Live broadcasts are seen as nirvana in terms of attracting an audience. Presenting a live event, especially sports, in real-time and high quality, draws audiences like no other content. Yet, successfully originating these broadcasts is often both expensive and complex. And unfortunately, most broadcasters no longer have the resources, either financial or technical, to stage an entire production crew and on-site production truck at remote venues.
There is an ongoing discussion in the industry of how to maintain consistent timecode and sync/genlock between systems and devices in facilities and in the field. As the transition to IP moves forward there is a need to maintain existing systems managed by genlock and tri-level sync. However IP doesn’t support either of those older technologies. Introducing PTP.
There is practically no aspect of broadcasting today that is not dependent on digital technology. Videography, post production, scheduling, presentation, delivery and conditional access are all digitally controlled. The whole edifice rests on the ability to reliably store and transmit data. John Watkinson argues that this enabling technology should not be taken for granted.
It is hard to believe the vast amount of confusion that continues over cables with USB-C/Thunderbolt connectors. These cables may be the future of computing, but right now they are a big, sloppy confusing mess. The problem is cables that handle USB-C, Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 all have the same connector and look alike but do different things.
The storage requirements for digital media never stop growing. Image size and resolution increases. Metadata is added to every frame. Finally, the data must live forever. All these factors and others combine to place serious demands on a production or broadcast facility’s storage infrastructure. Fortunately there is a solution.
From production to newsgathering and on to international distribution, the media industry relies more on the ability to quickly and easily transfer large files over long distances. Original methods for doing this, like FTP, are unsuited for today’s large file sizes and complex workflows - what is needed is an efficient and secure way to transfer large files in a timely manner. This White Paper from Signiant is a guide to the selection of large file transfer software.
Fiber optics is a communications medium that sends optical signals down hair-thin strands of pure glass cores. The light “pipe” is surrounded by cladding that traps the light in the core. The key difference between multimode and single mode fiber optic cable is the size of the core.
Today’s broadcast engineers face a unique challenge, one that is likely unfamiliar to these professionals. The challenge is to design, build and operate IP-centric solutions for video and audio content.
