The evolution from baseband to IP turned into a revolution in 2020, as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic forced the streaming and broadcast industries to double down on remote production workflows and technologies. With studios shuttered, broadcast operations centers empty, and OBS trucks parked, video technology companies and producers have turned to IP-based production like never before, embracing its efficiency, flexibility, and ability to cost-effectively meet rapidly changing requirements.

What were once esoteric requests have become table stakes. Not only do video producers and platforms need to be able to ingest nonbaseband sources, but they need to be able to use the entire gamut of IP-based protocols, and sometimes several of them during the same production. Likewise, they need fast, frictionless ways to transcode those feeds and files into multiple house formats for asset management and distribution. A massive shift to IP is underway, and with it a move away from bulky, expensive hardware to more flexible software and cloudbased solutions as well as more lightweight field gear like bonded cellular backpacks.

Indeed, the pandemic has forced the entire video industry—both traditional broadcast and streaming—to speed up its adoption of IP exponentially. “I think that the pandemic accelerated adoption by 5 years,” says Primestream CEO Claudio Lisman. “It forced and all of a sudden we had to shift our paradigm.”

The new normal is here, and there’s no going back. In this white paper, we’ll look at the shift to IP and the cloud, and how Primestream’s IP Broadcast Network Operation Center™ is enabling the future of video workflows.