CAN BROADCAST THRIVE IN THE DIGITAL DOMAIN?
A NAP is
essential in the
move to IP:
Introducing
Networked
Attached
Processing
BY PETER SCHUT
Switching to IP is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges faced by
today’s broadcast industry because it demands such revolutionary and
radical changes in technology. After five years of debating this issue,
most people now agree that IP is a logical step forward and are willing
to countenance a move towards a fully IP future. However, one burning
issue remains — how will broadcasters overcome the problems that arise
when trying to integrate and control increasingly complex technology
layers while still providing guaranteed bandwidth performance for new
formats such as 4K/Ultra HD (UHD)?
When the IP debate started there were
some differences in standards and, as an
industry, we certainly underestimated the
complexities this caused. The gap between
new and old technologies was confusing
and the issue of standardisation was not
at all clear. No wonder, then, that people
were running in numerous directions
Peter Schut is CTO of Axon Digital Design.
as they tried to find a workable path
through this maze. Thanks to the sterling
work carried out by the Alliance for IP
Media Solutions (AIMS), final standards
have been agreed and we do now have
a way forward that ensures we are all
moving in the same direction. This is a
big help because it addresses the needs
of broadcasters who are heading towards
a pure native IP infrastructure, as well as
those who want a hybrid environment
that allows them to mix old technology
with new.
We spent several years migrating
Synapse, our existing glue equipment,
into an IP infrastructure before we
realised that moving to 25 Gig and 100
Gig environments needed an entirely
different type of infrastructure, so we set
about developing just that. The result
of our R&D effort is an entirely new
concept known as a Network Attached
Processor, or NAP. Rather than building
a broadcast infrastructure out of small,
independent pieces of hardware that you
would historically call ‘glue’, NAP allows
you to adopt a larger, more centralised
(or decentralised) processing unit that
performs all the tasks undertaken by
smaller ‘glue’ products and combines
them into one larger and highly
configurable design.
Axon’s first NAP product is Neuron,
which was successfully launched at
IBC2018. Developed to address the needs
of complex IP and hybrid environments,
Axon’s Network Attached Processor (NAP) allows broadcasters to adopt a larger, more centralised
(or decentralised) processing unit that performs all the tasks undertaken by smaller ‘glue’ products
and combines them into one larger and highly configurable design.
this next-generation signal processing
platform not only sets the standard for
the industry but it also packs a powerful
punch by supporting 200Gbps and 64
channels, or 16 4K/UHD channels in a
single rack unit.
Field programmable gate array (FPGA)
semiconductor devices have always been
at the heart of Axon’s development —
indeed, you could call them our specialty.
I am confident that, for at least the next
five years, the industry will be using them
to reach the next level. Doing what we
do on an FPGA is not very efficient for a
central processing unit (CPU) and I would
not expect an off-the-shelve CPU-based
server to be capable of performing the task
of a NAP. The FPGA we use in Neuron
is the biggest we could find because
that is what was needed to provide such
impressive processing power and efficient
connectivity to legacy SDI/IO. Do not
worry, we will fill it up — and once we do,
it will do a lot!
As media production increasingly
moves from a hardware-centric to an
application-based approach, and mixed
Capex/Opex business models are
adopted, the scalability and performance
offered by Neuron will enable the flexible
delivery of different types of productions,
thus opening up further opportunities for
broadcasters and delivering significant
savings, both in terms of space and
budgets. This ability to do more with less
space is really the main difference between
a new-generation processing platform like
NAP and traditional glue systems.
For broadcasters heading to a pure
native IP infrastructure, Neuron is
extremely efficient ‘modular glue’ in a
centralised and virtual environment, with
no requirement to physically cascade
products. All processing tasks needed
in a live and baseband video domain
are virtualised inside the box, giving
customers the option of interconnecting
processors in any order they want,
without running different cables. Some
90% of the processing — for example,
up/down-conversion, frame syncs,
logo inserters and so on — is the same
as before, and that all stays. The only
difference is that it is now being carried
out across multiple channels in one single
device.
Another key reason why we
developed NAP and Neuron is to assist
those broadcasters who are not yet ready to
commit fully to IP and want to get there via
a hybrid path. It is clear that deployment of
commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) switches
and CPU-based hardware has failed to
provide the functionality present in SDI
routers such as embedding, de-embedding,
up/down/ cross-frame synchronisation
and multi-viewers. Neuron seamlessly
bridges that gap by providing impressive
processing power with efficient connection
to legacy SDI I/O.
By bundling SDI technology into an IP
platform, all audio and video processing
tasks are managed with ultra-high
bandwidth. Up to 80 SDI connectors can
be added in that same 1RU, making it one
of the most space-efficient, cost-effective
and energy-efficient processing devices
available today.
We envisage that Neuron will initially
be used as a pure network processing
device or as a bridging processing device,
connecting the legacy SDI world to the
new world. Looking to the future, Axon’s
next step is to add a multiviewer, audio
processing in various standards such as
DANTE, AES67 and MADI, compressed
signals and analysis tools for the entire IP
infrastructure. This gives us a growth path
that allows us to meet all the processing
needs of the new IP environment.
Since launching Neuron at IBC2018, we
have been overwhelmed with support from
clients, many of whom are pioneers in IP
production. Euro Media Group (EMG), a
leading provider of broadcasting and audio-
visual services, announced at the show
that it was adopting Neuron as part of its
strategic move towards harmonised IP
media production and immediately ordered
10 systems to manage IP signal processing
and provide SDI to IP gateways in new
outside broadcast trucks that are set for roll-
out in 2019.
This supports EMG’s OBjective 2020
strategy: a programme focused on the
design and delivery of modular, scalable
IP-based media production across its
European group. Endorsements like this
make us very confident that in Neuron
we have found a solution to both ease and
accelerate the move to IP — particularly
in sports production where its guaranteed
bandwidth performance will support the
roll-out of new formats, including 8K.
An
Supplement
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