In Broadcast - August 2015 - 54


54

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 8 | August 2015

InFocus

Broadcast Camera Links
Contributing Editor Kevin Hilton discusses recent
developments in broadcast camera links and the
challenges the industry faces...

C

ables are the surest, most reliable
way to connect cameras and
other broadcast equipment to Outside
Broadcast trucks and studio control
centres, but wireless links are also now
an established part of broadcasting
engineering.
While
technologies
continue to develop and evolve, not
only are the demands put on radio
technology growing but the challenges
they face - the size of area that needs to
be covered and the crowded frequency
spectrum - are increasing at the same
rate, if not faster.
"The broadcast landscape has
changed," comments Michael Payne,
Group Chief Technology Officer and
President of The Americas with Vislink.
"Faced with spiralling data rates,
yet dwindling spectrum availability,
the overwhelming feedback from
broadcasters in recent years is they
now need to do more with less. The
vast majority is looking for equipment
that will let them transmit high quality
video more efficiently so as not to
overwhelm existing infrastructure.
Since 2012 we have seen growing
demand for smaller, lighter weight and
more mobile transmission equipment
due to the migration to smaller
wireless cameras."
Nick Fuller, a Technical Project
Manager with microwave and wireless
technology hire company Broadcast
RF, has seen this market develop
from both sides, having previously
worked for the BBC and SIS LIVE.
"Broadcasters are always pushing
the boundaries and the boundaries
have always been tightened," he says.
"But the work that is being done is
not exclusively large events. We do

"...Broadcasters
are always pushing
the boundaries and
the boundaries
have always been
tightened"
Nick Fuller
Technical Project Manager
at Broadcast RF

anything from one camera to cover the
touchline at a rugby match to events
on the scale of the London
Marathon."
Covering major sports
such as the Open golf
championship,
London
Marathon and many Olympic
events, all of which are staged
over extended distances, relies
on wireless cameras but often
in conjunction with other types of
link. RF over fibre is now regarded as a
way to connect multiple radio systems
that keeps the cost of installation
down and avoids frequency allocation
problems. "It's an elegant and efficient
way to receive the outputs of half-adozen wireless cameras," comments
Fuller. "Once those have been received
at the combining switch from the
antennas they can be routed to the
appropriate decoders. Something like
golf coverage would be infinitely more
complicated without RF over fibre."
Another growing trend is for video to
be encoded using IP and transferred
over RF, cable or fibre. Among the
companies looking into this is the
recently formed systems integrator
Broadcast Wireless Systems (BWS).
This was co-founded by Commercial
Director Stuart Brown, previously with
Cobham, who says IP is providing a
useful tool to get pictures backwards
and forwards at lower cost compared
to more traditional methods.
BWS used the technology to create
a point-to-point connection for a
customer in Australia covering a
surfing event, which called for a
camera gantry in the ocean. "We were
able to get six HD feeds out and one
back, along with talkback and control,"
says Brown. "Doing that with standard
COFDM (coded orthogonal frequencydivision multiplexing) would have been
hugely expensive but we managed to
do it for £60,000."
The growing use of IP and other
new formats as the basis of camera
links is dividing the market, with
some welcoming the lower cost and
flexibility and others voicing concern
regarding quality and reliability. "The
main changes and upgrades to camera
uplinks are the abundance of low cost

LiveU's
LU200 small
field transmission
unit on a Panasonic
camcorder

solutions that
are now on the
market,
utilising
WiFi and other wireless
HDMI technology," comments
John
Payne,
Chief
Technology
Officer of Integrated Microwave
Technologies (IMT). "These, although
inexpensive and useful in certain
scenarios, do leave many users
frustrated because of the lack of
reliability and range. COFDM is still
the modulation choice for these
applications."
Alistair Horne, Sales Manager of
VideoSys, a specialist developer of
wireless packages for broadcast,
comments that while expensive,
products such as Cobham, which his
company handles, and Gigawave,
provide the stable connectivity
necessary for cameras mounted on
racing cars and helicopters. "Systems
such as Teradek probably offer the
same performance (on LTE, WiFi and
general Ethernet) but COFDM doesn't
get interfered with in the 2-7GHz range
because it's used only by licensed
broadcasters."
Developers such as Teradek naturally
see the new technologies as offering
fresh opportunities for carrying
video. "A major trend in cameras
since 2012 is the addition of WiFi and
IP management to most cameras,
whether it be immediately for camera
control or streaming," says Jonathan
Landman, Vice President of sales
at Teradek. "This opens the door to
endless possibilities of integration with
data being able to be passed, whether
it be for sending or receiving."
Equipment from Teradek, Aviwest
and LiveU come under the heading

of
'cellular
bonding', which
combines
multiple
cell-based and wireless networks,
including 3G, 4G, 5G, LTE, Wi-Fi and
WiMAX. Ronen Artman, Vice President
of Marketing at LiveU, acknowledges
that cellular bonding is "a disruptive
technology" allowing operators to
work with live video at a fraction of
what other systems cost: "By using
cellular networks and creating high
bandwidth, resilient links using data
from across those networks, the
world of acquisition has changed
forever," he says. "This is, of course,
most clearly visible in the sports and
newsgathering arenas."
While there are doubts about the
suitability of bonded cellular for largescale coverage of sport and other
events, the technology is making itself
felt in live news. Sky used LiveU on
the night of the UK General Election
in May. While the key declarations
were covered by reporters and camera
operators using standard broadcast
equipment on links provided by
Globecast and SIS LIVE, 150 results
were covered by media students with
iPads and a basic audio-camera set-up
using 132 LiveU IP streaming feeds.
Despite advances in these new
technologies there is still the
realisation that they have limitations,
even in newsgathering situations.
The recent christening of Princess
Charlotte was of great interest to
the international news media, with
Sandringham and the surrounding
area besieged by SNG vans


http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.liveu.tv/lu200

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - August 2015

In Broadcast - August 2015 - Intro
In Broadcast - August 2015 - Cover1
In Broadcast - August 2015 - Cover2
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 3
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 4
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 5
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 6
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 7
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 8
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 9
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 10
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 11
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 12
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 13
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 14
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 15
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 16
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 17
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 18
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 19
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 20
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 21
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 22
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In Broadcast - August 2015 - 24
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 25
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 26
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 27
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 28
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 29
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 30
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 31
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 32
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 33
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 34
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 35
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 36
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 37
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 38
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 39
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 40
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 41
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 42
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 43
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In Broadcast - August 2015 - 45
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 46
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In Broadcast - August 2015 - 54
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 55
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 56
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 57
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 58
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In Broadcast - August 2015 - 60
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In Broadcast - August 2015 - 63
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In Broadcast - August 2015 - 70
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 71
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 72
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 73
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 74
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 75
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In Broadcast - August 2015 - 77
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 78
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 79
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 80
In Broadcast - August 2015 - 81
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S1
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S2
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S3
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S4
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S5
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S6
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S7
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S8
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S9
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S10
In Broadcast - August 2015 - S11
https://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_202403
https://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_202402
https://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_202401
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http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_INREVIEW2019
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http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_cabsat2019
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http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_NewYork2018
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http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_inshowguide2018
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http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_NABSHOW2018
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http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_cabsat2018
http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_201801
http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_201712
http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_201711
http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_201710
http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_NABSHOWNYexpo2017
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http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_201705
http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/lesommet/inbroadcast_NABSHOW2017
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