Try our new AI powered Smart-Search!
The inevitable merging of computer networking technology and audio distribution has arrived. Now is a good time to re-examine the assumptions and concerns that are holding some professionals back from choosing audio over IP solutions, as decisions made today will affect their facilities and clients for years to come.
The growing ability of CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) to enable live video streaming over the Internet was a major theme at the Content Delivery World 2015 forum in London on October 5-7. Vendors and operators agreed that virtualization of the CDN was essential for scaling high quality OTT services by separating network control from the underlying hardware, avoiding reliance on a specific configuration that might run out of capacity. With virtualization, a given service can call on large reserves of capacity as required to meet peak demand.
Media needs to be found, edited and delivered and each stage of the process presents its own issues. Ideally, editors need to be able to search, browse, select and bring media into edit, without copying, transcoding or re-wrapping. However, at the moment, not every edit system is able to handle every flavour of media. This situation is getting worse as new capture formats frequently appear.
When computers began replicating and replacing expensive electro-mechanical broadcast TV production and playback systems, the gravy train ended for some and started for others. Affordable digital TV production gear has slashed the ante for producers and is making mountains of television content with high technical integrity available for everyone.
Last month’s IBC highlighted multiple examples of 8K television equipment. In addition, research firm IHS says global 8K TV shipments will approach one million units in 2019. No matter whether your response is “balderdash” or “fantastic” it makes sense to run a sanity test on this claim because the technology will affect broadcasters.
Refinements in the computerization of professional audio are making it easier for sound operators to mix more complex shows with multiple microphones in environments with more background noise.
Let’s face it, there are only a small handful of points in time where our entire industry shifts and pivots in fundamental ways that change it forever. I believe we are at the precipice of one of those rare industry-defining moments. An example of a similar moment in the past was the advent of file-based workflows. There were many people at the time who thought moving away from tape-based workflows was a mistake. Today, tape doesn’t exist at all.
Anyone who wandered through IBC hall 7 this year might be led to believe that everyone is peddling the same wares. As vendors we all have a sign somewhere on our stand saying we specialize in IP solutions for broadcasters. While Video-over-IP is a big buzzword in our industry, it’s important to realize that Video-over-IP has different meanings depending on whom you are talking to.
