
By Simen K. Frostad
Every year, the broadcast industry descends en masse on the RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam. Once again, IBC provided invaluable insight into what's going on - and where we're going.
One of the great things about the timing of IBC - in September - is the opportunity it provides to get a snapshot of the state of the industry towards the end of any given year -as well as a look forward to what we might see in the coming year and beyond.
IBC this year was particularly interesting, not least because several discussions with the foremost satellite companies revealed an interesting shift in how they see themselves. That shift was very much reflective - inevitably so - of the wider shift in the broadcast industry.
There was much discussion of the customer journey - the different points on the path towards wholly embracing IP that each organization is on, and the need for vendors to acknowledge that and provide situationally-appropriate solutions. Some organizations, for example, are still wedded to the on-premise paradigm while others have wholly embraced the cloud.
Wherever those organizations are, however, it was certainly clear that the age of monolithic data centers is long gone. IBC saw much talk, and not for the first time, of distributed intelligence and edge computing. That's inevitable: media distribution has become all but mission critical and, as such, potential points of failure.
Hybrid
If customer journey was something you heard repeatedly in Amsterdam, another frequently used word was hybrid . Everyone, it seemed, was talking about hybrid solutions. And: that was certainly true of those satellite companies.
According to a senior manager at one of these firms, his company is building an ecosystem exactly in line with the challenges he sees his customers experiencing. They were, he said, looking for a converged approach to the problem of using the appropriate connectivity technology for many disparate requirements: no single connectivity technology could be the best for every environment.
As such, his company - in common, it must be said, with others - was in the process of reinventing itself: satellite would still be at its heart, but that would be only one of the connectivity solutions it would be able to offer. As with so many other exhibitors, satellite operators are looking to become full service providers, providing complete end-to-end solutions.
______________________________________
In theory, 5G also represents a
challenge to satellite companies,
although the consensus at IBC 2019
was that such was not the case.
It would have been easy, based on these conversations, to conclude that satellite, as a way of getting content from point A to point B, was diminishing in importance.
Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth: in many environments and for many applications, satellite remains the only show in town. Increasingly, however, it has become part of a communications ecosystem and satellite companies are seeing how they can be uniquely placed to play successfully in that world.
While IP is inexorably changing the broadcast world - for the better - satellite companies continue to face their own unique challenges. At IBC, we saw significant interest in our VB273 Intelligent Redundancy Switch.
Originally developed in response to a major operator's request for a redundancy switching solution, it provides full dual path redundancy for satellite signals with autonomous operation and deep signal analysis on both signal paths for the ultimate in switching decision making. The solution is ideal for providing fast and robust redundancy switching for permanently installed satellite up-links or in outside broadcast systems.
Intelligence at the Edge
One of the characteristics of the VB273 for satellite companies is how - in line with what's happening throughout the industry - it moves intelligence to the network edge, distributing decision-making way beyond the confines of the data center.
In automatic mode, the VB273 system is fully independent and makes its own switching decisions based on the pre-set switching rules. In manual mode, the unit can be controlled from any overlying NMS system via the extensive XML-based Eii (External Integration Interface) or via SNMP triggers.
Previously, it was the case that simple, relatively crude ETR alarm analyzers and black box switching solutions were deployed, but these were a much less than perfect response to broadcasters' requirements: they were inflexible, and could even themselves cause problems and increase costs by generating false positives' or missing complex error conditions.
The Bridge VB273 system's analysis capabilities and decision engine make it more comprehensive and accurate, giving greater security as well as delivering the cost reductions that can be achieved through running a more intelligent solution that can be trusted to operate with a greater degree of autonomy.
By incorporating a full implementation of Bridge Technologies' advanced ETR290 analysis engine, the VB273 can use a greater range of criteria, and base decisions on a more nuanced and realistic assessment of the data. Error conditions are evaluated against a set of user-defined rules to determine the appropriate automated action in any operational scenario.
The ETR290 engine is an ETSI TR 101 290 alarm monitor and advanced analysis functionality feature for the series of devices. A device can be configured with up to eight individual ETR290 engines running in parallel on the Ethernet interface providing highly scalable monitoring and analysis.
Even More Sophisticated
Bridge Technologies has also developed Gold TS to provide capabilities that are even more sophisticated than those featured in the ETR290 engine.
Conditions such as failures of the conditional access sy
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026
Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...
22/07/2026
A poisoned spy, a secret war, and a small English city contaminated by a deadly chemical weapon. Available on Sky Documentaries from 4 AugustWednesday 22 July 2...
22/07/2026
Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement wi...
22/07/2026
Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership and Combine the Integration Platform and Managed Services
Flexible integration solutions for cloud, hybrid...