Broadcast is moving to an IP-first, software-defined video infrastructure, and in the process reducing costs and creating new editorial opportunities
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Resistance-Is-Futile-How-Broadcast-and-Cable-Are-Embracing-IP-107879.aspx
While broadcasters are a long way from junking their digital terrestrial antennas, cable networks, and transponder space, they are embracing the internet to reach consumers. BT TV’s move to launch a 4K channel is predicated on its entrenched broadband infrastructure. HBO’s decision to risk severing established ties with cable by launching HBO Now is part of a tidal wave of OTT offerings from traditional media. U.K. satellite pay-TV giant Sky is another. It runs noncontract VOD service NOW TV and mobile offer Sky Go and uses Elemental software to deliver them.
“OTT is mainstream, no question,” says Joe Inzerillo, CTO of MLBAM, which powers HBO’s streaming service. BAM is being spun-off from Major League Baseball in order to take on more OTT contracts.
Broadcasters are moving to compete with the global scale, local reach, and rapid response of Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu. The transition to IP and software-defined video (SDV) infrastructure will eventually see them move from bricks and mortar to cloud-based content suppliers.
BBC CTO Matthew Postgate is responsible for changing the fabric of the corporation so fundamentally that the vision is for it to become a “datacaster,” not a broadcaster.
“Digital first is about what it feels like to work in a data-driven organization which competes with Netflix or Amazon in content,” Postgate says. “It’s about swapping out the network across all of our bureau to be more IP-centered. It’s about introducing more commodity IT equipment. All the time we are driving down cost and giving editorial more options.”
New Efficiencies and Opportunities
Outsourcing operational processes to private data centers offers broadcasters not just capex and real estate cost savings, but the strategic ability to flex up or down to launch new ventures, respond to short-term demand spikes with pop-up channels (e.g., around major sporting events), and change aspects of channels in real time. The goal is to spin up a channel in hours, not months, as is currently the case.
With processing, storage, and networking infrastructure as pooled resources rather than dedicated independent infrastructures, a software as a service (SaaS) model delivers economies of scale and replaces manual workflow with automation.
Virtualization removes the geographic dependencies that have previously limited video playout. No longer reliant on cost-prohibitive satellite bandwidth, broadcasters can achieve regionalization, localization, and even hyperlocalization of channel content. While internet-based media organizations have incredible opportunities to inject targeted advertising into programming, this is not yet the case for broadcast. That could change with IP.
Instead of storing assets on-prem in proprietary tape archives, a cloud-based approach enables broadcasters to alter content on demand and reformat it far more effectively to compete for VOD and multiscreen delivery.
Current versioning workflows can involve multiple organizations, located in different parts of the world. A software-defined network located in the cloud unites these processes and links ad sales, scheduling, traffic management, and video servers into a single workflow accessed from desktop browsers.
This vision has been in the works for over a decade. Nonlinear editing packages were untethered from turnkey computing hardware in the late ‘90s. The first file-based (XDCAM) camcorders arrived in 2003. The migration from tape to server-based systems continued with the proliferation of file-based workflows that now embrace all aspects of production.
Playout is becoming part of the equation. Tata Communications has just launched a global cloud-based playout service using a new software-only system from PlayBox Technologies called CloudAir. Its design includes the array of traditional on-prem-based hardware functions (ingest, source transcoding, quality control, MAM, production, post-production, subtitling, scheduling, and transmission) and can be operated in automated mode with the option of making schedule alterations or live inserts at any time in response to late-breaking news.
“The CloudAir platform is one of the most exciting new developments in broadcasting since the transition from tape-based to file-based content management and playout,” says Don Ash, managing partner at PlayBox Technologies. “This is a real game changer, with the potential to empower literally thousands of new program streams, quickly, easily, and very affordably.”
IP for transporting and contributing live video is well-established among broadcasters. News departments increasingly use IP to deliver feeds from more places than was possible with costly outside broadcast equipment.
During the U.K.’s May general election, Sky News claimed a Guinness World Record for contributing 138 concurrent live feeds from various constituencies over LiveU’s cloud to the web. (Bear in mind there are 650 parliamentary constituencies, so there’s some way to go.)
The BBC is also ramping its use of IP to contribute feeds from live events such as the Glastonbury Festival, increasing the available coverage. So IP has been part of the media value chain for some time, but not implemented in end-to-end workflows.
“When properly implemented and managed, IP technologies for media distribution match the quality and latency standards required by the broadcasting industry,” says Nicolas Bourdan, senior vice president of marketing at EVS, which makes servers for live production. “Early adopters like those in sports, with the financial means and the need for ultra-fast and responsive live remote production, are paving the way for others. But all-IP workflows are still quite a few years off. It’s just not practical at this point for most broadcasters.”
Roadblocks to Adoption
There are many reasons for this, including doubts about the triple-9s reliability of signals sent over IP, lack of interoperability between vendor systems, and a reluctance to invest until standards for 4K over IP are settled. Many broadcasters have only just migrated to file from tape, and don’t have the funds to make another leap yet. Some argue that the biggest source of inertia is the cultural impact of change.
There’s a general feeling that IP technologies need to mature, or that certain areas are more mature than others. In the former camp are live production workflows from studios or venues, which is solidly based on coaxial copper cables and serial digital interface, though heavyweight broadcast kit vendors, such as Sony and Grass Valley, are launching cameras, vision mixers (switchers), and routers with IP connectors to future-proof investment.
The heart of the matter is whether trust in the deterministic, virtually foolproof signal integrity of SDI can be matched by IP. Will resolutions, frame rates, and audio be synchronized all of the time? And how is control over IP to be managed and monitored by broadcast engineers unschooled in IT?
“IP networks were never intended for video,” says Alexander Sandstrom, strategic product manager at Net Insight. “The brittle, time-sensitive nature of video does not play well with the proven but lossy nature of IP—even less so on shared and unmanaged networks like the internet. The varying delay and constant packet loss of the internet play havoc with every video stream traversing it unprotected.”
Live production is fraught with on-the-fly changes—a late breaking news story with live link via satellite, for instance, or a camera alteration at a track and field event. The risk of on-air black holes or a missing commercial makes for cautious adoption.
Depending on which vendor you believe, real-time IP switching is either not yet possible, or already happening. Snell Advanced Media (formerly Quantel Snell) has reservations. “The control systems don’t [yet] exist,” says head of product marketing Tim Felstead. “Where SDI routers were very reliable with straightforward verification of what was happening, IP systems are more opaque. This creates a lack of confidence.”
Imagine Communications management, on the other hand, talks with certainty and points to perhaps the most high-profile reference site for broadcast over IP in the world just now, that of Disney ABC, which just happens to be based on Imagine products.
“Disney is showing the unlimited possibilities that virtualizing part or all of a network in the cloud can bring to this industry,” says Imagine CEO Charlie Vogt. “A lot of folks don’t realize Disney ABC is doing virtualized playout and automation for live linear programming.” Disney is not, however, producing live event coverage over IP.
Other first movers that are producing live sports from site to studio (though not necessarily from camera to mobile facility) include Pac-12 Networks, which uses T-VIPS and Nevion links to transmit talkback and telemetry to and from sports venues up to 2500km away, and ESPN’s Digital Center 2, which opened November 2014 built around a J2000-based Evertz router.
“The key is to migrate to IP at a [broadcaster’s] own pace and ensure they have the ability to evolve in a hybrid SDI-IP infrastructure,” Vogt says. “Many have made a huge investment in baseband and SDI. We need to help them to migrate to enable their new business models.”
Imagine’s key technology is the Magellan SDN Orchestrator, which provides control of all the company’s hybrid IP and baseband products. “The whole concept of a hybrid architecture is to have everything look and feel like a router because the operator needs to walk up to a control surface and do everything they need to in their day to day business,” says product manager Paul Greene. “They need to select the destination and the source and activate the file. Whether it’s in an IP or baseband domain—whether it’s HD or Ultra HD—the control system abstracts the original function from the underlying technology to make it all very familiar.”
Interoperability Is Key
This speaks to the element of change management that may be making some broadcasters risk-averse. CTOs are wary of ripping out a working SDI infrastructure and replacing it with a technology for which new expertise is required.
Moving into the unknown—or lesser known— is always fraught with challenges, but often the perception outweighs the actual risks,” Bourdan says. “IP requires a different mindset and significantly, a different skill set, from the engineers working with it. Getting over the hump to deploy and train will be the most difficult.”
SMPTE standard 2022-6 goes some way to address this. It is devised to mirror SDI by synching video over IP in a real-time environment, but it does not unlock the full potential of IP by offering seamless switching between AV and metadata streams. SMPTE and others are working on this, but a new standard is not likely until mid-to-late 2016.
Matters become even more complicated when it comes to 4K. While many greenfield facilities or new outside broadcast scanners are being planned with an IP routing core, some companies are holding out until 4K-over-IP standards (such as working with HDR) are agreed upon.
Working in 4K also requires low-latency compression. Due to the different compression schemes available (TICO Alliance, JPEG2000, open source VC2, Sony’s LLVC and, possibly, V-Nova’s Perseus), this too will require a very open approach between vendors.
However, technology is moving extremely quickly. Pipes of 40GbE and 100GbE are already emerging and Imagine is already testing them internally. Costs are high, but Moore’s Law dictates that capacity will expand while costs decrease.
Meanwhile, there are several demonstrations of live IP showcasing cross-vendor solutions to the IP live puzzle. Systems integrator Guardhouse Broadcast has devised a remote production workflow linking solutions from Hitachi, Riedel, and EVS. The EBU has corralled potential rivals to support its Sandbox LiveIP project, implemented an IP studio at Belgium broadcaster VRT. Participants include Axon EVS, Genelec, Grass Valley, Nevion, Trilogy, and Tektronix.
“Interoperability is the key, and adhering to industry standards is important to ensuring success,” says Ewan Johnston, sales director at intercoms vendor Trilogy. “Customers will need to choose between those vendors who provide standards-based systems, but who really still want to deliver proprietary systems, and those who genuinely embrace the standards-based approach and have open systems in their corporate DNA.”
Gartner predicts that the SDV market will top $10 billion by 2018. It concludes that the benefits of software that have pervaded the IT industry are about to have the same impact on the video industry. Elemental Technologies points out that there will be 15 billion to 20 billion IP-connected screens in use in the next 5 years, a factor that CEO Sam Blackman says “exposes the fact that dedicated hardware can no longer keep pace with changing market dynamics.”
Yet the broadcast industry is inherently conservative. It is also a fraction of the size of the IT market. Sony is only ending production of VTRs this year. According to Futuresource Consulting, 13 percent of professionals still use tape.
“Some organizations are still reliant on tape for production, never mind that a lot of their archive still resides on analog tape,” says Adam Fry, deputy VP of Sony Professional, which is on a drive to market the digitization solutions of storage specialist Memnon, which it acquired earlier this year.
Dependent on public money at a time of belt tightening, the BBC is under economic constraint. “We take strategic opportunities to invest as [areas] become end of life,” Postgate says. “I think we’ll have a large amount of IP activity in 5 years, but in reality the transition from SDI will take a number of years.”
At this point, the focus is on the economic and business transformational benefits of IP, and the editorial possibilities have barely been explored. Remote production delivers cost benefits and the possibility to carry more angles on an event, opening up more personalised content and coverage of niche news, sports, and other live events.
There’s a more visionary concept, being led by BBC R&D. Object-based broadcasting deconstructs video and audio into component parts, mixing them in real time and reconstituting them in a way that makes best use of the consumer’s device and their viewing context.
“I think the idea is profound and little understood,” Postgate says. “Once you move to object-based broadcasting delivered as assets to a smart home connected to the internet of things there are huge creative opportunities and fundamental questions about what role a media organization plays.”
BT’s Hybrid SDI to IP Ultra HD Launch
U.K. telco BT launched Europe’s first live Ultra HD channel on Aug. 2, based on a distribution infrastructure several steps ahead of the technology used in production.
The content is mainly live sports transported over the telco’s Infinity branded fibre-optic broadband to U.K. homes that have upgraded to the package and which own a Ultra HD TV. BT paid £897 million (about $1.3 billion) for exclusive 2015-2018 UEFA Champions League rights and is paying £7.6 million (about $11.83 million) every time it airs an English Premier League game.
This distribution network gives BT first mover advantage over its satellite-based pay TV rival Sky, which (at time of writing) has yet to announce a 4K service. Its BT Sport TV channels are available in more than 5.2 million homes.
However, BT refuses to put a figure on the required bitrates suitable to view its Ultra HD channel and the “Ultra HD” branding disguises the its true nature to a degree.
The resolution might be 4K, but other attributes associated with an Ultra HD spec are not currently available. The frame rate is 50p, with tests being made to increase this up to 100p over time. More significantly, the color space is rec.709, not rec.2020 of Ultra HD. It is not carrying High Dynamic Range, although once again tests to incorporate HDR along the camera chain to final display are being conducted by BT’s outside broadcast suppliers.
This is no criticism of BT, which has pioneered a well-received product in a short period of time, and there’s no doubt that the telco-turned-broadcaster will continue to push the bar.
Fact is, to achieve first mover status, it has compromised on production because the technology is not ready. The outside broadcast production to studio is a standard workflow, albeit as a 3G-SDI chain.
“IP live is not yet ready,” BT Sport COO Jamie Hindaugh says. “We are looking at IP and attributes like HDR, and how that integrates into 4K. Our focus is on being trailblazers and staying out in front.”
BT commissioned Timeline TV to build a mobile facility for its 4K production. This includes IP-ready kits such as a Snell Advanced Media Kahuna vision mixer, Snell Advanced Media Sirius router, and Sony 4300 two-thirds-inch systems cameras that carry an IP interface.
A prime economic consideration for all outside broadcasters and their customers is that facilities and workflow need to accommodate HD and 4K production simultaneously.
It’s still unclear how this is achieved editorially. As with 3D broadcasting, 4K live requires fewer camera angles and fewer cuts because of the higher fidelity immersion, so a way must be found of maintaining the production values of multi-camera HD from a largely 4K original. This includes picture stitching two or more 4K cameras and zooming into the image to take HD cut outs or reframing a single 4K image for HD.
Playout is outsourced to Ericsson-owned Red Bee Media and handled in a traditional way. Red Bee CTO Steve Plunkett is an advocate of playout in the cloud, but hasn’t taken Red Bee down that route yet.
“The components of a broadcast publishing chain are evolving towards deployment in the cloud and public cloud environments are also offering more deterministic performance than previously,” he says. “Both seem to be on a path of convergence, which is a good thing. The true broadcast cloud seems to be on the horizon, but its distance is not yet clear.”
This article appears in the November/December 2015 issue of Streaming Media magazine as “Resistance Is Futile.”
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