On January 15th, the SMPTE New York chapter had a standing-room-only meeting at Cisco’s New York office discussing the practical implementation of the multiple new technologies entering the broadcast, cinema and post-production worlds. The meeting was titled “Building Television Systems in a Time of Multiple Technology Transitions.”
The new technologies discussed included:
1. From hardware to virtual systems
2. To off premise cloud-based systems
3. From hardware purchases to software subscriptions
4. From standards chaos to SMPTE ST 2110
5. From dedicated routing systems to COTS IP routing
6. From ATSC 1.0 to ATSC 3.0
7. From 10 gig to 40/100 gig video transport
8. To OTT distribution
9. From HD to UHD (4K and 8k)
10. From SDR to HDR (high dynamic range)
11. To machine learning driven automation
12. To data driven ad targeting/automation/metadata tagging
13 …and finally, there is 5G, which it is said, “will change everything!”
Experts on the SMPTE NY panel. (Credit: SMPTE)
The meeting took the form of a panel session with five panelists, Karl Paulsen, John Turner, John Mailhot, who was editor of the SMPTE ST 2110 media over IP standard, Mark Schubin and John Humphrey, all members of the New York production and post-production communities and experts in their fields. The moderator was Josh Gordon, TV Industry Strategist and an expert in the field in his own right. He was also one of the producers of the meeting and after the announcement came out, he got several calls saying “You forgot…” He said he could have added three or four topics, but thirteen was enough.
This was not a side-based meeting and none of the panelists had slide decks. But the moderator thought a comment he got from John Turner before the meeting was so important, he included in his introductory slide deck.
It asked the question “6 Months to decide on using one, just one, technology in transition?” Turner, the first speaker elaborated on this. He said he had a client that needed to build a new television post-production facility. It had limited space and the client knew it would never be expanded because it was in a high-rent area where they would never be able to get additional space they could afford. The one technology in transition they were considering was using dedicated video interconnections (i.e. SDI) vs. Video over Internet Protocol (VIP AKA SMPTE ST-2110).
In the end, the client went with 3G SDI interconnection, in part because it was tried and true technology and the facility could be brought on-line fairly quickly. One thing they had considered was running SDI and ST-2110 connections in parallel. However, not only was cost an issue, but there simply wasn’t room in the facility for duplicate equipment. One factor in the decision was the fact that the facility would be used for television applications, not cinema, which requires a higher level of technology and multiple 3G SDI cables in parallel to transmit 4K images.
ST-2110 is a Paradigm Shift
John Humphrey said that the SDI to ST-2110 was a massive paradigm shift. For him, it represented a bigger shift than the shift from analog to digital video 20 or so years ago. This was, in part, because the shift from analog to digital took place over a relatively long period of time. By the time digital broadcasting (ATSC 1.0) was introduced, much of the internal work in production and post production facilities, the primary topic of this meeting, was already largely digital. He also added that one of the problems with ST-2110 is a people problem – finding IT people willing to work for the rather small and specialized video industry, even when the salaries and responsibilities were comparable.
One of the more solvable problems with recruiting was the video industry has traditionally called the people that maintain the system “Techs” while in the IT world people doing the same thing are called “Engineers.” Solution: start calling them engineers in the video world as well. After all, they really are engineers.
All the other panelists agreed with Humphrey that changing from SDI to ST-2110 is a big deal and finding the right people to do the work was a key task necessary to make this deal work. They didn’t necessarily agree that this was an extremely difficult task, however. Since the techs in the video world are already accustomed to dealing with digital interfaces (e.g. SDI) and video routers as well as Ethernet and the IP routers used to control the video, they could be retrained with little difficulty to deal with ST-2110.
One issue discussed was the issue of redundant vs single ST-2110 systems. Currently, most ST-2110 systems have had redundant technology, similar to the older SDI-based systems. Some of the new ST-2110 facilities, however, have been built without redundancy. If you must have 24/7 availability, for example for live sports production or broadcast operations, the panel agreed this was risky – too risky. In a broadcast operation, 1 second of down time per year is considered unacceptable. One problem with IP routers is when one goes down and needs a reboot, the reboot can take as long as 20 minutes.
A tip from Karl Paulson was to turn off all automatic software updates for all the IP equipment, including the routers, even in a redundant system. Of course, typically both routers will be the same and both need updating at the same time, so both might go off-line simultaneously for an automatic update. He added, do all your updates and testing off-line. For brief periods, you can probably live with a non-redundant system while you update and test the second.
One final comment from Paulson: If you must be set up and operating in your new facility in 4 – 6 months, don’t choose ST-2110 today. While the COTS ST-2110 equipment may be off-the-shelf from the vendor, set up, testing and commissioning the facility will take longer than it will for an SDI-based facility.
This Display Daily has looked primarily at the effects of ST-2110 on the design and implementation of a new production or post-production facility. Part 2 of this DD will be published tomorrow and will examine the other 12 technologies in transition and how these will affect these facilities. – (MB)
