Standards - more important than ever posted: 20/11/2016
by Olivier Suard, marketing director, Nevion
Perhaps the most significant single demonstration at IBC2016 could be found, not on the stands of any single vendor, but in a collaborative area, the IP Interoperability Zone. The aim of this initiative, developed by IBC itself in association with a number of trade bodies, was to showcase how the IP equipment from different developers can work together.
The benefit of interoperability is obvious: it allows broadcasters to choose the combination of systems that are right for their particular set of requirements. The route to such interoperability is through standardisation.
Standards have been a great contributor to the health of our industry. In July 1916, a man called Charles Francis Jenkins, a film-maker frustrated by the early movie companies' determination to protect their proprietary systems, called a public meeting in New York to found the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (television was added to the name in 1950 to make the familiar SMPTE).
Guest speaker at that inaugural meeting was Henry Hubbard, secretary of the US National Bureau of Standards. He said: Standardisation means and implies an ideal to be realised. Ideal standards, therefore, involve searching investigations so that they may be based upon scientific principles rather than on empirical judgement. In other words, standards drive the industry to be as good as it can be.
For the last couple of decades, we have been fortunate as an industry to have good, reliable, effective, and most important universally recognised connectivity standards. We were absolutely confident that we could connect a co-ax cable from the SDI output of one device to an SDI input on another and the image, along with embedded audio, would be reproduced perfectly.
We now talk about IP connectivity, and of course IP is another global standard, but the industry needs to agree is how video, audio, data gets mapped to IP for real-time transport.
Two things happened in 2015 which advanced developments dramatically. First, Belgian broadcast VRT, as part of its Sandbox new technologies initiative, and with the support of the EBU, set out to build a live production environment which would be based solely on IP. To demonstrate the value of IP connectivity, as well as building a studio it also sought to achieve remote live production, with a concert from a city-centre hall 10km away from the broadcast base an early goal.
VRT and EBU talked to a small number of vendors, including Nevion, to work together to make a best of breed live production environment, based on the open standards which were already available, including SMPTE 2022-6 (SDI over IP), AES67/Ravenna, PTP the internet precision timing protocol, and OpenFlow. The VRT/EBU Live IP project was seen as a great success: its studio is used regularly for the children's channel Ketnet, and a replica of the studio was built at IBC2016 and used for IBC TV.
Later in 2015, a group of vendors came together in a rare spirit of collaboration to further advance the adoption of open standards. The Alliance for IP Media Systems (AIMS) now has more than 50 members (again including Nevion). It has agreed a roadmap for the transport of the media elements, SMPTE 2022-6, VSF TR-04, TR-03 and SMPTE 2110. It is also endorsing the work of AMWA (Advance Media Workflow Association) in defining standards through NMOS (Network Media Open Specification) to enable new devices (such as equipment) to make itself known to the network (registration), and for existing devices in the network to find out what other devices are available (discovery). This roadmap that allowed more than 30 member companies in the IBC IP Interoperability Zone to demonstrate transparent inter-working.
We now have proof that IP works in live production, proof that comes from real applications, not theoretical plug-fests. And we have an agreed plan for open standards and how they can be implemented. Real users - broadcasters and production companies - can now adopt IP production systems, confident that they can choose best of breed components that will integrate into a coherent system that will perform to the professional expectations of our industry.
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
29/04/2024
Premier Sports, an Irish-based premium sports broadcaster, has selected QuickLink's Remote Commentary solution for introducing professional, high-quality re...
29/04/2024
The awards celebrate the craft of behind-the-scenes TV talent and the best programmes of 2023
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 29, 2024
The awards cel...
29/04/2024
The team at Milk had to create and deliver the VFX and environment work for the royal residences featured in the drama from scratch
By Jenny Priestley
Publis...
29/04/2024
CEO Bob Bakish is expected to leave the company as early as today, with a new leadership committee likely to run the company on an interim basis
By Jenny Pries...
29/04/2024
Albena Ivanova, director, media and entertainment and strategic products at CHAOS Media talks to TVBEurope about her route into the industry
By TVBEurope Staff...
29/04/2024
The acquisition gives Grand Technix the opportunity to expand its footprint in the audio visual and broadcast technology sectors
By Jenny Priestley
Published...
29/04/2024
29 04 2024 - Media release Screen Australia announces James J. Robinson's debut feature First Light
First Light
Principal Photography is underway on Firs...
29/04/2024
Capitol Broadcasting recently became the inaugural company honored with inductio...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
27/04/2024
On April 26, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik joined CNBC's Mor...
27/04/2024
PORTLAND, Oregon Audinate Group Limited, the developer of the Dante AV-over-IP solution, announced significant new additions to Dante Connect, its cloud-based D...
27/04/2024
TORONTO Bell Media has launched 10 English and French-language FAST channels featuring entertainment, factual, news, and sports programming. The new free stream...
27/04/2024
An extensive new analysis of the news segments in the broadcast evening news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS has found that broadcasters devoted most of their...
27/04/2024
GERMANTOWN, Md. EchoStar's Hughes Network Systems has opened a new manufacturing facility and private 5G incubation center in Germantown, Maryland....
27/04/2024
Harry Pappas, one of three brothers who founded Pappas Telecasting Companies in 1971, died April 24. He was 78 years old....
27/04/2024
ATLANTA and LONDON Mexican telecommunications and broadcast company Televisa has selected Synamedia for an overhaul of its broadcast distribution....
27/04/2024
Participate in the Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this surve...
27/04/2024
SDVI Rally Access Workstation Earns Two Top Awards at 2024 NAB Show
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
SDVI, the leading platform provider for clo...
27/04/2024
Berklee's Music and Health Institute Launches Community Health Musician Cert...
27/04/2024
Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers....
27/04/2024
Two environmentally-focused groups are partnering to engage the unscripted TV world in finding better ways to address climate change. Reality of Change is an ec...
27/04/2024
Sarah Garcia has been promoted to weekend anchor at KTLM McAllen, Texas, known as Telemundo 40. Starting April 27, she will anchor Noticias Telemundo 40 weekend...
27/04/2024
CBS Sports said it launched a new 24-hour free, ad supported streaming television (FAST) channel devoted to the UEFA Champions League....
27/04/2024
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts received $35.4 million in compensation in 2023, up 11% from the previous year, according to a proxy statement filed by th...
27/04/2024
Art Happens Here With John Lithgow, which sees the actor study dance, ceramics, silk-screen printing and vocal jazz with students in Los Angeles, debuts on PBS ...
27/04/2024
Remember Leave It to Beaver? Bewitched? Dragnet? When cable ratings were rising?...
27/04/2024
Next up for the weekend binge at Catchy Comedy is Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Every weekend, Catchy Comedy features The Catchy Binge, a marathon of a classic sitcom....
26/04/2024
Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024 kicks-off today with screenings in 5 theaters in Mexico City and the opening-night film, FRIDA, directed by Carla Guti rrez...
26/04/2024
[Editor's Note: This interview is part of a larger feature about the women d...
26/04/2024
Once again this year, SGL Carbon opened its doors to interested children and young people. On the occasion of the German Girls and Boys Day, which took place on...
26/04/2024
Orders1 of $5.5 billion; book-to-bill of 1.06x
Revenue of $5.2 billion, up 17%,...
26/04/2024
Five Considerations For Communications Modernization In The 21st Century
In the digital-enabled battlespace, the Joint Force needs to shoot, move and communica...
26/04/2024
CBS Sports has launched Champions League as a new, 24-hour streaming channel that will serve as the year-round destination for nonstop highlights of the UEFA ...
26/04/2024
Despite tough competition in the streaming space, Roku reported solid results in Q1 2024, beating revenue expectations, with total net revenue up 19% YoY to $88...
26/04/2024
LONDON AND TORONTO Pinewood Toronto Studios has appointed Sarah Farrell as general manager of the Studios in downtown Toronto....
26/04/2024
Quantum to Offer Advanced Filesharing Technology and Performance in StorNext and...
26/04/2024
FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2024 entries and introduces new Emerging Talen...
26/04/2024
Picture Shop Announces Chris Evans as Head of Unscripted
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
Picture Shop announced Chris Evans will lead Unscripte...
26/04/2024
Participate in a Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this survey,...
26/04/2024
Toy maker Mattel said it is working with Samsung to launch its first free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels later this year....
26/04/2024
Trusted Media Brands (TMB) said it named Marty Moe as president....
26/04/2024
Ron Howard is the director on Jim Henson Idea Man, a documentary that premieres on Disney Plus May 31. Henson of course created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big...
26/04/2024
The ice continues to melt under the regional sports network business as the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League have made a long-term deal to broadcast...
26/04/2024
Heading into the upfronts, Warner Bros. Discovery said it launched Olli, a first-party data platform advertiser can use for converged, targeted advertising camp...
26/04/2024
CBS has renewed the drama The Equalizer, which will see season five on in 2024-2025. Queen Latifah stars....
26/04/2024
The CW has entered into an exclusive multiyear broadcast partnership for the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Teen USA Pageant. The 73rd Miss USA Pageant will air ...
26/04/2024
Fuse Media isn't mincing words in a campaign urging its young viewers to register and participate in the 2024 elections....
Standards - more important than ever posted: 20/11/2016 
