Broadcasters around the world are adopting new transmission standards, while in the U.S., stations are preparing to move to new channel assignments, even as they eye single frequency networks as their ticket to reaching consumers moving around outside the home. All of these transmission changes open up new possibilities for in-band and co-channel interference, and as engineers prepare to cope with those, they will also need solutions for dealing with the special monitoring needs of SFNs. It all adds up to the need for a new level of sophistication in signal monitoring and analysis.
Sadie’s Monthly Musings – discussing the hot topic of live streaming in the wake of the World Cup
Well, there goes the World Cup. The usual thrills, spills, dives and goals and, for us in the broadcast TV industry, there was also the wonderful arrival of VAR. Now, despite all of the controversies connected with the decisions, did anyone notice how the quality of the playback suites – if not the quality of the referees’ decisions (especially the Final) — was never questioned?
But off the pitch, this was a really interesting tournament for the TV industry. This was probably the first ‘real’ IP-based broadcasting World Cup with broadcasters having to gear up for huge demand to show games via streaming networks. But this massive demand also exposed some real flaws in large-scale live streaming after record audiences swamped networks.
BaM™ Product Highlight: Sonifex
Sonifex is a UK based manufacturing company producing technical audio equipment for radio and TV broadcasters across the world. Started in 1969, Sonifex is historically known for making radio ‘cart’ machines in the 1980’s and more recently for its Redbox line of audio and video ‘fix-it’ interfaces.
The company has progressed its technology from traditional analogue to digital and now to IP based networked audio. Focussing on RAVENNA AES67 and more recently Dante®, Sonifex’s new focus is to redesign its product range to take advantage of the benefits that AoIP brings
BaM™ Product Highlight: Nevion
Increasingly based on IP, virtualization and Cloud technology, Nevion’s solutions enable the management, transport and processing of professional-quality video, audio and data – in real time, reliably and securely. From content production to distribution, Nevion solutions are used to power major sporting and live events across the globe. Some of the world’s largest media groups and telecom service providers use Nevion technology, including AT&T, NBC Universal, NASA, BBC, CCTV, EBU, BT and Telefonica.
BaM™ Product Highlight: DAVID Systems
DAVID Systems is a leading enterprise software company, known for open, customizable and scalable rich media workflows, which are deployed in some of the largest and most innovative radio stations and media companies worldwide.
The privately owned company was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Munich, Germany, with offices in Berlin and Washington, D.C. DAVID’s umbrella product suite, ‘DigaSystem’ or ‘DigAS,’ offers an easy way for journalists, producers and operations teams to produce cross-media content and cost-effectively manage the opportunities and challenges of multi-channel distribution.
BaM™ Product Highlight: NEP Mediabank and Discovery
The 2018 Winter Olympics marked Discovery’s first of four Olympic Games with broadcasting rights for most of Europe, and they needed to build a complete solution, from the ground up, to deliver Olympic content to 50 territories across Europe in 21 languages.
They knew that one of their main challenges was going to be managing the tremendous volume of content coming in from Korea and out to all of their distribution channels. With 900 people from Discovery on the ground in PyeongChang and 1400 more across 10 sites in Europe, immediate access to content from anywhere in the world, with easy collaboration and content sharing was going to be critical. NEP worked with Discovery to build out their Mediabank cloud-based media asset management tool to create a custom solution for Discovery’s ingest, storage, logging, distribution, and collaboration needs.
BaM™ Product Highlight: Avid
In today’s fast-moving media landscape, broadcasters require scalable and reliable storage solutions to grow collaboration between teams and facilities, optimise the value of their media assets and create high-quality media quicker and easier than thought possible.
Avid NEXIS is the world’s first software-defined storage platform that enables true storage virtualisation for any media application. Powered by MediaCentral, the most open, tightly integrated and efficient platform designed for media, Avid NEXIS delivers unrivalled media storage flexibility, scalability and control for both Avid-based and third-party workflows. The latest addition to Avid NEXIS is Avid NEXIS | E5 NL – a high-density on-premises nearline storage solution. Avid NEXIS | E5 NL enables media organisations to seamlessly and efficiently manage media across online, nearline and archive storage.
BaM™ Product Highlight: Object Matrix
The broadcast industry has found itself in a new landscape, where all content is desirable on all platforms, and at all times. This means that not only are broadcasters finding themselves with thousands of hours of content but thousands of hours of content that needs to be available at any given time. Storage for content needs to be functional so that it is capable of storing content that can be easily ingested, logged, distributed and archived.
Matrixstore, from Object Matrix is a Digital Content Governance and object storage platform that protects and preserves content through its lifespan.
BaM™ Product Highlights: GatesAir
At the 2018 NAB Show in April, GatesAir introduced Intraplex IPConnect, a standalone hardware device with integrated award-winning IPConnect software for reliable, secure data transport. Previously available only as an option for IP Link audio codecs, the new device provides reliability and security for virtually types of IP data, including those from IP audio codecs, HD Radio streams and Web or SNMP-based remote-control applications. The device can be used as an IP Gateway or a LAN bridge to provide point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections.
BaM™ Product Highlight: NeuLion
NeuLion specializes in the broadcasting, distribution and monetization of live and on-demand content to internet-connected devices. As the de facto leader in streaming, NeuLion delivers over 63,000 live events annually. NeuLion works with top sports and entertainment brands such as the NBA, English Football League, Sky Sports, NFL, UFC, National Geographic and many more to deliver their content directly to viewers over the internet and create engaging, interactive viewing experiences for their audience in global markets.
