Broadcast Beat Magazine 2018 NAB Show Edition | Page 87
it’s really hard to persuade the graphics/cre-
ative team to start using something different. An
alternative solution that is working for us is to
bring companies inside our platform, rather than
using 2110 to go out on an IP spigot through a
box and back in again —which would also drive
costs up enormously because of the capacity of
the IP infrastructure and switches required. Why
not “plug in” your software application of choice
into our platform? Let’s share CPU and share
memory. After all , how will we ever truly virtual-
ize everything if we can’t implement tools in this
way? Pebble have partnerships with Pixel Power
and Ross to allow their graphics render engines
to run directly on our platform. So, our Marina,
Dolphin, and Orca products become enablers
for 3rd party specialist plugins. We think that’s a
good way forward and think that perhaps SMPTE
themselves should take a look at standardizing a
plug-in architecture rather than promoting a con-
nection via wires. In our opinion it makes no sense
to think about designing complex playout chains
comprised of discrete boxes all connected by
2110 IP connections. We don’t think the industry
can afford to do that anymore. After all, the audio
world has been doing this for years. Specialty
audio plug-ins number in the thousands, and
everyone has plug-in versions of what used to be
hardware boxes.
Summary
Most station managers and broadcast facility
CTOs I’ve spoken with recently are wondering pri-
marily about how they can get from where they
are today, with their current infrastructure, to the
brave new world of IP, virtualization and possibly
cloud, in a managed way. There are plenty of
vendors out there offering brand-new platforms,
ready to go. But that requires broadcasters to
forget everything they have today. I believe the
best strategy is to focus on evolution rather than
revolution.
As you consider IP, virtualization, and the cloud,
remember that there’s no need to take a leap of
faith and cut over to a brand-new world before
you’re ready. There are ways to carefully manage
your evolution, with little to zero impact to staff
and existing workflows. You can position your
organization for all the benefits an IP and virtual-
ized future can provide at a pace that works for
you. Don’t jump, take the stairs.
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