Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (APB) BroadcastAsia2016 Show Daily - Day 1 | Page 8
88 BROADCASTASIA2016 SHOWDAILY
31 May 2016
SAM espouses interoperability in IP
and supports 4K/Ultra HD production
At booth 5D3-01, Snell Advanced Media (SAM) is
highlighting a range of software-driven platforms
and IP solutions, as well as the company’s latest
4K/Ultra HD products. Tim Felstead, head of
product marketing, SAM, shares more and
explains how these technologies are shaping the
company’s strategy for Asia.
Since the creation of Snell Advanced Media (SAM) last year,
the company has focused heavily
on software-driven solutions,
and been involved in industrywide initiatives such as the
Alliance for IP Media Solutions
(AIMS). In Asia, do you think
there is a readiness for broadcasters to migrate to IP and
what advice can SAM provide for
broadcasters looking to build up
IP-based infrastructures?
Tim Felstead: Yes, there is absolutely a readiness in Asia for
broadcasters to migrate to IP. In
fact, SAM adopted the AIMS philosophy before AIMS existed, which
is that we believe the industry at
large (not just Asia) should be using
open and interoperable standards.
This is important because
broadcasters around the world
need to be able to invest in new
infrastructures without fear. The
issue with IP is that you can quickly
create a new interface format or a
new file format, but you’ll likely run
into interoperability issues.
Therefore, customers wouldn’t
be able to buy from SAM (or any of
our competitors) with confidence
that interoperability will exist like
it does with SDI.
One way to alleviate this is for
our APAC customers to join AIMS,
which is something we strongly
encourage because the more
broadcasters we get who agree
with the philosophy of open and
interoperable standards, the better.
It would strengthen the industry’s
position on the whole.
What are some of SAM’s highlights this year that will attempt
to address some of the issues
surrounding the adoption of IP
in Asia-Pacific?
Felstead: SAM firmly believes in
giving our customers options. We
also know that not everyone wants
to implement IP immediately, especially when you factor in costs.
Because of this, we’ve added some
flexible new features to our switchers and routers.
There are now copper-based
interfaces, 12-gig serial 4K/Ultra
HD (UHD) interfaces, and IP interfaces within our switchers. This type
of flexibility is important because
if a broadcaster wants to create a
production system in 4K/UHD, then
doing so in IP is certainly more expensive than implementing 12-gig
❝SAM adopted the
AIMS philosophy
before AIMS existed,
which is that we
believe the industry
at large (not just Asia)
should be using open
and interoperable
standards.❞
— Tim Felstead,
Head of Product Marketing,
SAM
SAM is continuing
to support 4K/UHD
production with
solutions such as the
new Kula switcher,
capable of 4K/1080p/
HD and SD in 1M/E and
2 M/E versions.
serial. That may change people’s
view on the benefits of investing in IP today. As a supporter of
AIMS and a firm believer in open
standards, we offer products with
multiple different interface types
for greater overall flexibility.
With sports traditionally a key
test bed for emerging technologies, 2016 is shaping up to
be a huge year with football’s
European Championships and
the Olympic Games in Brazil.
Which technology discussions
do you expect to resonate the
loudest in Asia this year, and
how might they impact SAM’s
strategy for the region?
Felstead: In Asia this year, we
expect the ongoing discussion of
4K/UHD to resonate loudly — with
sports in particular being a key
driver. Sports is high value, and
people are finding that unless your
products are built the right way,
then it makes 4K/UHD production
more difficult both operationally
and in engineering terms.
For example, take a switcher
Light. Portable. Versatile.
UNBELIEVABLY LIGHT. UNQUESTIONABLY STABLE.
Broadcast Asia Booth 5A5-13
www.shotoku.tv - [email protected]
that doesn’t have 4K/UHD capabilities. This can make an operator’s
job harder, which is why we’ve
added 4K/UHD capabilities to our
Kahuna switcher. It makes switching to 4K/UHD simple and easy,
just as if operators were working
in HD. They won’t see a difference
in how the Kahuna works, apart
from the delivery of higher quality
imagery.
Another example focuses on
the management of media and
the workflows associated with
major sporting events. Inevitably,
you need recording and replay
systems, and you need to integrate
with editing systems, social media,
asset management, and data logging systems — all while keeping
costs at bay.
You don’t want to be copying
media — particularly when it’s
4K/UHD because the file sizes are
simply too large. You also don’t
want to be moving things over IP
networks because the networks
become saturated quickly. Moving
files is bad for the consumption
of disks in 4K/UHD and network
design.
Our strategy in Asia moving
forward is to demonstrate to the
market that we can solve all of
these problems with the technology we’ve developed in 2016. I’d
strongly advise anyone in Asia
looking at sports production — if
they’re considering even HD — to
look at the way our workflows go
together and come and talk to
us about production in 4K/UHD.
We are demonstrating this at
BroadcastAsia2016.
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