It has been a summer of big sporting events and they have been covered with a combination of on-site OB and remote production workflows – regardless of the specific approaches taken there is always a key requirement to compress, encode and reliably transport streams from the venue to the network operation center or the cloud.

In the ever-expanding world of IP based remote contribution, media organizations are looking for new methods to transport content in the most flexible and cost-effective way. Today’s remote contribution involves delivering multiplexed streams from the field using managed transport services over satellite, fiber, cloud, and IP networked infrastructures, and increasingly the public Internet. ARQ-based streaming protocols like SRT (Secure Reliable Transport), RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport), and Zixi are all being deployed in the field for transport/backhaul, as these protocols offer a balance of reliability, security, and efficiency.

Compression is widely deployed to reduce overall bandwidth requirements and in many instances without it, remote contribution is not achievable. AVC/HEVC is still widely used for contribution for good reason, but increasingly JPEG XS compression has been deployed. The JPEG XS standard (ISO/IEC 21122) is relatively easy to deploy and results in “visually lossless” image quality and exceedingly low latency measured in lines of video – rather than full frames or seconds. It facilitates hardware implementations that do not require external memory, allowing for efficient implementation on various platforms such as FPGAs, ASICs, CPUs and GPUs.

Most vendors we spoke to agree that customers are looking for solutions that offer high efficiency, density and flexibility. At IBC attendees will also see low-latency encoders and decoders that support the increased speed and capacity of 100 Gigabit Ethernet networking.

Surveying The Show Floor

Zixi (Stand 5.A85) is showing its Software Defined Video Platform (SDVP), along with its latest software release v18, which exploits DPDK-based High Performance Networking to boost throughput. DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit) is an open source package comprising software and interfaces for offloading TCP/IP packet processing from the operating system kernel to improve overall compute efficiency. 

The new release also employs null compression technology to cut egress bandwidth, which Zixi claimed increases throughput 10 times, while reducing total cost of ownership by 50%.

“To meet customer demand, we have added market switching, which allows content distributors to switch content based on ESAM/ESNI for regionalization of content or blackouts enabling traditional workflows in IP workflows,” said Zixi’s Wastcoat. He added that Zixi was also going to present its thought leadership in the Showcase Theatre with partners Verizon and the NHL (National Hockey League).

Appear (Stand 1.B41). Appear’s primary exhibit will be its new VX Software Platform, aiming to fulfill all current broadcast workflow requirements while adding the ability and flexibility to deploy next-generation advanced services using containerization and microservices. “The VX Software Platform empowers Appear customers to swiftly create next-generation production workflows that distribute functionality across multiple networks and connected hardware solutions while delivering the power, resiliency, and ultra-low latency of today's hardware platforms,” said Appear’s Matthew Williams-Neale.

He added that Appear would also be showing its existing modular X Platform.  “We are now replicating this approach in the VX platform, building all the functionality of the X Platform in individual software modules. However, this new architecture is so much more than just a replica of the X Platform in software. Visitors to our IBC booth will be able to see the functionality we offer in contribution over JPEG XS, AVC, HEVC and SRT, as well as how the VX Platform enables broadcasters and operators to quickly build, spin-up, adapt and spin down entire production workflows, and distribute this ability over infrastructure on one or more of hardware, cloud and on-premise cloud.”

Cobalt Digital (Stand 10.B41) will feature its full line of RIST-enabled products. They are one of the pioneers of remote contribution technologies and one of the most respected brands in broadcast and the perfect destination to explore and evaluate the benefits of the RIST approach. Cobalt produce an extensive range of encoders and decoders that includes stand-alone hardware devices, cards and software. 

Of particular interest for remote production is the new PACIFIC Ultra Low-Latency Decoder that can decode one stream up to 4K, or two up to 3G. The PACIFIC ULL-DEC is an openGear card capable of decoding H.262 (MPEG-2), H.264 (AVC), H.265 (HEVC) and 4K with less than 10 milliseconds of latency (for properly encoded streams). The card can either decode one stream up to 4K, or two streams up to 3G. It supports an extensive set of audio CODECs and network protocols, including RIST. When combined with the Cobalt 9992-ENC encoder, this solution can achieve an end-to-end latency of less than one frame.

Cobalt will be showing a new factory-installed option for SMPTE ST 2110 input, the INDIGO 2110-DC-02 to its existing PACIFIC 9992-ENC openGear card. The option supports up to 4 inputs at 3G and lower resolutions, or one input at 4K resolution, with full NMOS support. Each encoder channel can be individually configured for SDI or ST 2110 operation.

Matrox (Stand 7.B15) will show their Monarch Edge range of hardware encoders and decoders designed specifically for remote contribution.

According to Matrox the Monarch EDGE encoders and decoders are renowned for their advanced features, including ultra-low-latency, high-resolution (HDR 4:2:2 10-bit video) multi-stream sync, 4K/multi-HD support, tally, talkback, and genlock. New features in version 2.08, on show at IBC, include reprogrammable I/O, encoder and decoder previews/thumbnails, SRT Connection bonding, custom PIDs, and more.

Evertz (Stand 2.B51) make a substantial range of products that bridge the gap between IP and SDI and many of them cross over into suitability for remote contribution with the inclusion of JPG XS capabilities. At IBC Evertz will show the new NEXX-IO-JXS, a universal IO module that offers JPEG XS encoding and decoding for their NEXX Routers. The NEXX-IO-JXS module supports multiple channels of uncompressed video (up to 8K) over SMPTE ST 2110 and SDI interfaces, as well as JPEG XS TR-07 and TR-08 profiles. The NEXX-IO-JXS card supports SMPTE ST 2022-7 for a seamless decoding solution, audio embedding and de-embedding, ancillary data processing and built in frame synchronization.

JPEG XS is now also a feature of Evertz’s Reflektor, a software accelerated media transcoding and distribution platform that offers comprehensive processing and transcoding directly in and from the cloud. By supporting JPEG XS across its encoding, decoding, and transcoding capabilities, Reflektor allows for the ingest of low latency JPEG XS using SRT, thus broadening its application support. In addition, Reflektor also supports NDI version 6.0.1, which introduces support for 10-bit depth and HDR features, enabling Reflektor to cater to applications such as transcoding JPEG XS to NDI.

Evertz will also expand the SCORPION Flexible Media Edge line up with SCORPION–2RU, an edge compute platform that performs media processing, conversion, routing, aggregation and transport through use of available compute blades and discrete signal input and output modules.

5G Wireless Contribution

The latest generation of mobile transmitters (many camera-mounted) to be shown on the show floor at IBC this year that support 5G’s increased bandwidth allow users to encode and transmit one 4K UHD source or four simultaneous HD sources - leveraging bonded cellular technology to aggregate multiple mobile network connections for maximum reliability. Some portable systems now include six embedded cellular modems, four frame-synced HD inputs, genlock support, and 4G/5G cellular modems paired with high-efficiency internal antennas. These cellular modems help deliver live and recorded content within milliseconds while receiving bi-directional audio and real-time video return feeds. Vendors to investigate include Haivision, Live-U, Dejero and Vislink. 

Other articles in this IBC 2024 'Show Focus' series:

The Broadcast Bridge will be at the IBC Show – on stand 8.A52. Please come and see us and share your thoughts on what we do and what you would like to see from us in the coming year.