Appear’s pioneering development of hardware acceleration for the SRT Open Standard smashes today’s capacity, efficiency, flexibility and density barriers to make Internet video transport ready for primetime
28 February 2023, Oslo, Norway — Appear, the global leader in media processing and delivery technology, today announced the launch of its hardware accelerated video transport technology over the SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) protocol, the open standard that enables media and entertainment organizations to transport high-quality video over cost-efficient Internet links. Appear’s hardware accelerated SRT technology will be launched on its X Platform at NAB Show 2023 (booth #W2512, April 15-19).
“Media and entertainment organizations face a conundrum: consumers expect more and more choice, while transporting long-tail video presently has a similar cost-base to that of high-value content,” says Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO, Appear.
Discussing how Appear solves this cost issue, Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen says: “The quantum leap in video transport performance that our hardware accelerated SRT implementation now provides, enables media and entertainment companies to revolutionize efficiency, ROI and flexibility through transporting high-quality video over the Internet. If you’re moving video and both quality and cost matter, our SRT solutions can make significant reductions to your video transport OPEX costs.”
The X Platform SRT difference
Hardware accelerated SRT enables cost-effective internet connections to make serious OPEX savings. For example, in contribution, today’s existing SRT gateways can only support HEVC with a limited number of cameras before having to add more servers, while one SRT-enabled Appear X Platform unit can support up to 22 UHD camera feeds. In distribution, Appear’s SRT solution provides the lowest cost for channel transmission over the public internet, enabling operators to confidently replace expensive satellite links and dedicated fiber circuits. Additionally, SRT empowers operators to reduce the transport budget of moving studio functionality such as media asset management to the cloud. In a single 1RU chassis, Appear’s X Platform as an SRT Gateway can handle more than 192 SRT connections and 18 Gbit/s throughput, saving space and power consumption at a much lower cost base. SRT also enables organizations to change the economics of migration to the cloud in their favor.
“Today’s Internet video transport server-based SRT solutions are simply not optimized for primetime; the Appear launch of hardware acceleration for SRT changes that forever,” said Thomas Lind, Director Product Management, Appear.
Thomas Lind concluded: “We expect long-tail content to rapidly move to SRT, while some higher value content will be transported using SRT alongside existing traditional transport links when it makes sense. Critically, Appear’s launch of high-density SRT solutions enables media & entertainment organizations to at last be able to align video transport costs with content value.”
The Appear X Platform
Appear’s X Platform is used around the world for live contribution, remote production and distribution. The X Platform offers the ability to effortlessly blend encapsulation formats such as MPEG TS, ST2022-6, ST2110, Zixi and now high capacity SRT, with an equally impressive array of codecs and video processing functions. It is part of the company’s ground-to-cloud vision that allows you to use Appear’s X Platform to send signals from cameras at an event’s location to a cloud production platform, without the need to send a mobile unit and accompanying production team. In primary distribution, and video transport to and from the cloud, the platform enables cost-efficiency through transport over the internet. The X Platform achieves this through providing video transport with industry leading flexibility, density and energy efficiency.
