IPTV Continues Evolving to Enhance Operational Efficiencies Across the Broadcast Sector
IPTV Continues Evolving to Enhance Operational Efficiencies Across the Broadcast Sector
No stranger to addressing the challenges associated with managing video traffic, most of the major news brands serving tier-1 media markets in the broadcast sector have made the switch away from RF technologies to adopt IPTV. There is, however, a significant opportunity for broadcasters in smaller media markets to follow suit to take advantage of the technical benefits and cost reduction associated with making the shift.
We sat down with Mark D’Addio, senior vice president of sales at VITEC to learn more about the current state of IPTV in the broadcast sector and what we can expect moving into the future.
Here is what he had to say:
Mark D’Addio, Senior Vice President of Sales, VITEC
Q: What is the current state of video technology within the broadcast sector and what can we expect to see as we move into the next generation of broadcasting?
Mark D’Addio: Video technology has evolved at a breathtaking pace. Just ten years ago, almost everyone in the sector still had a radio frequency (RF) infrastructure for viewing video content. This required conventional coaxial cable connections to cable boxes that were connected to a handful of television screens scattered across the facilities. While this worked at the time, it was limited by the need to establish hard wire connections for each and every television screen. There was not a lot of flexibility on how to manage content—it still required pretty old-fashioned remotes to change channels. There was always a limited number of those, and they were easy to lose in common areas.
The introduction of IPTV technology radically improved the broadcast sector’s ability to harness the power of video technologies and enable more interactive applications. IPTV provides access to a vast array of content over the internet—and easily delivers external feeds coming to the news center via satellite by converting traffic to an internet protocol (IP) stream. IPTV is just a much more flexible solution.
Q: To what extent has IPTV penetrated the broadcast sector?
D’Addio: VITEC’s first customer for IPTV was a broadcaster located in Rockefeller Center in 2008. Since that time, VITEC IPTV has been deployed at every major news organization—from CNN and Reuters to Fox News, NBC and NBC Sports. If you can name the news brand, they most likely have IPTV. Many of the larger broadcasters utilize IPTV in multiple facilities and link them together.
Having said that, there are still some smaller TV stations that have not yet made the transition. For these news organizations, the largest hurdle is their network. If they don’t have a strong IT infrastructure, it is difficult to effectively deploy IPTV.
It is a situation, however, that we believe is temporary because of the investments that organizations across industries—including broadcasting—are making in their enterprise networks. As they make these infrastructure upgrades, video is definitely a workload that they are planning for.
In fact, VITEC research has shown that the fastest growing category of content flowing through enterprise networks in general is video traffic. As a result, broadcasters are coming to the realization that RF networks will simply stop being feasible over the long run. Growing numbers of stations are abandoning RF in favor of IPTV that can run on enterprise networks.
Indeed, once a broadcaster invests in enterprise network upgrades to support other corporate priorities, adding IPTV is a simple and relatively inexpensive solution. Moreover, IPTV scales incredibly well. It can manage small stations with five video streams delivered to 20 viewers as efficiently as it can manage thousands of streams to thousands of viewers.
Q: How well does the IPTV traffic coexist with other data flows—like email and other office-related applications people need to meet their daily business objectives?
D’Addio: IPTV integrates perfectly with existing enterprise networks. When paired with the latest compression algorithms, broadcasters can experience very high-quality video streams without overwhelming network resources. This is especially true when they apply Multicast-to-the-Edge technology. This is a solution developed by VITEC that ensures thousands of streams of data are available over the same network in a technically efficient and cost-effective manner. It really removes the need for a dedicated network to support video applications.
We are extremely proud of our solutions and how they have evolved in recent years. In fact, this year at NAB, VITEC received an Engineering Emmy Award in recognition of our contribution of Multicast and IPTV technologies to the broadcast community. The solution’s ability to manage IPTV streams has really revolutionized production workflows in the broadcast sector.
Q: To what extent has the introduction of IPTV changed the way business is done in the broadcast sector?
D’Addio: Since our first beta broadcast customer back in 2008, we have tailored our solutions for the broadcast industry.
Initially, broadcasters had a variety of feeds coming in a variety of formats—from satellite to microwave. That has changed. Today, everything is IP. In addition, for production purposes, broadcasters need to distribute video in a variety of technical formats.
When IPTV technology is combined with Multicast capabilities, broadcasters can accommodate a wide array of streams—regardless of their format—and then convert them to whatever configuration is needed to work, transform or simply consume video in a manageable environment. IPTV can make this happen in a very cohesive and smooth workflow to ensure that the right people can easily access the right format at any time.
Another critical priority for the broadcast sector is security. The ability to integrate systems can sometimes introduce vulnerabilities and open the door to threats. This is why VITEC has developed an end-to-end solution that incorporates military-grade advanced encryption standard (AES) technology to protect the intellectual property of broadcasters.
Another area that I think we’ll see evolve pretty quickly revolves around compression. We are not too far away from seeing a real need to support 8K—and even 16K—streams flowing over enterprise networks.
At VITEC, we are working on addressing these—and many other—market and technology trends to help broadcasters future-proof their investments in IPTV technology to support their production and business operations.