In Broadcast - April 2015 - 42

42

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 4 | April 2015

InMedia

The Right Approach For Your
IP Technology Migration Path
By Chuck Meyer, CTO, Production, Grass Valley

I

nternet protocol technology, IP for
short, is commanding attention
across the broadcast television
ecosystem.
Understanding exactly how and
when IP technology will impact a
given business model depends on your
individual situation, but developing
an understanding of IP technology
and how it ﬁts different workﬂows is
critical.
Thanks to its access to broadcasters
worldwide and some of the most
advanced innovators in our business,
Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, is well
positioned to provide detailed insights.
Speed & Agility
While the data rate of traditional
broadcast technology is lagging
behind that of IP technology, the need
to manage an increasing amount of
content continues in the broadcast
world as the market jockeys to identify
the best way to accommodate viewer
tastes. Higher quality content requires
more horsepower to distribute
throughout and between broadcast
plants. In the long term, SDI simply
doesn't provide an affordable and
sustainable solution. Adopting IP
empowers broadcasters with scalable
ﬂexibility and speed.
There are multiple advantages
when considering IP technology
for broadcast, but none is more
compelling than agility. Going forward,
IP technology will even change the way
video is produced. IP data transport
not only provides a way to move media
from point to point, but also enables
carriage of additional, time-varying
data, related to the media itself.
This is the real value of IP. It can be
argued that metadata has become at
least as valuable, if not
more
valuable,
than
the
actual

The Kaleido-IP Video Multiviewer

video being captured. And, the way
that dynamic metadata is handled
by IP technologies powers creativity,
through time-aware and data-rich
applications that can't be handled in
SDI.
IP From Glass To Glass
Camera, router, server, signal
processing, production switcher and
multiviewer: this is the workﬂow
chain that enables live production
and is the engine that drives
broadcast. Grass Valley refers to this
critical solution as "Glass-to-Glass."
Providing interoperable IP technology
across many, if not all, elements of
a broadcast workﬂow ensures tight
integration that leads to efﬁciency and
solid on-air performance.
To enable smooth IP conﬁgurations,
components in the workﬂow need
to be built on open standards and be
able to interact well with technologies
from multiple suppliers, providing
users with the technology to work
on a common interface. Additionally,
using SDN (Software-Deﬁned Network)
provides the ability to manage IP
switches, provision signal ﬂows,
manage bandwidth, control QoS and
even manage multicast switching. IP
technology outperforms SDI when
multiple signals are aggregated on one
cable.
This further enables distributed
systems, which saves additional
cabling.
Making The Transition
Grass
Valley's
comprehensive
product
line
enables
IP
interoperability, starting with the
camera, continuing with the control
room monitor wall, and concluding

Grass Valley NVISION IP Gateway futureproofs facilities

with playout for distribution to the
home. Working with our other Belden
Brands, we offer the ability to support
any installation. Our Glass-to-Glass
solution is comprehensive, scalable,
manageable, controllable, affordable
and reliable.

common, third party IT routers and
switches that can be controlled by
familiar broadcast-centric interfaces.
In addition, Grass Valley supports a
host of legacy routing and modular
products from Grass Valley, as well as
from other manufacturers.

Grass Valley Gateways: Grass Valley
has introduced IP gateways that
are easily added to existing signalprocessing and routing platforms to
accommodate the need to handle
both IP and SDI signals during an IP
migration. These gateway cards reside
directly inside the same platform that
previously housed only SDI signals,
and convert and packetise real-time,
uncompressed, baseband video using
SMPTE 2022-6 protocol over 10 GigE
Ethernet networks.
This critical advancement, available
in the NVISION routing platform and
the Densité signal processing platform,
allows broadcasters to add support for
IP signal transport throughout their
entire facility, without having to do a
full forklift upgrade.

IP Across All Product Lines:
Grass Valley maintains the most
comprehensive product portfolio of
any of the leading broadcast solutions
providers. In order to facilitate the
industry's demand for IP migration,
aggressive
product
development
roadmaps were deployed over recent
years to ensure that all critical
workﬂows would support IP. From the
LDX camera series to the K2 series of
broadcast servers, K-Frame production
switcher platforms, NVISION routers,
Densité signal processing, Kaleido
multiviewers, and more - Grass Valley
is ready to deliver on the promise.

Grass Valley's SDN Integrated
Control: This application is the key to
a familiar, broadcast-centric control
environment that enables a hybrid
(SDI mixed with IP) workﬂow that
builds a bridge to the future. Unlike
many options on the
market, Grass Valley
supports
the
use
of

Critical Workﬂow - Live Production:
As more competitors enter the media
landscape, broadcasters count on live
content, more than ever, to generate
viewership and drive brand loyalty.
Grass Valley is a long-time leader
in live production technology and is
creating live workﬂows exclusively for
IP. These workﬂows are live-centric,
so to speak, because of their ability
to manage thousands of signals, if
needed, using fully deterministic
timing. This capability is required for
IP.
This is excerpted from the white
paper The Path to IP: The Right
Approach for Your IP Migration by
Chuck Meyer, CTO, Production, Grass
Valley. The paper is available at
www.grassvalley.com/ip
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.grassvalley.com/products/kaleido-ip http://www.grassvalley.com/products/nvision_8500_router_ip_gateway http://www.grassvalley.com/ip
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