4 ms·

am i reading this right? are they coming up with a way to use IP to broadcast "television" in the sense that, if this was finished and open source that "anyone"

am i reading this right? are they coming up with a way to use IP to broadcast "television" in the sense that, if this was finished and open source that "anyone" could feasibly run their own "television channel/station" (edit: over IP) ?

tiernano 8y ago
I think it's from the cameras and recording gear to the backend where it's peiced together and that is what is broadcast... given they mention uncompressed hd and uhd, that's the impression I get...
sandworm101 8y ago
Also. live TV. Live feeds over IP have always had their issues. Slight delays, even the concept of buffering, is not acceptable. Packets have to come in and out of the system at roughly the speed of light. Any drop of anything will be seen on screens. Parity can help, but that requires processing that is very difficult in the acceptable timeframe. A typical TV studio could have 20 different live feeds coming in and four or five going out. They need to switch between and/or layer any number of these instantly and seamlessly. The bandwidth demands quickly become insane. Remember too that the feed will transit over many different IP-based systems. A seemingly acceptable delay on one system, a few microseconds here and there, adds up or multiplies as data streams between equipment.
cjensen 8y ago
Not exactly. This is about how to pass video between interoperable machines. Traditionally within a broadcast house, video+audio was sent between machines using HD-SDI using BNC coax[1]. For the first generation of HD, this ran at 1.5Gb/s. For 1080p/59.94Hz, a new standard was developed to run at 3Gb/s. For 4K at 59.94Hz, there is a 12Gb/s standard. HD-SDI routers are extremely expensive. Each input and output from a device has to be individually cabled to a router and some devices can have many dozens of I/Os. There has been a push to switch from using ridiculous numbers of cables to using IP solutions and off-the-shelf IP routers. SMPTE 2110 provides a framework for doing this using RTP [2]. 4K needs roughly 12Gb/s, so to carry a single video, you need at least 25Gb/s networking. If you want to carry many signals, the network bandwidth goes up fast -- that's why BBC is interested in 100Gb/s links. Also keep in mind the traffic is not "bursty". These links may be nearly saturated 24/7. Most off-the-shelf routers are not designed with enough buffering to handle fully saturated links on all connectors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_digital_interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_digital_interface [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMPTE_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMPTE_2022 (older IP standard)
cnorthwood 8y ago
not necesarily to broadcast television, but to produce it. Rather than having to buy expensive bespoke hardware to fit a TV studio, what happens if it was just software running on a bunch of servers (maybe in a cloud)? This is the background of the project: http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/ip-studio http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/ip-studio

tiernano 8y ago

I think it's from the cameras and recording gear to the backend where it's peiced together and that is what is broadcast... given they mention uncompressed hd and uhd, that's the impression I get...

sandworm101 8y ago

Also. live TV. Live feeds over IP have always had their issues. Slight delays, even the concept of buffering, is not acceptable. Packets have to come in and out of the system at roughly the speed of light. Any drop of anything will be seen on screens. Parity can help, but that requires processing that is very difficult in the acceptable timeframe. A typical TV studio could have 20 different live feeds coming in and four or five going out. They need to switch between and/or layer any number of these instantly and seamlessly. The bandwidth demands quickly become insane. Remember too that the feed will transit over many different IP-based systems. A seemingly acceptable delay on one system, a few microseconds here and there, adds up or multiplies as data streams between equipment.

cjensen 8y ago

Not exactly. This is about how to pass video between interoperable machines. Traditionally within a broadcast house, video+audio was sent between machines using HD-SDI using BNC coax[1]. For the first generation of HD, this ran at 1.5Gb/s. For 1080p/59.94Hz, a new standard was developed to run at 3Gb/s. For 4K at 59.94Hz, there is a 12Gb/s standard. HD-SDI routers are extremely expensive. Each input and output from a device has to be individually cabled to a router and some devices can have many dozens of I/Os. There has been a push to switch from using ridiculous numbers of cables to using IP solutions and off-the-shelf IP routers. SMPTE 2110 provides a framework for doing this using RTP [2]. 4K needs roughly 12Gb/s, so to carry a single video, you need at least 25Gb/s networking. If you want to carry many signals, the network bandwidth goes up fast -- that's why BBC is interested in 100Gb/s links. Also keep in mind the traffic is not "bursty". These links may be nearly saturated 24/7. Most off-the-shelf routers are not designed with enough buffering to handle fully saturated links on all connectors. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_digital_interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_digital_interface [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMPTE_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMPTE_2022 (older IP standard)

cnorthwood 8y ago

not necesarily to broadcast television, but to produce it. Rather than having to buy expensive bespoke hardware to fit a TV studio, what happens if it was just software running on a bunch of servers (maybe in a cloud)? This is the background of the project: http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/ip-studio http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/ip-studio