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BROADCAST PRODUCTION BROADBAND SATELLITE MOBILE ÂŁ3.80 I Volume 32 I Issue 4 I July-August 2014

Content Delivery From OTT to terrestrial, big things are happening

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Contents EDITORIAL Editor Mark Hallinger Tel: 1 301 467 1695 Email: mhallinger@nbmedia.com Tech Editor Craig Norris Contributing Editor James Careless Contributors Ann-Marie Corvin, Kevin Hilton, Phil Reed NEWBAY MEDIA LLC CORPORATE President and CEO Steve Palm Chief Financial Officer Paul Mastronardi Controller Jack Liedke Group Circulation Director Denise Robbins Vice President of Web Development Joe Ferrick PUBLISHER Steve Connolly Tel: +44 (0) 20 7354 6000 Email: steve.connolly@intentmedia.co.uk ADVERTISING Sales Executive Sharifa Marshall Tel: +44 (0) 20 7354 6000 Email: sharifa.marshall@intentmedia.co.uk Sales Manager Ben Ewles Tel: +44 (0) 20 7354 6000 Email: ben.ewles@intentmedia.co.uk U.S. Midwest, New England & Canada Vytas Urbonas Email: vurbonas@nbmedia.com U.S. West Pete Sembler Email: psembler@nbmedia.com U.S. Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, US Classifieds & Product Showcase Michele Inderrieden Email: minderrieden@nbmedia.com Hong Kong, China, Asia/Pacific Wengong Wang Email: wwg@imaschina.com Italy Raffaella Calabrese Email: rcalabrese@broadcast.it Latin America Susana Saibene Email: susana.saibene@gmail.com PRODUCTION Production Director Davis White Group Head of Design & Production Adam Butler Email: adam.butler@intentmedia.co.uk Production Executive Jason Dowie Email: Jason.dowie@intentmedia.co.uk Designer Jat Garcha Email: jat.garcha@intentmedia.co.uk TV Technology Europe ISSN 2053-6674 (Print) ISSN 2053-6682 (Online) is published seven times annually by Intent Media. ©2013 by Intent Media. All rights reserved.

Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London, N18LN, England Free subscriptions are available to professional broadcasting and audio visual equipment users.

Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome for review – send to Mark Hallinger at the feedback address.

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Covers & News I love a good cover picture. It’s not easy to find an image of sufficient resolution, in the correct ‘rectangle standing on end’ shape that also says something reasonably tied to an issue theme or a specific story within an issue.

I remember the cover of my September, 2011, issue. It was an image of a bride and groom in the distance, looking down the centre aisle of a church, taken from directly behind a 3D camera rig. It was the first ever wedding captured in 3D. My coverline: 3D & Broadcast: Shotgun Wedding or Marriage made in Heaven?

I thought it was a witty headline, but I only received a few plaudits for it, for which I will be eternally puzzled and annoyed.

It’s rare that an image and the words of the coverline can so clearly express my scepticism about a technology or trend. 2011 was the year when 3D was the rage, and it was being pushed as a driver for broadcast by none other than James Cameron, who attended IBC. The trade press lined up for an audience with a man who is undoubtedly a great filmmaker. I declined, as I was really expecting 3D to fade back to novelty status for at least the medium term.

It did fade, though in truth I have been seeing some stories about how ‘glasses free’ 3D might become very real within a few years. We’ll cover these developments soon I hope. I don’t want to be too cynical.

I bring all of this cover image talk up as this month’s cover is a nice one, ripe for witty coverlines.

I could have implied all sorts of things with such an image.

The long shadow of the tower could have implied that it’s ‘late

in the day’ for terrestrial, or the use of the land for generating solar energy could be used to say something smart about making money with a tower site.

But I’m not a doomsayer on the future of terrestrial. Look at Davide Moro’s article on page 8. Consider eMBMS (Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service). As Davide states, this is basically the Multicast mode of the LTE standard that enables mobile networks to offer broadcast services. Add in 4K transmission over terrestrial as was demonstrated at the DVB stand at Broadcast Asia, the launch of terrestrial 4K in Korea, and the BBC’s current UHDTV terrestrial trial of World Cup content (page 10), and the terrestrial sector seems very much worthy of attention.

IP in the facility is also worthy of attention, probably more so.

Craig Norris’ article on AVB on page 4 discusses this, and I can’t recommend the story enough. It mixes history with humour, and provides a nice update on where we stand and where we might be heading.

NEW NEWSLETTER I’ve been noticing the news a bit more lately as I’ve been feeding and producing a weekly e-mail newsletter called TV Technology International (with Broadcast Engineering). This newsletter---called TVTI for short----taps the vast, global resources of many NewBay Media titles, and reaches around 18,000 readers across EMEA and Asia/Pacific.

If you want to subscribe, visit tvtechnology.com and click on the newsletters button.

Mark Hallinger Editor & Associate Publisher mhallinger@nbmedia.com Cover credit: Ampegon is offering complete photovoltaic power plant services at tower sites for broadcasters. The image on our cover is actually the Wertachtal shortwave antenna site in Europe where Ampegon has installed a 20 MW power plant underneath the existing antenna installation. See page 17 for details, or visit www.ampegon.com

In this issue 4

TECH NEWS: BUILDING AN AVB PLATFORM The story of SDI is a hard act to follow, but follow it AVB must, says Craig Norris

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NEWS: TV Tech Europe, TVBEurope launch TVBAwards The first Europe-wide broadcast innovation awards are now open for nominations, says Neal Romanek

8

TECH NEWS: TRANSMISSION Davide Moro uses the 2014 DVB World to reflect on the state of the transmission sector

12 BUYERS GUIDE: TRANSMISSION, TRANSMISSION MONITORING, ENCODING/TRANSCODING & CONTENT DELIVERY User reports and product information 20 SHARPSHOOTER: ASH BRANSTON A look at the Berlin-based shooter 23 LAST LINES: 4K TRANSMISSION Geir Bryn-Jensen asks if 4K transmission is key for uptake

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TECH NEWS

Goodbye BNC, Hello 8P8C

Craig Norris on building a BNC-free AVB platform

T

he humble BNC connector has been around for so long that most broadcast engineers don’t even know what the letters “BNC” mean. Ask around the workshop: “What do the letters B-N-C stand for?” I’m yet to find someone who knows the answer off the top of their head.

I had to Google it myself.

“Bayonet Neill-Concelman” is the correct answer. We can thank Paul Neill and Carl Concelman for designing that compact, quick, easy and reliable coaxial cable interface that faithfully transports our real time synchronous television content between pretty much every piece of broadcast baseband video equipment ----and a lot of audio content too.

Neill and Concelman had military applications in mind when they designed this ubiquitous signal interface for the ends of coaxial cables. The military aspect of their design objective makes for an interesting coincidence when you consider that the patent application on which they based their collaborative effort was filed with the US Patent Office just a couple of weeks after World War II ended in Europe in 1945.

As the tired, hungry and demoralised soldiers laid down their weapons across Europe, Octavio Salati was in his lab at Hazeltine Corporation in springtime America, enthusiastically writing his patent application, complete with meticulously hand-drawn crosssectional images for his “electrical connector.” He filed his patent on May 19, 1945. His patent protection was awarded to him on January 30, 1951. (The patent approval process took about the same amount of time as World War II.) The idea behind the BNC connector is older than the author of this article. But not by much.

That the BNC connector is still so thoroughly entrenched in our daily lives in 2014 is quite remarkable. Its longevity is testimony to the success of its design. But, there are forces at work to end the sixty year reign of our small round shiny friend.

The inevitable replacement for your old faithful BNC/coax combo is the cheap but rather unsatisfying plastic 8P8C connector on dual unshielded twisted pair (UTP). After

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60 years of saying “BNC on coax,” we’re supposed to soon be saying “8P8C on UTP.” It’s not quite the same, is it? “8P8C on UTP” doesn’t roll off the tongue particularly well.

That’s why nearly everyone calls it “Ethernet cable”. Even “Ethernet cable” is too much of a mouthful for some people, so you’ll typically hear them say “Cat 5”, “Cat 5e” or “Cat 6” instead----referring to the relatively inexpensive category 5 or category 6 unshielded twisted pair copper cables for Gigabit Ethernet applications.

“8P8C” is rather lacking in aesthetic appeal as far as names go.

Why didn’t they ask George Lucas for suggestions? He came up with C3PO and R2D2 for the Star Wars movie.

He could have done much better for us than “8P8C”. And that’s why we all prefer to call it a modular connector, or perhaps more commonly and somewhat inaccurately, the RJ45 connector.

It goes to prove one thing---that the IT and telco industries are definitely at the upper limit of their creativity with three letter acronyms (TLAs).They can’t do four. They need help from someone like George Lucas for that, but he charges too much.

Cost is important. Cost is the basic motivation behind the effort to replace all the broadcaster’s BNC/ coax infrastructure with Ethernet cables. It’s already a fait accompli for non-real time asynchronous video transfer.

Relocating or replicating broadcast MXF files around a TV station or production house and even around the planet through Ethernet cables and IT/telco packet switching infrastructure is already the done thing. It makes sense to do that now. Enough bandwidth is available at the right price, and for simple file relocation and replication, we can accept some degree of variable transfer speeds, interruptions and latencies.

But streaming synchronous live uncompressed high definition video as a playout signal or pass-through signal or a live camera source back to the studio, remains a very tall order for a TCP/IP network.

It isn’t only a matter of having enough bandwidth and not too much latency. It’s also a matter of having a whole ecosystem of IPfriendly devices that support all the

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operational functions of television production and broadcasting----and all the devices in that ecosystem need to obey the network protocol rules so that traffic flows smoothly----without bottlenecks, hiccups or crashes.

An ecosystem of IP-friendly streaming video devices can only come about if three things exist. First, there has to be the will to do things entirely in the IP domain. Second, there has to be a set of standards to follow for the bit streams and electrical interfaces and network protocols. And third, we need a marketplace of manufacturers to invest in the launching of a whole new family of products that conform to the new standards, and those manufacturers must have some hope of selling gazillions of said products.

So far, in May 2014, enough of a will has existed for a long enough duration to have brought about a set of standards. The standards can be found under the umbrella term “AVB” - Audio Video Bridging. The AVB set of four IEEE standards is comprised of the following: IEEE 802.1AS (precise time synchronisation), 802.1Qat

(Stream Reservation Protocol), 802.1Qav (“traffic shaping” to prevent bottlenecks and packet clogging in queues) and 802.1BA (identifying which devices on the network are AVB-capable and which ones are not).

A surprising discovery when one looks for information on these standards is the fact that the family of four standards was finalised and published about three years ago.

It begs these questions: “Why is it taking so long? Why hasn’t AVB taken the television world by storm?”

The answers to questions like those are rarely simple. But there is an important side note.

There was one more important standard required, and that standard wasn’t ratified until August last year: IEEE Std 1722.1-2013. That’s the one that provides a kind of intelligence for a sort of plug and play AVB device to just work when you connect it to the bridge. Without that, a lot of manual configuration on setup menus would be required before you could plug an AVB device into the bridge. In reality, the AVB standards were not really a complete set until about nine months

TECH NEWS ago. That could partly explain why AVB systems aren’t all around us yet.

As part of our further analysis for the purpose of finding more answers, let’s compare the upcoming rollout of AVB to the rollout of digital video over coaxial cable 25 years earlier.

The Serial Digital Interface (SDI) first saw the light of day when Sony and Ampex launched their D2 format 19mm composite video tape recorders.

To make D2 VTRs simpler to install within the existing TV station cabling infrastructure, the parallel data streams on the cumbersome and distance-challenged parallel digital interface used on the early D1 VTRs had to be serialised by the inclusion of a new dedicated chipset behind the male BNC connectors on the D2 VTR. It was that humble pair of serialiser and deserialiser LSI chips that allowed a standard BNC connector on 75 ohm coaxial cable to pass SD digital video streams at 270 Mbps.

Sony had the market for that SDI chipset very much to themselves in the early days. They sold the serialiser/deserialiser chipset to all the other broadcast video equipment manufacturers. That low-cost chipset was a major contributing factor that allowed the whole broadcast industry to quickly and cheaply adopt the new SDI digital video interface.

Today there are many semiconductor manufacturers producing HD-SDI transceiver chipsets.

Within a very short span of time, video monitors, audio monitors, audio recorders and players, CGs, stillstores, test equipment, switchers, routers and every other video-related device was “in the game.” SDI was adopted with great enthusiasm because the SDI ecosystem was quick and easy to create. And that SDI chipset remains, with its BNC-oncoax bedfellow, in wide and stable use today.

That story of SDI is a hard act to follow. But follow it AVB must.

Writing the script of the AVB story is a group called the AVnu Alliance (www.avnu.org). The AVnu Alliance is the AV industry body responsible for certifying products for compliance to the AVB standards. Passing all the compliance tests permits the manufacturer to attach the “AVnu Certified” logo to their product.

That logo is what you look for when you’re shopping for the parts to build yourself a BNC-free AVB zone.

The first question on my mind as I navigated my way to the AVnu Alliance web site was “If I’m building an AVB facility today, how many components of the system can I buy

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that are already AVB certified?”

The answer surprised me. The answer is “one.” Uno. Un. Ichi.

To be fair, the official list of AVnu Certified products as of May, 2014, has fourteen items on it. But those fourteen items are the various models of one product line: the Extreme Networks “Summit X440” series of Gigabit Ethernet Switch.

It’s appropriate that the first item to pop out of the AVnu certification process is the switch. Without a switch, there’s no AVB. And in the Audio Video Bridge world, the whole system revolves around the bridge. In AVnu language the certified Gigabit Ethernet switch falls under the product category called “bridge.”

Okay, we’ve bought ourselves a bridge, thanks to the good work of Extreme Networks and AVnu Alliance. What do we start saving our pennies for now? What will be the next products to earn their AVnu Certified logo? How long will it take us to build our BNC-free AVB platform? What other products are coming down the AVnu certification lab’s pipeline?

At NAB this year, Arista Networks was making noises about the upcoming AVB certification for their Ethernet switches. They gave a very convincing demonstration of frame accurate real time glitch-free switching of live HD streams. That demo was in partnership with Fox Networks Engineering & Operations.

So this isn’t just marketing smoke and mirrors. This is a real world practical demonstration----of an AVB bridge, with a real broadcaster. So we have another bridge coming for sure when Arista’s products get their AVnu logo.

We can cross “bridge” off the shopping list. What about cameras, microphones, monitors, test equipment, amplifiers, loudspeakers, legacy videotape players, audio mixers, real time digital effects, realtime graphics, video mixers with keyers, & etc.? When will they come out with an 8P8C socket and AVB compatibility? Sennheiser demonstrated a prototype of an AVB microphone in 2012. There’s no more recent news than that on their web site.

Beyerdynamic has partnered with XMOS to utilise an external AVB gateway for the microphones in their wireless conference room systems. So yes, we can now get a microphone signal into an AVB bridge, thanks to the XMOS “mic in to AVB out” box. But that’s a conference room microphone network. What about a high quality voice-over booth microphone? Or a studio shotgun boom mic? “To be confirmed,” is the current reply.

July/August 2014 I TV Technology Europe

Wohler announced an AVB interface card for their AMP2 series of video/audio monitor just before NAB this year. This gives us the ability to monitor, mix, level adjust and remux the audio channels in an AVB stream. Now we can cross “audio monitor/level adjuster” off the shopping list.

That’s about it. A bridge, some conference room microphones and an audio/video monitor/adjuster are what we can easily find today. That’s not much. AVB promises to save us so much money. Why is the television world not overtly beating a path to the AVB door?

If we look at the list of AVnu members on the AVnu web site, the most familiar names to us television people are Avid and Dolby. Sony isn’t there. Neither is Panasonic, nor Grass Valley, nor Imagine Communications (nee Harris), nor Miranda, nor Blackmagic Design, nor JVC. Yamaha is there, but broadcast television is only a small part of their total business.

Avid is on the AVnu membership list, mostly it appears, with their audio hat on. Avid’s ProTools and SC48 mixing console are definitely candidates for a place in an AVB world. Shure, Sennheiser, Bose, Harman and Beyerdynamic are AVnu Alliance members. So it appears that the audio world shows more interest in networking their real-time baseband payload over Ethernet than the video world does.

Barco is an AVnu Alliance member. Barco’s presence among all the audio names in the list is a hint that AVB might have more relevance in non-broadcast AV applications like auditoriums, concert halls, stadiums, houses of worship, and the like.

But somewhat like a fox in a flock of sheep, appears the name of Audinate in the list of AVnu members. Audinate has already established a market for their Dante product line, which is a credible Ethernet-based near-enough-realtime audio networking solution over standard commodity Ethernet switches. Audinate is surely wise to be in the AVB group so their current headline product, Dante, can take advantage of the new capabilities offered by AVB bridges.

But the success of Dante on existing non-AVB Ethernet network infrastructure is, one might expect, also a factor that could be taking some shine off the whole AVB concept. The audio world already has a solution of sorts in Dante. Why do they need AVB? To make matters worse for AVB, when we look at the consumer AV device market, it appears to be

far ahead of AVB with their own networking solutions as part of a quite mature ecosystem nurtured by the HDBaseT Alliance (www.hdbaset.org).

The HDBaseT Alliance was founded by LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Valens in 2010.

Their secret weapon is what they call “5Play on a Single Cable”, which means they can carry all of the following on a single Gigabit Ethernet cable: Up to 4K video (one way) PLUS digital audio (one way) PLUS 100BaseT Ethernet (two way) PLUS control signals (two way) PLUS up to 100W of DC power (to the receiving device).

The Ethernet cable for HDBaseT is a standard commodity 8P8C on Cat5e/6 UTP cable from your local computer store. And up to 100 metres in a single run is feasible. But the HDBaseT switch and data transport method on the cable is proprietary.

It isn’t based on packet switching like Ethernet. It’s based on a superset of HDMI. There are already enough HDBaseT devices to build a system. The reason the HDBaseT Alliance could establish an ecosystem of devices so effectively is because the whole ecosystem is based on an extension to the HDMI chipset. In other words, it’s just like 25 years ago when SDI easily established a foothold in our business thanks to the SDI chipset.

The HDMI chipset already handles high bit-rate video and audio. And most importantly, it already handles the HDCP copy protection protocols for Hollywood HD content. By combining the HDMI chipset with the new Valens HDBaseT chipset, the “5Play” killer app could be realised.

That brings us to AVB’s Achilles heel. They don’t have a chipset that makes a microphone or other AV device connect easily to an AVB bridge. It’s going to take a long time to write all the device AVB driver software and have every device AVnu certified. A chipset negates the need for all that time. AVB doesn’t have a chipset. They only own a set of IEEE standards. They really need a chipset.

So it looks like we might be in for a long wait for a BNC-free zone from AVB. The good news is, if you buy that Extreme Networks X440 switch today, you can still get value from it today as a normal Ethernet switch, and take comfort in the fact of being “AVB ready” for when those AVB devices eventually do come out of the certification pipeline.

NEWS

TV Tech Europe, TVBEurope launch TVBAwards The first Europe-wide broadcast innovation awards are now open for nominations. Neal Romanek unveils the categories, venue and date.

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VBEurope has announced the debut of the TVBAwards, honouring the high points of TV technical achievement over the last year. The new awards event is being run in partnership with TVBEurope sister publication, TV Technology Europe.

The TVBAwards will take place on 23 October, 2014 at the Hilton London Wembley. The prestigious hotel is host to other successful Intent Media awards events, including the Install Awards by Installation magazine.

TVBEurope saw the need for an awards show that truly represented the depth and scope of broadcast production expertise in the European industry. The awards will honour the best of the best across three major production categories: Capture awards honour achievement in image and content creation; Workflow awards honour achievement in post production, audio and systems integration, and Delivery awards honour achievement in content distribution.

Accolades in these three production categories will be projectbased, recognising a company’s excellence in it contribution to live or recorded TV content.

In addition, four Special Awards will be given, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, given to an individual who has provided years of

www.tvtechnology.com

IONS NOMINAT ARE NOW OPEN!

CAPTURE Achievement in Sports Broadcast Achievement in FX Beyond HD’ Achievement

TVBAWARDS KEY INFO: WORKFLOW Achievement in Sound Achievement in Systems Integration Achievement in Post Production DELIVERY Achievement in Fast Turnaround Broadcast Achievement in Multiplatform Content Achievement in Legacy Content SPECIAL AWARDS Sustainability Award Marketing Award Outstanding Broadcast Lifetime Achievement exemplary service to the broadcast industry, and a Sustainability Award honouring a company making the best contribution toward ensuring a liveable future. There will also be an award for Marketing Campaign of the year and finally, the top prize of Outstanding Broadcast.

Projects can be nominated by submitting a proposal of 300 words or less to tvbawards@intentmedia. co.uk. The proposal should include the name of the project, the company nominated, and all key people involved. Links to images and supporting materials should be included too. Nominations can be made by anyone working in the broadcast industry, and there is no limit to the number of categories in which a team or project can be nominated.

Detailed nomination criteria for each category and other pertinent information about the event, including how to buy tickets, can be found at the TVBAwards website – www.tvb-awards.com.

Winners will be selected from a shortlist of nominees by an independent panel of distinguished judges representing all segments of the broadcast industry. The shortlist will be announced in September.

Nominations open: Now Nominations close: 8 August, 2014 TVBAwards ceremony: 23 October, 2014 For further questions or tickets, contact TVBEurope’s Events Manager, Sara Mather on sara.mather@intentmedia.co.uk or 020 7354 6001 For sponsorship opportunities, contact Ben Ewles Ben.Ewles@intentmedia.co.uk, Richard Carr Richard.Carr@intentmedia.co.uk, or Sharifa Marshall sharifa.marshall@intentmedia.co.uk

Contact:

W: www.tvb-awards.com

July/August 2014 I TV Technology Europe

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TECH NEWS

DVB World Reflects Vibrant Transmission Sector

By Davide Moro

D

VB standards are enjoying their maturity; and as the world’s most popular family of video broadcasting standards, they are addressing future challenges through continuous evolution of new features. That was the news at DVB World 2014 earlier this year.

The event was held in Prague, and welcomed about 200 delegates. It was a three-day symposium where key people from all over the world shared research into content production, management and delivery.

DVB Project Chairman Philip Laven reported that one billion DVB receivers were in use all over the world in 2013. 1.2 billion are expected to be in use by the end of 2015.

But DVB World 2014 was not just about broadcasting standards.

Also discussed were topics ranging from camera sensor resolution to end-user Conditional Access devices (including audio capture, compression standards, delivery and distribution technologies); spectrum use; end-user behaviours; and consumer electronics trends.

DVB-T2 had been the “hot topic” at the ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium in Kuala Lumpur a few weeks prior to DVB World. There, two 4K services were delivered on a single DVB-T2 multiplex using HEVC@40 Mbps.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM DVB WORLD 2014 DVB-S2X and DVB-GSE-lite specifications have been released.

DVB-GSE-lite basically allows a “downgrade” of the memory and processing requirements at both the transmitter and the receiver end; with respect to the existing DVBGSE. This allows the signal to carry packet-oriented protocols like IP on top of unidirectional physical layers such as DVB-S2, DVB-T2 and DVB-C2.

DVB-S2X is the evolution of the universally adopted DVB-S2 satellite standard. “DVB-S2 was defined in 2003, when the state-ofart silicon technology was 150 nm,” said Alberto Morello, RAI Research & Innovation Director during the symposium.

“Today it is 28 nm. Therefore, today the receiver complexity may be increased several times.”

Since 2010, proprietary evolutionary modems such as Novelsat and Newtec have been proposed for professional TV markets such as DSNG and IP-trunking. In some specific configurations they may offer efficiency gains over S2 above 20 percent. For high SNRs – where 64APSK may be used – gains may top 30 percent. In response, the DVB Project has decided to improve its flagship satellite standard.

In late 2013, a study on greenfield satellite technologies showed that a suitable evolution of the S2 standard was sufficiently future-proof; in terms of performance, evolution of services, evolution of satellite platforms. Since no big gain has been demonstrated with greenfield technologies since then, the new standard DVB-S2X

The combined adoption of S2X together with GSE/ GSE-lite opens the doors to a full-IP future. was approved in February, 2014.

Large S2X gains can be obtained for interactive applications and professional links, such as DSNG and Internet trunking under high SNR conditions.

For DTH applications, S2X with enhanced receivers can offer significant bit-rate gains (5 percent to 15 percent) and improved flexibility (e.g. transponder bonding, VCM) for the launch of UHDTV (4K) and HEVC coding by satellite.

Further, the combined adoption of S2X together with GSE/GSE-lite opens the doors to a full-IP future (e.g. IP in-home distribution).

TERRESTRIAL’S FUTURE Spectrum allocation is a crucial topic for the future of terrestrial

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broadcasting. Jörg Huschke, Ericsson Master Researcher, told the DVB World 2014 audience about the benefits of eMBMS (Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service). It is basically the Multicast mode of the LTE standard that enables mobile networks to offer broadcast services. Huschke focused on mobile devices, remarking how some early mobile broadcasting technologies did not gain market acceptance; for instance, DVB-H and MediaFlo. In Huschke’s opinion, LTE could successfully address the growing demand for mobile live TV viewing. To prove his point, he mentioned the LTE Broadcast trials held at Borussia Mönchengladbach’s football stadium in Germany. Last February, people attending a Premier League match were offered three SD video live streams@1.1Mbps; each repurposed from Sky’s Premiere League bouquet.

It is not easy to understand the reasons to use an LTE broadcast network to deliver mobile video services that could be easily aired through existing DVB-T2 transmitters, e.g. including specific

TECH NEWS

TVTechnologyInternational BROADCAST PRODUCTION ENGINEERING

with

BBC Begins World Cup UHD Trials The BBC has started trials to transmit UHD content over its digital terrestrial network. The trials involve live transmission of coverage from the World Cup. To accomplish this, the broadcaster is demonstrating an end-to-end live UHD broadcast over both a traditional DVB network and an adaptive bitrate delivery approach over IP. The BBC is partnering with Arqiva on the DTT side and is using existing “super-fast” broadband infrastructure for the IP delivery. The UHD content will be received in the UK from an H.264/ AVC satellite contribution feed. That content will be compressed in the Main Profile HEVC format for both DTT and IP. The frame rate being used is 59.95Hz, the same standard in Brazil, where the content is originating.

The DTT trial is being transmitted from Crystal Palace in London, Winter Hill in Manchester and Black Hill in Glasgow. The stream will use the latest DVB-DASH profile and is geo-IP locked to the UK only. The BBC says that since they will be using the same T2 modulation that they use for HD broadcasts, the signal can probably be received on current consumer devices, but that it’s not “aware of any equipment which can decode the video.” It added that “in conjunction with some consumer equipment vendors, we will be using some of the latest chipsets from silicon suppliers.”

The network said that part of the experiment will be to test the performance of new HEVC encoders and that the video bit rates are most likely to change, but that it expects the data rate to be around 30-35 Mbps. (from the July 2 TVTI)

South Korea Cable Subs Get All-4K Channel Working with all of the major cable TV providers in the country to promote next-generation television, Homechoice, a content aggregator in South Korea, is now offering UHDTV (3840 x 2160 resolution at 60 frames per second) content to subscribers of its new UMAX channel. The channel went live April 10 and runs part of the day (from 6 to 2 a.m. local time).

South Koreans now have fresh content to watch on their new UHDTV sets.

The content is being compressed in HEVC H.265 using a Titan real-time encoder/transcoder from France-based Ateme. (from the May 28 TVTI)

T2 Lite subframes or FEF IP services into standard mux. But perhaps in countries where terrestrial television plays a marginal role in terms of overall audience, like Germany itself, there are few chances to deploy DVBT2 networks in a reasonable time.

In those cases, LTE Broadcast could be the only option to power a massmarket mobile (and live) video offer.

Onto another topic: “Spectrum should be allocated on the basis of the consumer needs,” said Simon Fell, EBU Director of Technology & Innovation. “The mobile sector has not made a plausible case for their spectrum demands.

The broadcasting sector has, and continues to make, sensible arguments to retain a vibrant industry and the spectrum resource it requires.”

In Fell’s opinion, both a

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sufficient spectrum and a stable framework are mandatory to promote adequate investment in over-the-air TV. “European digital terrestrial television is the most innovative in the world,” he said. “It is the most spectrally efficient, most popular, and recent deployments of hybrid TV address the advanced requirements of the modern consumer.”

4K DELIVERY Just a few years ago, 4K was something to dream about.

Nowadays 4K screens are into high street shops. So how can we avoid replicating the 3D false start?

The answer: “Ideally, we do need a significant step forward in quality from UHDTV as well as new ways to offer content,” said David Wood, Chair of the DVB

July/August 2014 I TV Technology Europe

Editor’s Note: On these pages we have a selection of transmission news items from the last two months that originally appeared in our new TV Technology International (TVTI) e-mail newsletter.

Sign up for TVTI at www.tvtechnology.com for quality coverage of the latest transmission advances; modern IP networking within the facility; the Cloud in storage, processing & playout; and more.

‘First Ever’ 4KTV Transmission Via DVB-S2X Demonstrated Newtec and MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd. delivered a world premiere at the CommunicAsia show last month, with satellite transmission of 4K UHDTV video distributed using the new DVB-S2X transmission standard.

The extensions to the DVB-S2 standard, a new specification developed by DVB including Newtec, called DVB-S2X, are said to be instrumental for the satellite industry to keep pace with demands for new features and increased efficiency. Published in February 2014, DVB-S2X reaches efficiency gains over DVB-S2 of up to 51 percent for professional applications and up to 20 percent for DTH, Newtec says. The demonstration was displayed in 4K UHDTV at CommunicAsia in Singapore at MEASAT’s booth. The feed was uplinked via MEASAT’s teleport in Cyberjaya, Kuala Lumpur, and delivered live via MEASAT-3 satellite in C-Band, using Newtec’s new DVB-S2X modulation equipment.

The new standard implemented on Newtec’s product range, or as a software upgrade to existing products, brings multiple new capabilities on top of DVB-S2. These include lower Roll-Offs, increased granularity in MODCOD choices, higher efficient modulation optimized for use in linear and nonlinear operations, and a standard mechanism to bond carriers together, creating one big transmission pipe for multiple 4K programs over existing transponders.

“This demonstrates not only that satellite networks are ready for 4K UHDTV, but also that DVB-S2X is ready to help satellite operators and broadcasters cut costs or deliver more content within the same capacity. It is no longer a question of whether the new DVB-S2X standard will be used in broadcast contribution and distribution networks, but rather a question of when,” said Steven Soenens, vice president of Product and Market Management at Newtec.

Newtec’s M6100 Broadcast Satellite Modulators will be used for the demonstration as well as Newtec’s demodulators. Video processing capabilities at both ends of the link were provided by Ericsson through its AVP 2000 Contribution Encoders and RX8200 Advanced Modular Receivers.(from the June 18 TVTI)

UHDTV Commercial Module.

“People watch programs, not technology. [Next, we need] affordable costs, longevity ... and, since technology evolves rapidly, we need ‘minimum measures for interoperability.’”

The symposium’s assessment: From the point of view of DVB broadcasting standards, current modulation systems are fit for purpose. But 4K is far more than just higher resolution. UHDTV will need a higher frame rate, extended colour space and extended dynamic range, as well as some great audio.

A mature UHDTV 4K standard should include frame rates up to 120Hz, as well as 10 or 12 bit colour space. “Higher dynamic range and colour gamut offer greater benefits on 4K than increased resolution,” noted Philip Laven.

“If you only increase resolution, you might be disappointed.”

That’s not all: Surround sound audio systems today provide localisation of sounds in a 2D horizontal plane. In the real world, sounds arrive in both horizontal and vertical planes; creating a 3D ‘sound sphere’. Hence, 3D sound systems will likely be the standard for UHDTV. Our DVB World 2014 coverage ends with a side note taken from Philip Laven’s symposium wrap-up: A recent report for the BBC Trust states that online distribution (of the iPlayer only) delivers just over two percent of the BBC’s TV viewing. However, the costs associated with delivery of the on-demand service are just under 12 percent of the BBC’s total distribution bill.

TVTechnologyInternational BROADCAST PRODUCTION ENGINEERING

Single-Channel OTA and Online -T2 UHDTV Tested At the Broadcast Asia Show in June, the DVB stand hosted a live demonstration of the DVB-T2 transmission scheme delivering a range of resolutions from UHD down to smaller screen resolutions for mobile devices. Using –T2, an HEVC encoded UHD channel and a mobile service were delivered in a single 8 MHz channel.

The UHD service, with content encoded by Envivio, was transmitted using a portable Dektec modulator, and received and displayed on a 55-inch UHDTV set from Sony with a built-in HEVC decoder. The mobile service was received on an Aprotech Walka handheld TV with 7-inch viewing screen as well as on Samart i-Mobile smartphones and tablets, which are some of the first commercially available mobile devices with embedded DVB-T2 receivers.

The DVB said combining multiple -T2 services in one multiplex is enabled through the use of Multiple PLPs (Physical Layer Pipes), a feature of the standard that allows for the separate adjustment of the robustness of each delivered service within a channel to meet the required reception conditions. (from the June 25 TVTI)

First Netherlands LTE Broadcast Trial Ericsson has partnered with network operator KPN in conducting the first LTE Broadcast trial in the Netherlands. The event took place on Saturday May 3 in the Amsterdam Arena stadium during the Apex versus NEC soccer game.

Ericsson’s LTE Broadcast solution uses three new standards: eMBMS, HEVC and MPEG DASH. Evolved Multimedia Broadcast / Multicast Service (eMBMS), as the name implies, uses IP multicast to allow one-tomany broadcasting via LTE networks.

“Our experience with our country-wide 4G network demonstrates there is a clear customer demand for video content during events,” said Joost Steltenpool, Director, Access, KPN. “Therefore our aim was to find a solution for delivering high quality video content to large groups of people.

The key for such a solution is greater network efficiency and guaranteed service quality. KPN is enthusiastic about the success of the pilot and is currently exploring next steps.” (from the May 21 TVTI)

www.tvtechnology.com

with

Vodafone Tests Live LTE Broadcast Vodafone Germany has conducted what are being described as the first live tests of LTE broadcast by a European wireless carrier. The trial was done in collaboration with Ericsson, Qualcomm and Samsung. It took place at Borussia Mönchengladbach’s stadium on Saturday, Feb. 22, when the home team played 1899 Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga.

LTE Broadcast, also known as evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service, or eMBMS—puts no additional load on the network, enabling smartphone users in device dense locations to watch TV channels. The service uses Single Frequency Network technology, like DVB-T, to distribute the signal to an unlimited number of recipients. The user only needs an LTE-enabled device with an LTE Broadcast app.

As part of Vodafone Germany’s network modernization program, LTE Broadcast could soon be available in more German stadiums. “There is growing demand for high quality video content on mobile devices and LTE Broadcast gives our customers a brand new mobile media experience,” said Eric Kuisch, chief technology officer of Vodafone Germany. “This technology enables multiple broadcast sessions to be viewed simultaneously, so our customers will be able to watch Sky’s Premiere League Summary or exclusive video content from the stadium they’re in.”

Said Thomas Norén, head of Product Area Radio: “This first test in Europe is an important milestone for the European mobile telecommunications sector. LTE Broadcast will soon be delivering unlimited TV or video content to people in device dense places such as stadiums, public viewing areas or shopping centres. I enjoy watching a good match at the stadium and it’s going to be an even more exciting experience when I can watch the replay of the scene that lead to a penalty or goal or check up on the progress of the toughest competing teams in the league while my team’s playing.” (from the March 27 TVTI)

Korea’s First 4K Broadcast Network to Go Live South Korea’s first 4K broadcast network will deploy Rohde & Schwarz transmitters when it goes live, according to a release. The project includes the R&S SCV8302 low power transmitter, which delivers 600 W in DVB-T2 mode. It was installed on a tower situated on Namsan mountain, in Seoul.

A 5 kW R&S THU9 high power transmitter will go into operation on Kwanak mountain (located to the south) in May. KBS selected the R&S ETL TV analyser from Rohde & Schwarz for testing, and the R&S DVM400 digital video measurement system will be used for monitoring. (from the May 21 TVTI)

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WHITE PAPER

BUYERS GUIDE: TRANSMISSION, TRANSMISSION MONITORING, ENCODING & CONTENT DELIVERY

New Architectures for Richer Services

Rich Redmond and Joe Seccia on how broadcasters transitioning to DVB-T2 can launch DTT and mobile services simultaneously

D

igital TV transitions across the globe are at various stages. For those just starting, the transition from analogue is an exciting time that is ripe with opportunity, yet it can be mystifying.

Simply put, broadcasters are faced with previously unexplored challenges of planning, designing and launching next-generation networks.

DVB-T2 is undoubtedly the leading choice of standard in many parts of the world. In comparison to DVB-T, DVB-T2 offers higher bit rates, compressing more digital services (audio, video and associated data) within what are known as physical layer pipes (PLPs). Those PLPs play a significant role in the DVB-T2 over-the-air architecture, incorporating OFDM modulation, advanced error correction capabilities and other pertinent technologies.

These all combine to ensure robust delivery of more multichannel services than DVB-T allows – to the tune of at least a 50 percent increase.

Perhaps the biggest benefit for broadcasters choosing the DVB-T2 standard is its inclusion of Future Extension Frames (FEFs) – a feature not present in the DVB-T standard.

FEFs exist almost solely to enable a path to advanced modulations as they appear. Using these frames, a DVB-T2 broadcaster can essentially transmit over-the-air content based on another standard within the DVBT2 framework.

Importantly, this includes several options to support mobile broadcasting. Therefore, broadcasters transitioning to DVB-T2 can take advantage of FEFs to launch digital terrestrial services and mobile services simultaneously, taking two steps at once – a clear “greenfield” opportunity to establish multiple DTV services out of the gate.

T2 LITE DVB-T2 Lite – or T2 Lite - represents one of these options. T2 Lite is actually a subset of DVB-T2, and can be deployed in two ways: as a T2-Lite transmission only; or as a mix of T2

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Base and T2 Lite. Within the DVB-T2 Base multiplex, T2 Lite signals can be taken advantage of within FEFs. This is an ideal way to take advantage of T2 Lite’s mobile broadcasting benefits, as T2 Lite includes specific coding parameters to enhance mobile performance.

These coding rates, identified as 1/3 and 2/5, also contribute to T2 Lite’s efficiency advantage. Several other features, including low bitrates (peaking at 4 Mbps) and short forward error correction frames (16k), coexist with these coding rates to collectively offer a sharp reduction in power use. The end use benefits are longer battery life and lower costs, making T2 Lite-driven mobile broadcasting within the DVB-T2 standard a more attractive proposition than launching mobile services with DVB-T2 alone.

The significance of T2 Lite for broadcasters is that its profiles remove the hurdles to commercial success with Mobile DTV broadcasting upon widespread availability of consumer receivers. It represents a robust hybrid broadcast for both standard and mobile services without compromising either one, while reducing complexity and power in handheld receivers. It can also be accomplished with minimal additional infrastructure equipment and at far less cost than building a dedicated network for each service.

INTEGRATING WITH LTE? A more forward-looking, and perhaps more intriguing, option is integration with common LTE mobile networks.

GatesAir is working with the Technical University of Braunschweig to commercialise a technology solution, currently described as “Tower Overlay,” that makes DVB-T2 and LTE convergence a reality.

The concept of LTE Tower Overlay is interesting because, unlike T2 Lite or other emerging mobile broadcasting specifications (like DVB-NGH), there is no need for proprietary chipsets within the mobile device. Since the LTE standard is global, with an already

July/August 2014 I TV Technology Europe

A GatesAir Maxiva VAX 3D VHF high-efficiency transmitter near-universal acceptability, this allows broadcasters to take over-thesignals to smartphones and tablets in a transmission method that those devices are already built to receive.

The Tower Overlay model is proven to work using the DVB-T2 broadcast standard today taking advantage of FEFs to support the delivery of non-DVB-T2 signals inside the data stream. As with T2 Lite and DVB-NGH, the FEFs open a lane inside the DVB-T2 standard to deliver LTE signals (specifically LTE-A+) that 3GPP-capable mobile devices can receive and decode. Video is delivered over a high-power, high-tower network, and received by mobile devices that are LTE-A+-enabled and logged in the cellular network of a mobile network operator (MNO).

Several MNOs can easily share this service, and without loading their networks with live video and audio transmitted at 1.4 Mbps or more.

GatesAir is touting a solution that modulates the DVB-T2 and LTE-A+ signals using a hybrid exciter platform and over-the-air transmitters to deliver both digital TV and LTE content to all devices from a traditional broadcast tower. In a typical Tower Overlay signal flow, the time-multiplexed DVB-T2/LTE signal is created by combining a static DVB-T2 stream, including FEFs, with a generated LTE stream. The payload of both streams can vary, but a typical early demonstration includes an H.264-encoded 720p50 video created with two data rates to serve different screen sizes and applications: 6 Mbps within the DVB-T2 terrestrial signal for deliver to an unmodified TV set; and 2 Mbps within the LTE-P2MP portion of the signal for smartphones and tablets. Resource allocation for both signals include all parameters that relate to both standards, including but not limited to network timing.

The Tower Overlay model reduces cellular network congestion from multiple peer-to-peer connections, and instead uses the broadcaster’s signal to deliver multiuser requested content — a win-win for broadcasters and mobile network operators. Ultimately, it reiterates the power of over-the-air spectrum as a wireless, multiuser content delivery system.

Contact: Rich Redmond is Chief Product Officer for Gates Air, and Joe Seccia is Manager, TV Transmission Market and Product Development Strategy, for Gates Air.

Contact:

W: www.gatesair.com

USER REPORT

Maintaining Service Levels

By Jeppe Schäfer

T

he Danish media market has some unique characteristics resulting from its legislative framework. There are a lot of operators, many of them quite small, much collaboration between operators, and a complicated set of relationships between infrastructure owners and service operators. All this means that the Danish media market is comparatively fractured and very fluid, with frequent realignments, new partnerships and co-operatives, and a lot of consolidation.

SE emerged as a media operator from its roots as Denmark’s third largest energy and utility company Syd Energie (SE). SE subsequently became a major partner in Denmark’s WAOO! project, a collaboration between thirteen independent fibre optic networks designed to facilitate high quality IPTV and VOD services to subscribers. The installed base of WAOO! users has grown rapidly, but in order to gain better operating economies that can be passed on to the subscriber, SE recently purchased Stofa, the country’s second-largest cable-TV distribution network. This took the subscriber base from around 25,000 to 400,000 in a single step, and that presented quite a technical challenge. The solution now supports both IPTV and DVB-C without the customers needing to concern themselves with the technology.

SE has been a long-time user of Bridge Technologies monitoring systems, and Stofa also relied on Bridge, so that made the integration across the two companies easier.

Having a common monitoring platform was a huge advantage as the

company migrated to the expanded subscriber base, and it allowed us to have a trial period monitoring the Stofa services through our existing system before we actually started to run them with end customers But inevitably a consolidation like this involves some major technical changes. The company decided to upgrade the two existing management systems to a common platform, since there were many new requirements for the new setup, and this proved a bigger task than anyone had anticipated. We didn’t switch all the customers at once, and we had to make sure that any changes we made to the network didn’t have an impact on the customers who weren’t switched yet, or on those who were already switched. A few problems arose along the way, leaving some customers without services as glitches in the access database had to be ironed out.

In situations like this, a really high quality monitoring system is a great asset. We uprated the Bridge platform that SE already had, to add capacity for the extra traffic volumes, using mainly the 10G VB330 in high traffic core network locations.

SE owns its infrastructure, but the consolidation with Stofa meant working in an environment as a service provider on a network owned by a third party, and a lot of the consolidated network had no monitoring capability. So we installed a lot more equipment from Bridge Technologies to cover all the bases and ensure we could stay on top of the customer experience during the transition and thereafter.

There is no essential difference

POINT-TO-POINT CONTRIBUTION The new portable link XPM is a full digital, compact and reliable solution for point-to-point contribution; it’s a split type system which can be configured from both control unit and RF head. Different modulation systems are available: for harsh environments, a COFDM connection allowing the user to transfer HD content is preferable; for higher data rate, DVB-S2 modulation/ demodulation should be used, achieving more than 100 Mbps; a multistream technique allow the simultaneous transfer of 8 signals over microwave as well. A multi-standard HD encoder/decoder platform is available, with high compression and low latency whilst preserving quality.

Covering 2 to 15 GHz and available in indoor and split-type versions, the product features high power and sensitivity, with data-rates up to 310 Mbps in single polarization transmission or 620 Mbps in XPIC. www.elber.com

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in the way we deploy the Bridge probes in the consolidated network, and we’ve been able to retain the same sort of thresholds and reporting criteria. Having a common base of technology and familiarity with it across the two companies made the task of unifying the systems a lot easier. We are now continuing the process to bring the entire consolidated network up to the same level of monitoring as we had before the merger at SE. The company is rolling out a new 100Gbit fibre core network to ensure we have the bandwidth for delivery to the entire country.

There’s also a planned extension of the monitoring platform to include monitoring of the satellite feed, as well as the terrestrial infrastructure.

Further to this we are continuously working on improving the redundancy and services.

In the Danish market there’s never a dull moment for technical teams who have to come up with a solution at short notice when the market logic produces another consolidation. It’s a continual rolling technical challenge, especially when your company has an aggressive market strategy. We have to develop

Jeppe Schäfer our systems to be open and build everything to be ready to change in any direction. Fortunately for us, the Bridge platform is highly scalable and adaptable, and by maintaining a commitment to the most comprehensive monitoring system, we are in a better position to keep service standards high during major technical changes and developments.

Contact: Jeppe Schäfer is Network Engineer for Stofa

Contact:

Bridge Technologies W: www.bridgetech.tv

TRANSCODING AS A SERVICE Front Porch Digital and Telestream have announced that the companies are collaborating to provide Transcode as a Service (TaaS). Telestream’s Vantage transcode platform and Front Porch Digital’s LYNXSM cloudbased CSM platform are now combined to offer a new TaaS solution in a private cloud platform that includes pay-as-you-go transcoding services designed specifically for media operations.

Now, instead of having to rely on public resources, LYNX users can take advantage of secure, purpose-built, usage-based transcoding within the private LYNX cloud. The Front Porch Digital TaaS solution with Telestream Vantage transcoding will be available later this year. www.telestream.net; www.fpdigital.com

250W LPTV UHF TRANSMITTER Nautel Limited has expanded its LPTV transmitter line with the 250 Watt NT250. Operating in the UHF Wide Band spectrum (470 – 810 MHz), the NT250 combines an advanced software defined modulator, amplifier, remote control, adaptive pre-correction and mask filter in a single, compact 4 RU enclosure. Also available as an option is an enhanced adaptive pre-correction technology, OPTIPOWER. It allows optimization of transmitter power efficiency and/or transmitter MER (Modulation Error Ratio) performance. The NT250 supports major digital transmission standards including DVB-T, DVB-T2, ATSC and IDSB-Tb. www.nautel.com

MARKETPLACE 4K ENCODING, MULTIPLEXING, TRANSMISSION & TEST The R&S AVHE100 headend from Rohde & Schwarz supports realtime processing of 4K content. This system solution is fully compatible with the new high efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard for 4K and HD. The R&S AVHE100 synchronizes incoming 3G SD signals to generate a 4K image. The HEVC encoder processes the 4K data and creates an MPEG transport stream in line with the DVB standard. The output signal can be distributed via ASI or IP. The R&S Tx9 transmitter families from Rohde & Schwarz can broadcast 4K content. They combine very high power density with innovative technologies

REAL-TIME HEVC ENCODING/TRANSCODING Media Excel has introduced its real-time HEVC (H.265) encoder and transcoder, powered by the company’s 1RU HERO product lines. Media Excel products are the technology behind more than 300 million OTT/multiscreen subscribers worldwide, and at NAB the company had highlighted some attributes of its product including 4K/UHDTV HEVC encoding/transcoding capability; real-time HEVC contribution encoding and decoding; HERO VS (Virtualized Software) in the cloud for Live and VOD applications; integrations with leading industry partners (DRM, ad-insertion, MPEG-DASH, LTE/eMBMS); and a fault-tolerant management system for 24x7 operations achieving five 9s proven reliability.

Contribution solutions, with high quality & low-latency encoding for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint distribution over IP and ASI networks, are possible for newsgathering, content aggregation, teleport services, regional distribution, and more. www.mediaexcel.com

www.tvtechnology.com

such as MultiTX, which enables multiple transmitters to be installed in a single rack.

The transmitters also offer top energy efficiency and flexibility, enabling network operators and broadcasters to lower the costs arising from high energy prices and rents.

Rohde & Schwarz T&M instruments support the development and production of 4K consumer electronics. The R&S BTC broadcast test centre offers users an all-in-one, single-box test environment for nearly all audio, video and multimedia applications and internally analyses audio/video in realtime. The highly scalable, modular concept allows the R&S BTC to be customized to meet any customer requirement. It even supports the transmission of 4K signals to set-top boxes and TV sets The R&S VTC, R&S VTE and R&S VTS video testers enable extensive testing of consumer equipment with video processing. Since they support both analysis and generation of HDMI signals with resolutions up to 4K, users can test the interface (including the relevant control protocols and certification) as well as the entire DUT. www.rohde-schwarz.com

UHF BROADBAND ANTENNAS Jampro has available for both VPOL and CPOL polarization the JVD-U and JCD-U broadband antennas for UHF Bands IV & V. These antennas were designed as low to medium power solutions, with a special focus on rooftop deployment. The antenna is a vertically or circularly polarized system enclosed by a full cylindrical radome for environmental protection and minimal urban visual impact. The antenna is broadband over band IV/V allowing multiple UHF channels to be transmitted at the same time.

Ruggedly constructed from marine brass and aluminium and designed for long life and value, this antenna is ideal for DVB-T2 (ISDB-T or ATSC digital TV application) channels. The antenna is fully assembled and tested before shipping to the customer. www.jampro.com

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USER REPORT

A New Window to the Opera

By Christopher Widauer

A

ttending a live performance is electric.

There is nothing quite like sitting in a crowded venue with thousands of people keenly anticipating the same unforgettable moment. It’s nearly impossible to replicate that feeling in your own living room. But innovations in video streaming are bringing remote audiences closer to live events.

Providing high-quality video streaming has proven a challenge for even the most tech-savvy institutions.

Until recently, a professional opera had never been live streamed in ultra high-definition (UHD) video for public viewing online. That is until earlier this year, when the Vienna State Opera – or Wiener Staatsoper – successfully delivered a live performance of Verdi’s Nabucco, with Plácido Domingo in the title role, in 4K HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) via MPEG-DASH over the Internet.

The motivation behind this achievement is our commitment at Vienna State Opera to provide new and exciting ways for fans to experience the arts with the highest levels of accessibility and artistry. We maintain the world’s largest repertoire of opera and ballet works, holding 60 titles and mounting more than 300 productions per season.

The Vienna State Opera is both one of the world’s most important opera houses and a technology leader with a history of innovation. Ten years ago, we became the first opera house in the world to install state-of-the-art subtitle display monitors on all of the seats in the auditorium, an innovation that has since been coupled with a mobile app. This allows patrons to read subtitles and score sheets in sync with broadcast performances.

A more recent significant modernization for our institution is live broadcasting to the square located directly in front of the Opera House. Hundreds of people can pass by and watch our usually sold-out performances free of charge on a big LED screen outdoors with good sound quality.

A NEW WINDOW The ability to stream 4K video presents a unique opportunity to broaden viewing experiences for opera and ballet fans the world over. Our team identified streaming live video as one of the best ways to further grow our national and global accessibility, but we found that recreating the experience of attending a live event on screen presented a significant challenge. We set out to offer live video streaming in pristine UHD, which demanded top-end video processing.

CROSS-COUPLED BAND-PASS Delta Meccanica designed and produces a 5 kw UHF, 8 poles , Band-Pass Filter, with double cross coupling, P/N 1641-8-2N. The advantage of this configuration is that you may have the critical mask parameters associated with a better insertion loss compared to equipment with single cross coupling, but dual cross coupling gives a slope within ± 4.2 MHz. with a great gradient. This allows values better than 15dB, and the possibility of combiners that accept adjacent channels with better isolation. www.deltameccanica.com

LIVE EVENT ENCODING The Digigram AQILIM *FIT/LE professional-grade video encoder makes it easy and affordable to connect to most major CDNs and stream live broadcast-quality video to PC, Mac, smartphone, and tablet users. Built on proven technology and ready to use, right out of the box, the 1 RU AQILIM *FIT/LE is designed for high-quality live event broadcasting over an IPTV network or for multiscreen video distribution over the Internet. www.digigram.com

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The 4K streaming workflow for the historic performance of Nabucco in May of this year was designed by ETAS High Tech Hardware Systems GmbH, an Austrian company who worked with Vienna State Opera, Samsung and other partners to design, deploy and test the system.

We selected Elemental Live, an infrastructure-agnostic encoding platform that is powered by graphics processors and able to deliver a 12 Mbps UHD HEVC signal to the viewing audience.

Using Elemental Live, control room operators at the opera house were able to continuously create adaptive bitrate files from nine tiny remote-control, full HD cameras strategically positioned within the venue, providing a truly live experience, while also ensuring neither the artists’ nor the public’s experience was compromised. Content from these nine different HD camera sources was then encoded in real time and immediately stored to a local web server. Elemental also encoded content captured on a Sony PMW-F55 CineAlta 4K camera. Ooyala managed delivery of the 4K HEVC MPEGDASH streams for viewing worldwide via a custom Samsung connected TV application and PC-based application.

Because Elemental Live encoders are able to produce multiple sets of adaptive bitrate video streams in addition to UHD HEVC output, it ensures uninterrupted video delivery to end users facing high network traffic or bandwidth constraints.

Meanwhile, our new Wiener Staatsoper Samsung smart TV app, which we released just before the performance, has integrated UHD playout functionality that allows viewers worldwide to watch the broadcast at their respective primetime using a time-shift function.

The full integration of these two solutions enables viewers to access and play live broadcasts of Vienna

Earlier this year the Vienna State Opera delivered a live performance of Verdi’s Nabucco in 4K HEVC via MPEG-DASH over the Internet.

State Opera “live at home” –whether or not they have the specific Smart TV or set-top box needed to decode HEVC content – and to do so at their respective prime times.

Up till now, nothing can compare to the real show – there is smell, temperature, the feeling of 2,330 others in the same room … but if you can’t be there, video streaming in UHD offers a really convincing alternative. As more and more viewers adopt UHD TVs, Vienna State Opera will be ready as one of the first providers to offer Ultra HD live content on a regular basis.

Our multiscreen offer, VOD services and user-selectable twochannel live program provide new and exciting ways for fans to experience the arts with the highest levels of accessibility and artistry. Now, our ability to stream 4K video using HEVC and MPEG-DASH is a vital way for us to broaden our audience.

Christopher Widauer is Director of Digital Development, Vienna State Opera

Contact:

Elemental Technologies W: www.elementaltechnologies.com

GREATER DTT COVERAGE IN STREAMING OTT, live TV and VOD video streaming and infrastructure provider Anevia Enterprise has announced the release of Flamingo 3.4, its suite of IPTV headends that now supports more encryptions (such as VSecure and Pro:Idiom) as well as DVB-T2 and ISDB-T protocols.

Flamingo is a modular, easy-to-configure-and-deploy suite of IPTV head-ends for the Enterprise market. After capturing live TV and radio content from satellite, cable and digital terrestrial, Flamingo streams it over IP networks to set-top boxes, PCs and other IP-connected devices. The suite also offers Web TV, Web radio and rescrambling as optional features. Both Flamingo XL and XS now benefit from new DVB-T2 and ISDB-T modules. www.anevia-enterprise.com

MARKETPLACE ANTENNA SITES AS POWER SOURCES

Ampegon is offering complete photovoltaic power plant services at tower sites for broadcasters. Supported by Ampegon’s services in project development, dimensioning, customer relations, project monitoring and financing photovoltaic power plants can be installed at many existing antenna sites.

The company says that large antenna fields are often an ideal place for a photovoltaic power plant to produce energy close to the consumer. Ampegon promotes an optimized utilization of fallow land area at transmitter stations and antenna fields as well as in plain countryside. Ampegon has already proven successful operation of this new business model with the installation of a 20 MW power plant underneath an existing shortwave antenna installation in Wertachtal, Germany. Together with experienced partner companies up to 20 projects are currently under development in various stages with a total capacity of 200 MW. www.ampegon.com

APPLE-BASED AUTOMATED PLAYOUT SERVER just:play is an Apple based, 24/7 automated broadcast playout server from ToolsOnAir. It plays SD/HD movies, integrates live feeds, router and GPI events as well as real-time graphics including corner logos, lower thirds and tickers that update manually or automated from RSS feeds, XML data sources and remote databases.

The product allows broadcasters to schedule and manage their playout, even while a clip is already on air. This is possible while having an unlimited number of users working concurrently on the same channel (depending on the user rights defined for this channel). Content can be scheduled days or even weeks in advance, while providing a traditional list view with metadata support, and the user interface provides an unlimited, frame accurate review and preview of all scheduled video items . www.toolsonair.com

DVB TO IP LIVE AT THE HOME The V@Home TV Gateway by VBox Communications receives broadcast live TV from terrestrial, cable and satellite sources, converts the signal to IP, and streams it across a home network.

By converting broadcast live television to IP at the consumer’s home, VBox levels the playing field, and streams high quality broadcast TV alongside OTT. The TV Gateway extends the TV viewing experience from the big screen to tablets, smartphones and laptops, with EPG, whole house PVR, and a complete channel list www.vboxcomm.com

www.tvtechnology.com

IN-HOUSE LOGGING & COMPLIANCE Monitor IQ 4.0 from Digital Nirvana is an in-house logging and compliance monitoring solution for traditional broadcasting media. New features include transport stream recording, SmartSearch, editing, playback and advanced engineering alerts.

Monitor IQ combines signalmonitoring, loudness monitoring, aircheck-logging, ad verification, competitive analysis and content repurposing and runs on Digital Nirvana’s Open Media Appliance – a highly scalable, industrial-grade server. The Open Media Appliance accepts multiple inputs including SD/ HD SDI, ASI, ASI-IP, ATSC, QAM, 50 Hz, 60 Hz and DVB-TC/S2. It exports content in a wide range of file formats for content repurposing, including Flash, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264, and XDCAM. Monitor IQ can record Multi-language Audio/Video and VANC Metadata. www.digitalnirvana.com

LATEST iCR The latest AmberFin iCR products from Dalet include new features such as the Adaptive Cadence Corrector (ACC), a software-based system for correcting mixed cadence material back to 24p film and progressive HD video within file-based workflows. Also news is a Transcode Farm Controller that significantly increases the flexibility and versatility of a multi-node transcode environment. www.dalet.com

LOGPLAYER MOBILE MOBILE iPAD PLAYER Mediaproxy has announced the immediate availability of its new native iOS LogPlayer Mobile for Apple’s iPad devices from the Apple App Store. LogPlayer is a crossplatform media player. It offers an intuitive and powerful web-based user interface with familiar play techniques, while harnessing the extended functions of the system to search, extract, stream and review recorded media.

LogPlayer offers a cross-platform multi-channel Silverlight web client.

It allows users to review and live stream channels across a network of LogServers. It has a powerful extract, transcode and burn-in engine, as well as an integrated search engine for closed captions and metadata.

Additionally, there is live closed captions keyword monitoring, the ability to extract media in proxy and native MPEG formats, viewer ratings date integration, and ASI playout for custom defined sections. www.mediaproxy.com

MORE MULTIPLATFORM FORMATS The Wohler RadiantGrid Intelligent Media Transformation Platform version 8.5 offers broadcasters a variety of tools for file-based workflows for multiplatform media delivery. In addition to supporting fully compliant OTT offerings for leading formats, including MPEG-DASH, HLS, and Microsoft Smooth Streaming, the latest version now includes support for HEVC outputs to further aid broadcasters and other content producers in meeting the array of target bit rates, resolutions, and frame rates necessary for today’s content delivery ecosystems.

To enable easy, cost-effective updating of closed caption data prior to delivery via traditional broadcast services or new services, the platform extracts closed captioning from media sources and inserts the captions back into the transcoded output file. A brand-new media processing engine simultaneously processes complex audio loudness correction alongside the video at unprecedented speeds. www.wohler.com

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USER REPORT

Live OTT Broadcast Reaches Global Audience

E

By Jonathan Noam

very three years, the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society holds the International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, Israel, to provide a forum for talented and aspiring young pianists. This year’s event, which took place May 13-29, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and at the Bronfman Auditorium, marked the first time that the society offered a live OTT transmission of all recitals on YouTube.

By delivering multiple Internet streams of the competition, in real time, the society was able to provide viewers with a state-of-the-art, customized video experience on

a wide range of devices, including TVs, PCs, smartphones, and tablets.

Viewers were able to watch the director’s cut or to choose among three camera angles from amongst the five to nine cameras that were typically recording each performance.

Choosing to transmit the competition on a popular platform like YouTube, the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society reached a broader global audience.

BZ/DV, a global consultant for PayTV, broadcast, and OTT projects, was chosen to produce the event. The key challenge that BZ/DV faced was ensuring that the OTT transmission was flawless throughout the entire

MONITORING WITH MULTIVIEWER Built on Volicon’s digital video monitoring technology, the new Monitor application allows users to monitor video quality, respond to fault reports, and use a full recording of the on-air broadcast for instant review of errors and their impact. While continuously analysing logged content for a variety of faults such as black or static screen, loss of video or closed captions, and incorrect audio levels, this application provides flexible, individually configurable alert thresholds, with notifications delivered via email or SNMP traps. Quality measurement thresholds may be configured per channel to optimize performance and error reporting.

To simplify network monitoring and troubleshooting further, the application provides an integrated multiviewer feature that enables Observer Media Intelligence Platform users to use their standard displays as multiviewers or record the output of a traditional multiviewer.

With multiple streams presented on a network wall, users can respond immediately to any issues, instantly grabbing the suspect stream via their desktop interfaces to begin resolving the problem. www.volicon.com

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16-day competition. All video content was transmitted in real time, so it was important that BZ/DV use robust transcoding equipment to ensure a problem-free viewing experience on every type of consumer device.

Delivering amazing video quality was also important, as this was the first year the event was broadcast in 1080p resolution, compared with 720p in 2011. Another critical requirement was the ability to support a variety of industry protocols and platforms. This enabled BZ/DV to create a separate feed compatible with the EBU’s Internet radio streaming platform, in addition to supporting YouTube streaming.

After a thorough examination of available transcoding solutions, BZ/ DV chose Harmonic’s ProMedia Live real-time multiscreen transcoder to support the event. Using ProMedia Live, BZ/DV and the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society were able to efficiently create video streams with an excellent video quality.

The workflow was straightforward. After receiving baseband HD MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) content from Harmonic Ion encoders, ProMedia Live transcoded it into multiple streams optimized for various platforms. ProMedia Live simultaneously fed multiple, highquality video streams to a primary and backup YouTube platform. In addition to delivering 1080p streams to YouTube, the ProMedia Live platform encoded content at a higher bitrate for archiving and other needs.

During three intense weeks of production, at two different locations, ProMedia Live proved to be extremely robust. The Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society was able to stream multiple channels nine to 10 hours daily, without experiencing a single problem.

Throughout the piano competition, ProMedia Live prepared and delivered video streams in multiple formats as well as industrystandard protocols, including Apple HLS, Adobe HDS, and Microsoft Smooth Streaming, in order to account for the varying requirements of different viewing devices.

Leveraging video codecs based on

Jonathan Noam Harmonic’s Hierarchical LookAhead and VBR technologies, which are specifically engineered for adaptive streaming delivery, ProMedia Live enabled BZ/DV to deliver the best picture quality at the lowest bit rates.

For example, live 1080p video streams were delivered to YouTube at 10 Mbps per channel while an EBU signal was distributed at 700kbits per channel. The Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society received feedback from viewers of both the YouTube and EBU platforms about the high video quality.

To date, the Arthur Rubenstein International Piano Master Competition YouTube channel has received more than 3.5 million views. For many weeks it was on the top 10 list of most watched Israeli channels. By allowing the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society to deliver hundreds of hours of live video content to any consumer device, with an exceptional video quality, Harmonic’s ProMedia Live transcoder was key to the success of this OTT multiscreen project.

Jonathan Noam is CEO of BZ/DV. He has more than 20 years of experience in creating service providers in various telecom fields.

For the last 9 years Jonathan has focused on working with media delivery operators through BZ∫DV.

Contact:

W: www.harmonicinc.com

SHARPSHOOTER

Travel & Art Name: Ash Branston Age: 26 Family: Parents and sisters in Scotland. The rest live in England.

Hometown: I grew up in rural Scotland, a very isolated place; especially before we had easy access to the Internet up there. It was the sort of place where you made your own fun, there wasn’t a lot to do.

I was into skating when I was young. That’s how I got into filmmaking.

Current location: I’ve been travelling a lot for the past

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few years, around Europe, the US and Caribbean. At present, I am living in Berlin.

Languages: English is my native language. I can order a sandwich and two beers in most languages.

Occupation: Filmmaker, broadcast and live event technician.

What education have you had?

I initially studied art at University in Dundee, then moved onto a degree in digital film. Through work I studied under some extremely talented professionals, learning everything I know on the job.

July/August 2014 I TV Technology Europe

You have quite a bit of broadcast experience. Do you prefer this type of work?

I do. I enjoy the atmosphere of broadcast. Working in a live environment is very exciting at times, you only have one chance to get it right. If you mess up, you have no one to blame but yourself.

How long have you been a cameraman?

I bought myself my first camera when I was 15. I worked as a dishwasher in a kitchen saving up for about six months to buy it.

And when I got it I just ran around filming everything I could. I suppose I’ve been a cameraman since then.

At that time I had no editing

software or computer so I had to edit everything in camera. The camera had a second audio track function, so I would hold it next to my tape deck and record music straight from the speaker.

What has been your experience in shooting video with DSLRs? I shoot with DSLRs all the time. I got into photography at an early age, so when DSLRs started to cater towards filmmakers I was ecstatic. I can fit a small guerrilla production studio in a backpack.

Does this approach have a future?

Yes. With the new developments with Magic Lantern enabling DSLR users to have more control

SHARPSHOOTER of the camera, this is a huge step in solidifying their place in professional filmmaking.

Current assignments. Where, doing what, shooting for whom?

Currently shooting some promos for a documentary in Berlin. It’s centred around entrepreneurs who have come to Berlin to start businesses.

I’m also working with a friend and filmmaker from Sardinia who has recently completed a film about conservation and animal activism in the Bolivian jungle.

What has been your German experience?

Germany is a great place to work, especially Berlin. There’s so much going on, always something interesting to get involved in. The majority of clients and professionals I’ve worked with here have an excellent work ethic.

Have you been busy?

I’m always busy! Between projects I always have projects of my own.

I like to build my own camera rigs, dollies, and jibs.

SHARPSHOOTER What useful piece of gear do you wish someone might make?

I saw a video recently made by a filmmaker talking about his ‘rotorig’ invention, which is essentially an extendable mini jib which doubles as a shoulder rig. I’d find this so useful if it were to be made commercially.

If it doesn’t happen soon, I plan to make my own.

terrifying thing was I was certain that it was my fault, that I had caused the blackout. At that point this was the most famous show I’d ever worked on. There was no power to the headsets so I couldn’t talk to anyone to find out what happened.

And then I found out that it was one of their technicians who overloaded the system.

Best thing about your job?

Put simply, to be able to do what I love. It’s much easier to become professional in a field which you have genuine interest. It takes me all around the world. My other passion is to travel.

How much 16:9 do you shoot?

Pretty much primarily these days. It really depends on who I am shooting for and what they’re looking for.

Worst thing about your job?

Being unable to buy all of the equipment I want. Maybe one day.

When I have a few disposable tens of thousands of pounds.

What types of productions do you currently shoot?

I shoot anything from music videos, promos, ads for businesses, artist videos, documentaries, event documentation, to working with live event support and everything associated with it.

What was your first shooting job?

My first shooting job documented a project by two artists from Hong Kong (He Hai & Da Fei). They were invited to my home town to put on an event for the locals. It was very good but quite surreal. The event ended with them setting fire a large ship in the local river.

Most recent, interesting assignments?

I would say the most interesting recent work I did was a project with

Stuart McAdam and mountaineer Simon Yates. Yates is known infamously as “the man who cut the rope”, where he was forced to let his climbing partner fall in order to save himself.

Current camera equipment you use?

I travel with my DSLR and a selection of portable lenses, lighting and gels and mics/dictaphone: basically everything I need for onthe-fly shooting. Anything else I need I source locally.

Other gear you have access to?

I have access to a wide range of equipment. Usually I use JVC or Sony NEX depending on the job, Arri/RED on occasion. Also handheld rigs, Steadicam, that sort of thing.

Dullest assignments and why?

Early in my career I remember vision mixing a live kids’ show in which they were showcasing their ‘talents’. It became quickly apparent that most of the children didn’t really have any specific talents as such, and the ones that did didn’t really extend past hula-hooping.

Hairiest/scariest assignments and why?

Shooting an interview on the bow of a ship going through the Bay of Biscay during a windstorm. For obvious reasons the segment was cut short. I was certain I was to become another ‘lost at sea’ statistic. Lord knows who OK’d that shoot.

Another, not as serious, but nonetheless terrifying experience was when I was 22 years old running live cameras for ZZ Top. Halfway through the show the electrical breakers flipped and we lost power to everything. The

What country do you most like to shoot in?

That’s a difficult one to answer, having grown up in a country that receives very little sunlight, so I have to say that anywhere with direct sunlight. It’s a great advantage.

What’s your taste in music?

My Dad brought me up on the Blues, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Blind Lemon. I’m named after Ashley Thompson, the guitarist in Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers.

I listen to a lot of different music.

I keep a broad catalogue of music and sounds, it helps inspire me when I’m editing.

Favourite food?

Meat. Cooked on a wood fire.

Contact details: Showreel: http://vimeo.com/60279389 E: ashbranston@gmail.com

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LAST LINES

Is 4K Transmission Key?

By Geir Bryn-Jensen

T

he next step in ultrahigh definition video, 4K is perhaps the most talked about concept in professional broadcasting.

And for good reason: as a standard, 4K is viable, it’s growing, and most broadcast professionals can agree that it’s here to stay. But just how quickly 4K is adopted and on its path to growth is a complex question that divides opinions. Clearly though, there’s little doubt that 4K video transmission is hugely significant to the overall viability of 4K in the broadcast market.

While the business case for 4K depends on your role in the broadcast “value chain,” three factors emerge as relevant to any discussion of 4K in professional broadcasting.

MARKET FORCES First, consumer market forces are driving—and will drive—how quickly 4K is adopted, and along with it the pace of technical innovation.

Demand, or anticipated demand, drives R&D dollars. And much depends on the device side of the market. Is the demand for 4K-enabled home TVs coupled with the perceived value by the consumer strong enough to push a wholesale embrace of 4K? There are signs indicating that’s the case.

A report late last year from Futuresource Consulting estimates that 4K still has “a two to three year incubation period ahead,” but is “on track to become a significant technology segment.” The report goes on to cite that global 4K TV

Geir Bryn-Jensen shipments will grow from 780,000 in 2012 to 22 million units in 2017. And it predicts that the arrival of native 4K content and increased consumer awareness will help boost sales from 2015 onward.

What’s happening in China with 4K-television production may hold clues to its manufacturing trajectory in other parts of the world. China’s 4K growth is driven by the availability of relatively low-priced televisions from major domestic brands. India is another emerging market catching the eye of manufacturers. Toshiba just launched the world’s first 4K laptop there.

The demand in the US and Europe for large screens and technically advanced televisions means that lower-priced 4K TVs are speeding toward retail shelves.

Futuresource forecasts that UHDTV sets will account for 5% of the global TV market this year, rising to a whopping 42% by 2018.

WHO PAYS? The second factor affecting 4K’s adoption pace is who will eventually fund the investments needed to enable 4K in linear TV? Significant investment must be made on all sides: production, transmission, contribution, and distribution. Will ventures like premium subscription fees fund these cost outlays? Will companies take them on as a cost of doing business? Further, the technologies and solutions required by each of these segments of the content chain must interoperate with one another. What about standards?

THE NON-LINEAR CONNECTION Finally, the “cord cutting” trend and take up of OTT, on both mobile devices and the connected smart TV, is already affecting subscription and advertising revenue sources of traditional linear TV. Will 4K for non-linear TV become a vehicle to drive additional competitive advantage for other distribution forms like OTT and what consequences would this have for the linear TV transmission chain?

When it comes to transmission, 4K represents a natural progression for the industry, but one that brings challenges, most significantly the complexities of delivering bandwidthhungry content. The enormous bandwidth required to deliver 4K video places unprecedented demands on transmission infrastructure. And while substantial improvements provided by HVEC will smooth the way for broadcast, solutions are just now being developed and tested for live transmission.

TRANSMISSION AS THE CRITICAL LINK? The transmission of 4K video is possible and its challenges— mismatched resolutions, frame rates and signal integrity among them— can be met with proper systems design and engineering. Some of the industry’s leading technology and service providers already have proven 4K capabilities within the contribution and primary distribution parts of the transmission chain. The volume and diversity of “last mile” linear transmission still needs to

overcome some barriers to make 4K a viable business case. Perhaps transmission, and particularly lastmile linear transmission, is the critical piece of the broadcast value chain that must be in place before the rest of the 4K landscape fills in around it.

While this can be debated, IP looms large in any 4K discussion.

There is an interdependence between IP—now widely used for distribution and growing steadily for production and contribution—and 4K. A 10 Gbps Ethernet cable can transmit much more efficiently and cost effectively than traditional cabling. For 4K to be practical in the future, the industry has to move to IP. Considering IP’s scalability, resilience, cost efficiency and ubiquitous connectivity, as well as the monitoring and management that allay broadcasters’ lingering fears, IP is sure to dominate in the years to come.

Once again, the progression of 4K transmission and its impact on other aspects of the 4K landscape could come down to where you sit within it. And like many new/ emerging technologies, discussions like this often yield more questions than answers.

Is the demand for 4K-enabled home TVs strong enough to push a wholesale embrace of 4K?

Improvements provided by HVEC will smooth the way for broadcast, but solutions are just now being developed for live transmission of important sport and other events.

Contact: Geir Bryn-Jensen is CEO of Nevion www.tvtechnology.com

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