Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (APB) @ConnecTechAsia Show News - Day 3 | Page 26
26 THURSDAY
28 June 2018
@ConnecTechAsia2018
www.apb-news.com
The issues in IP migration – a
BY DR AHMAD ZAKI MOHD SALLEH
Disruptions caused by digital technol-
ogy is hitting many different industries,
including banking and finance, trans-
port, travel, shopping and, of course,
media.
Disruptions in the media industry,
however, can bring healthy competi-
tion, which forces media organisations
to be more efficient.
Setting up a TV station requires
huge investment. Playout centres
require specialist knowledge and
design. Material handling, process-
ing, storage, transfer/transport and
various processes in the value chain
before it becomes transmissible is an
area reserved for specially trained staff
and specialised equipment (mostly
analogue in nature). Traditional TV
and broadcast organisations are big,
labour-intensive, full of specialised
equipment and heavily manned by
trained and experienced staff. Because
barriers to entry are high, competition
is low and businesses thrive.
Digital disruptions threaten to
change this. Proliferation of smart
devices enables many small, fully
digital and highly efficient TV stations
and service providers to emerge. The
non-linear nature of these service
providers also adds to the attrac-
tiveness as lifestyle changes demand
time-shifting capabilities and better
choices.
Businesses evolve and the harsh
reality of increasing operating costs
will become apparent. Normally,
startups are lean, revenues are low
but operating costs are negligible. As
the business grows, revenue grows but
so does operating costs. Net profits
are normally good during the startup
and growth phases. A major portion
of ‘costs’ is normally attributed to
human resource. People executing
similar tasks are paid significantly more
as the company matures. Eventually,
businesses will start to decline and
steps will have to be taken to control
the decline. Adoption of new tech-
nologies, thus, may be an option for
broadcasters.
Technological change and its
effect on current players
For many years, Serial Digital Inter-
face (SDI) was the backbone of many
broadcast infrastructure. Its real-time,
high-quality, low latency and uncom-
pressed nature was ideal for demand-
ing broadcast requirements. As time
goes by, technology improves and an-
alogue systems are gradually replaced
by digital ones. Computers and digital
networking slowly but surely moved
into broadcast and entertainment, as
did non-linear editing systems, video
processors, digital encoding and, of
course, IP. Computers started to move
into broadcasting facilities during the
mid-’90s, and the early 2000s saw the
start of migration of IP into broadcast-
ing stations.
It is important to note that IP was
never designed for real-time trans-
port. The lack of real-time capability
made the IETF (Internet Engineering
Task Force) initiate the development
of RTP more than 20 years after IP
was invented. IP was designed for
robust, error-free communications.
The concept where digitised, real-time
sources are chopped up into packets,
encapsulated by various transport and
error checking information, and sent
into networks using different paths
was really strange and not optimised
for real-time data. However, faster
computing power at affordable prices
somewhat helped in the transition. IP
became more attractive to the broad-
cast fraternity due to the promise of
lower cost — nothing more than that.
The promise is somewhat not fulfilled
to the level we would like it to be.
IP’s entry into the broadcast world
spurred the Society of Motion Pictures
and Television Engineers (SMPTE) to
develop standards to interface SDI to
IP. The well-known SMPTE 2022 suite
of standards defines adaptation tech-
niques for SDI to IP.
As broadcast requirements evolve
to include HD, 4K/Ultra HD (UHD) and
8K, SDI and its enhancements — HD-
SDI, for example — can no longer
cope with its massive infrastructure
requirements. Cabling and interfacing
devices became too unwieldy, helping
IP move into the broadcast industry.
It can also be seen how manu-
facturers are attempting to control
broadcast IP through various allianc-
es, namely, the Alliance for IP Media
Solutions (AIMS) and the ASPEN
Community. Both attempted to push
different versions of IP implementa-
tion, and we see this as an attempt to
exert control and proprietary owner-
ship of IP workflow for the broadcast
industry.
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