Pebble Beach reps said this new development increases the suitability for the playout of high value live, reactive channels and latency-sensitive applications using its Orca system. Operators can now view a confidence preview without the delays incurred by having to manage uncompressed video.

NDI provides a low-latency, lightweight, frame accurate video protocol, giving Pebble’s customers less than one frame of delay when confidence monitoring channel-in-a-box (CiaB) or virtualized playout systems over an IP network.

Ian Cockett, CTO of Pebble Beach Systems, said that if an operator is rolling a commercial break on top of a live feed, it gives them instantaneous feedback that the commercial break has actually started, the moment they press the button.

“When switching between live sources, they can immediately see that they’ve made the correct selection,” he said. “Whereas monitoring an H.264 compressed output can mean a delay of 5 or 6 seconds before they see a picture change, which is far from ideal.”

This new development removes the classic objection from operators that require instantaneous feedback when switching live events. Using NDI as a point-to-point link over a TCP/IP network can deliver full quality 1080p video. However, that quality might require a 100Mb connection. For simply previewing video in the control room, a reliable confidence monitor feed can be obtained over a much smaller, 10Mb connection, greatly reducing the costs for real-time monitoring. Multiple preview streams can be enabled to simulate traditional preview and program monitors.

“A clip-based channel, complete with sophisticated graphics, can easily be put in the cloud and simply turned on,” says Cockett. “The real challenge has always been with fast-turnaround, live sports and events that require manual intervention. Previously, it’s been difficult for those workflows to adopt virtualized or CiaB technology monitored over IP because of the immediacy that operators expect. We’re happy to announce that it’s no longer the issue it once was.”