point-to-point link for up to 12 bi-directional HD signals. Its high-density signal interface manages an array of audio, video, and data I/O, and it can provide 12 bi-directional 3G/HD/SD-SDI video ports and two MADI ports for up to 128 audio channels. For data transport and synchronization, MicroN offers a 1 Gbit Ethernet port and eight 10 Gbit SFP ports to provide a total network capacity of 80 Gbit to enable the configuration of a fully redundant, meshed, media network.

Simplified Deployment

Faced with the dual challenge of simplifying his network setups and building in more flexibility to cater for a wide range of clients, Saltzer quickly got on board; 12 years in, his methodology has evolved to ensure there is always enough bandwidth to maximize I/O capacity at every kind of event, as well as provide the flexibility to adapt to changing needs on set. 

“Rather than start from scratch for each show, we know there are parameters we can broadly work within, so earlier this year we repackaged some of our MediorNet hardware to make it work for the majority of deployments,” he says. Saltzer’s deployment consists of 12 x 4U field nodes and two larger truck nodes to hand off to the OB truck. Each portable and wheeled field node is comprised of one MicroN and one Compact Pro, while the truck rack contains multiple MicroN’s and either a modular frame or a Compact Pro, both of which have the capacity to expand I/O capabilities.

“Each MicroN frame is based on 10 Gbit links between nodes and the compact pros are based on 4.25 Gbit links,” says Saltzer. “We build most of our bandwidth on site around the MicroN 10 gig links so that we’re getting the most out of a single strand of fiber by utilizing the full bandwidth of the MicroN frame.  One bi-directional SFP equates to six independent bidirectional video signals on just one connection and we take all six 10 Gbit links back to the truck. We also daisy chain two 4.25 Gbit links down to the Compact Pro which gives us extra Ethernet connectivity and some analog audio I/O to deploy in the venue should anyone need it.

“In the truck rack at the OB we typically package four or more MicroN units and either a Compact Pro or a modular frame to give us scope for additional I/O. We also have a rack mounted QC monitor and dedicated router panel which enables us to QC anything coming in and anything leaving us to go to the truck, without moving a cable and without having to patch anything.”

Ethernet Tunnelling

The system also provides the capacity to add more Ethernet tunnels to the same established network.

“By adding an extra Ethernet card we can pick up 12 additional Ethernet ports at the truck,” adds Saltzer. “The way the Ethernet tunnels work – and I think this is a stroke of brilliance on Riedel’s part – is that there is no switching, there is no magic behind the curtains. It’s a pure Ethernet tunnel and the client can pick whatever size connection they need and the bandwidth automatically scales. There is no switching inside the MediorNet network; it is essentially dropping a media converter on either end so it’s all point to point.”

Unlike traditional media networks which require extensive cabling to cater for the variety of interconnections between the truck and the venue, MediorNet simplifies connectivity down to one multicast network cable. This reduces the amount of fiber that needs to be laid, saving money and significantly reducing setup time (Saltzer estimates it typically saves about four hours of install), while also making it easy to scale operations on the fly to incorporate changing requirements. 

“Traditionally, if a production needed program video at multiple locations throughout the venue the OB truck will hand that over on multiple patches on the side of the truck,” says Saltzer. “With MediorNet we take that signal once, twice if we want a backup, and that distributes throughout the MediorNet system acting as a node-based video router. If the venue needs a feed at multiple locations, they can take it directly from a node rather than dragging more cable across the venue, further simplifying planning and installation.

“We might put nodes at the FOH position to cover the front of house audio and lighting positions, backstage left and right for stage managers to access; we might have one at a Producer table, and we might dedicate one at a screen distribution point. Each field node has the capacity to run up to eight strands of fiber to the truck node, and MediorNet has the flexibility to adapt to any number of field nodes with multiple Ethernet paths, whether they are required for router data, Dante channels, internet, or anything else.”

During the most recent US Presidential elections, East Shore Sound also looped in a number of edit suites on the network for production personnel to create edits in real time. Commissioned to provide the network infrastructure on a live, on-location late-night variety shoot, Saltzer used Riedel SmartPanels in place of the truck’s router panels, enabling him to set the whole system up weeks in advance; on site it was simply a matter of dropping the hardware and connecting it.

“We also ended up dropping a node in a number of edit suites so that production could select what they were importing directly into their edit computers in real time and play that out back to the truck,” he says. “Because everything was on the MediorNet system on the side of the truck, the truck engineers didn’t have to spend hours on site programming a router panel for each of the edit suites: it was all ready to go.”

Built-In Redundancy

MediorNet’s ability to quickly create a flexible, hybrid infrastructure that supports different combinations of network topologies enables Saltzer to layer the bandwidth and avoid any catastrophic failure should any one piece of hardware fail. Meanwhile, Riedel’s real-time diagnostic GUI monitors bandwidth on each individual link. The aim is to provide live feedback on capacity levels of each link in the system and it uses a user-friendly, color-based system which monitors light levels on the fiber and warns of any potential bandwidth issues ahead of time.

“One of the system’s greatest strengths is its built-in redundancy,” says Saltzer. “We generally adopt a partial mesh architecture which means that if we were to lose a fiber link between point A and point B, it automatically reroutes the signals using the available bandwidth. From a practical perspective it’s not dissimilar to working in a 2110 environment, and in the same way it can be challenging to get people to think differently about the network. With MediorNet we’re not sending a signal; we’re building bandwidth, and the system decides how it’s going to use that bandwidth to get the signal from point A to point B. So provided that you have available bandwidth between point A and point B, even if it’s not a direct connection between those points, it’ll send it as long as you have an available amount of bandwidth.”

Bridging The Future

As much as MediorNet’s unique hybrid nature keeps things simple for East Shore Sound’s diverse mix of client needs, Saltzer still sees it as a problem solver, and as broadcasters increasingly ease into more IP environments where handoff can be backhauled over any kind of connectivity path, MediorNet can act as a bridge to them all.

“I definitely see MediorNet as a bridge,” says Saltzer. “If an OB truck is 2110 based, it still needs to have on ramps and off ramps for traditional audio and video. That can work with a set number of field kits, but what happens when that truck gets booked on a show where they need six or eight field kits? I see MediorNet being a bridge to accelerate getting that plug and play I/O hardware out in the field.

“On larger events, like video gaming where there’s a lot of in-house screen content and a simultaneous in-house show happening at the same time as the broadcast show, the broadcast truck needs to interface with both. MediorNet is a bridge there too, adapting to both requirements and across multiple formats on the same decentralized mesh network.”