IP and broadcast; an industry in transition

As part of our special report into the industrys transition to IP standards and workflows, TVBEurope spoke to Thomas Bause Mason, director of standards development at SMPTE, to gauge the industrys current relationship with IP, the challenges that lie ahead, and SMPTEs latest work on standards

By James McKeown

Published: September 9, 2020

As part of our special report into the industry's transition to IP standards and workflows, TVBEurope spoke to Thomas Bause Mason, director of standards development at SMPTE, to gauge the industry's current relationship with IP, the challenges that lie ahead, and SMPTE's latest work on standards

target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> As part of our special report into the industry's transition to IP standards and workflows, TVBEurope spoke to Thomas Bause Mason, director of standards development at SMPTE, to gauge the industry's current relationship with IP, the challenges that lie ahead, and SMPTE's latest work on standards

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Firstly, do you think the industry is better informed about the transition/evolution to IP from SDI, or are there still questions and concerns that are preventing some media companies from embracing the change? Thomas Bause Mason I think there are still gaps in understanding which parts are needed to build a fully IP-based infrastructure, especially which parts can be addressed through open standards and specifications. That said there have been many efforts to close these gaps. For example, the AIMS IP Showcase, which is routinely held at IBC and NAB (which SMPTE is a part of), and the documentation of necessary IP infrastructure parts like transport, control and timing as outlined by the SMPTE cofounded JT-NM in JT-NM TR 1001-1.

Another reason why companies haven't yet fully embraced IP as an infrastructure is that current open standards and specification-based IP solutions are not plug-and-play. There is a certain amount of setup needed which requires skilled staff which may be at short supply. This missing plug-and-play capability is especially difficult for smaller scale IP infrastructure.

Other reasons are the lack of IP native equipment like cameras, switchers, monitors; the limited availability of diagnostic tools; the lack of knowledge of IT technologies among a broadcasters staff; and the security concerns which haven't been quite addressed yet.

Certainly in the earlier days of the IP discussion, some of the reticence to change was because IP was seen as a threat. Do you think it's important for the industry to think of IP as an evolutionary advance rather than anything more threatening, especially as hybrid environments are likely to exist for some time? Yes, definitely. I think it will be mandatory for a broadcaster to move to IP sooner than later to stay competitive. Yes, it will be some time until all equipment needed will be IP native, but it will come. The media industry is in a transformation, which will eventually embrace a sharing economy like what we have seen in lodging with AirBnB, transportation with Uber, or crafts with Etsy. IP infrastructure is a fundamental component of that shift and the media sharing economy. This transformation was only accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis, which forced broadcasters and production companies to adopt distributed production that allows for remote work through cloud systems and workflows. Underlying all this is IP infrastructure. It is forcing broadcasters to move away from location-based equipment rooms to centralised data centres that allow for better resource sharing between different production locations, but also for the monetisation of underutilised resources and distributed production.

For the uninitiated, could you describe the role of the SMPTE ST 2110 suite of standards and its importance in helping to define a pathway for IP adoption and implementation The SMPTE ST 2110 suite is solely focused on the transport of video, audio, and data over IP connections in single essence streams for live TV production. This means that each video, audio, or data signal is transported in a separate RTP stream instead of bundled as it is done in SMPTE ST 2022. It also defines the methods to ensure that this transport is reliable as well as deterministic and that streams can be identified. It does not address device control or define the technology for synchronisation between network devices.

SMPTE ST 2110 is one piece of the pre-step to move away from specialised interfaces like SDI to commodity IP-based hardware, which is a prerequisite to move infrastructure into centralised data centres and eventually in the cloud. It supports the move away from hardware systems to software-only solutions that can be virtualised for an effective use in a data centre and eventually in the cloud.

SMPTE offers virtual classroom courses on a variety of subjects, one of which offers a guide to SMPTE ST 2110. Talk us through these courses and their benefits to members The SMPTE ST 2110 virtual classroom course is helping engineers and technologist to understand the background and the concepts of the SMPTE ST 2110 suite of standards in greater depth. It provides a background on why SMPTE ST 2110 was developed, what came before it and what are the most important parts of SMPTE ST 2110. It looks at the encapsulation of video, audio, and data into RTP packages/streams, how the synchronisation between different SMPTE ST 2110 network devices works, and how RTP streams and their essences can be identified by receiving devices. It will also look at SMPTE ST 2110 traffic shaping and delivery timing to enable reliable, low latency, and deterministic transport of professional media over IP. At the end of the c

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