In Broadcast - March 2021 - 42

42

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 11 - Issue 3 | March 2021

InTech

Pandemic-Fueled Streaming
Here to Stay

By: Nick Ma,
CEO and CTO

I

t's both an understatement and
stating the obvious to say that the
adoption of streaming technologies
and services accelerated significantly
over the past year, not only from
a content consumption standpoint
but also within content production
workflows. The question, though, is
whether these trends will continue as
the world emerges from pandemicdriven lockdowns and settles into a
" new normal " .
Before contemplating the future,
everyone involved in streaming
technologies should take pride in
the fact that their past efforts have
played an important role in helping
many people connect, communicate,
and cope during the pandemic.
From visionaries who conceived of
key technologies years ago; to
product vendors who made those
foundations practical for users;
to producers and distributors
who used these advances to share

their content - all should be proud of
helping make the past year just a little
bit more tolerable for many people.
Even with vaccines arriving, the
increased adoption of streaming is
here to stay. Being so immersed in
the technology ourselves, it is easy to
forget that there were many people
still reluctant to start streaming, both
on the content creation side and as
a primary viewing platform. Some
thought it was too complicated, some
didn't consider it reliable enough,
and others simply didn't invest the

The Ultra Encode HDMI

time, effort, or money yet because
they hadn't needed to. The pandemic
forced many of them to try streaming,
and now that they're comfortable with
it, they're likely to stick with it.
On the production side, the
pandemic similarly accelerated the
transition from legacy infrastructures
to IP-based workflows. Solutions that
support streaming and media-overIP protocols such as SRT, NDI, and
SMPTE ST-2110 enable the flexibility,
affordability, and efficiency needed
for evolving remote production
workflows. Even as entertainment
productions return to studios,
we expect more will be produced
remotely or in hybrid workflows now
that such models have proven efficient
and successful.
Even
for
non-real-time
productions, live streaming has
delivered new value. Pioneering
" digital dailies " solutions adopted
earlier streaming technologies many

years ago to let editors in other cities
begin working immediately with
low-resolution footage in advance
of receiving full-quality files, or to
allow remotely-located production
executives to give immediate feedback
during the shooting of key scenes.
Once used only for major motion
pictures, such workflows are becoming
more commonplace in allowing all
sizes of production to resume with
reduced on-site staff.
Magewell has long offered innovative
yet practical solutions that empowered
producers who were creating content
specifically for streaming. With
our new Ultra Encode family, we
have extended our capabilities to
help all types of entertainment and
informational productions benefit
from streaming, whether directly
to consumers or behind the scenes.
Streaming is here to stay, and
Magewell is continuing to help our
customers take advantage of it.

Telestream Cloud Stream Monitor and
Wirecast Now Have Full SRT Support
T

elestream, a leading provider
of workflow automation, media
processing, quality monitoring and
test and measurement solutions for
the production and distribution of
video, today announced that both its
Telestream Cloud Stream Monitor
and Wirecast streaming solutions
have
achieved
" SRT
Plugged "
status by successfully completing
interoperability testing at the SRT
InterOp Plugfest.
SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) is an
open-source video transport protocol,
developed by Haivision and driven
by the SRT Alliance, that enables
the delivery of high-quality, secure,
low-latency video across the public
Internet. This allows for optimized
streaming
performance
across
unpredictable networks, bringing the
best quality live video over the worst
network connections. SRT represents
an alternative to costly satellite links,
purpose-built fiber networks, or
proprietary transport solutions.

Telestream
Cloud
Stream Monitor and
Wirecast live production
and streaming software
participated in the
SRT Alliance's recent
" InterOp
Plugfest "
kick-off event. The
event is held annually
for developers to test
interoperability
and
compatibility between
different technologies
and vendors using the
SRT protocol. Stream Monitor
now enables users to
monitor live video quality
from streams transported
via SRT. By repeatedly
demonstrating compatibility
and interoperability with other
SRT Alliance members, SRT Plugged
status was validated. Tests confirmed
interoperability with over 20 different
SRT enabled devices from a variety
of market-leading encoding and

content delivery systems. The latest
Wirecast release was used as a
live video contribution source
via the SRT protocol.
" This is great news for
customers looking to either monitor
or contribute video over SRT, which
has become an emerging standard
for anyone delivering live video over
public internet and cloud backplanes, "
said Kenneth Haren, Director of
Product Management at Telestream.

For over 20 years,
Telestream® has been at
the forefront of innovation
in the digital video
industry. The company
develops products for
media processing and
workflow
orchestration;
live capture, streaming,
production
and
video
quality assurance; and
video and audio test
solutions
that
make
it possible to reliably
get video content to any audience
regardless of how it is created,
distributed or viewed. Telestream
solutions are available on premises
or in the cloud as well as in hybrid
combinations. Telestream is privately
held with corporate headquarters
located in Nevada City, California and
Westwood, Massachusetts.
More information is available at:
www.telestream.net
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.magewell.com/ultra-encode https://inbroadcast.com/news/telestream-cloud-stream-monitor-and-wirecast-now-have-full-srt-support https://inbroadcast.com/news/telestream-cloud-stream-monitor-and-wirecast-now-have-full-srt-support http://www.telestream.net
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