SMPTE ST 2110-20: Pass the Pixels, Please

This is the second installment in a series of articles about the newly-published SMPTE standard covering elementary media flows over managed IP networks. This month, the focus is on video transport, specifically the packet format that will replace uncompressed SDI (Serial Digital Interface) signals that are currently in widespread use for many different kinds of video production.

UNCOMPRESSED ACTIVE VIDEO

The full title of SMPTE ST 2110-20 is Professional Media Over Managed IP Networks: Uncompressed Active Video, and that is a good indication of what is contained in the standard. Specifically, uncompressed video images are transported (just like SDI), but only the data that make up the active portion of each video frame. In other words, just the image samples (also called pixels) that comprise the pictures to be delivered to viewers are transported within the new IP video format.

This method significantly reduces the amount of data required to represent each frame of video. For example, a 59.97 Hz 720p video signal that uses a 1.483 Gbps SDI signal can be carried as an IP packet stream at less than 1.18 Gbps, for a 20 percent savings.

However, this method has side effects, including eliminating the HANC (Horizontal Ancillary) space commonly used for embedded audio signals as well as eliminating the VANC (Vertical Ancillary) space frequently used for transporting other related information such as time code, format description, advertising triggers, captions, and many other types of useful information. Audio and other non-video data types are transported as separate IP streams as defined in other parts of the ST 2110 series (which will be discussed in future installments of this article series).

Fig. 1: Table of SDP Parameters Defined in SMPTE ST 2110-20

LINK:	http://www.tvtechnology.com/resources/0006/smpte-st-211020-pass-the-pi...
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