IP-Special: Grass Valley, Mark Hilton

IP for broadcast was amongst the hot topics at NAB and IBC. What is your opinion concerning this topic?

We are in the early stages of IP-based production in the sense of replacing SDI for live and even non-live events. Every facility is different and will make the transition at its own pace when the time is right, so we have taken the approach of making it as simple and painless as possible. Initially, we are hearing from a lot of customers that they want a way to harness the power of IP to make their workflows incredibly agile and flexible while using SDN — software-defined network — and COTS — commercial off-the-shelf — switches in a familiar, broadcast-centric control environment. We will continue to enhance our solutions for those ready to begin an IP transition with additional components at IBC.

Currently the industry discusses several standards and methods in IP based production and transmission, SMPTE 2022 and AVB being amongst them. Which standard does your company support — and why?

We are supporting SMPTE 2022-6 initially because it is closer to the current SDI/AES workflow, thus causing fewer disruptions for our customers. Using SMPTE 2022-6 guarantees broadcasters product interoperability while the core infrastructure, based on COTS IP switches, provides scalability. This approach is gaining widespread acceptance across the industry.

Which areas of the broadcast industry will be the first to adopt and implement IP based technology?

We are seeing a lot of interest in both studio environments and mobile studio trucks. Truck operators are interested in reducing their cable count and weight as well as power, space and cost. Also of interest to studios and trucks is the ability to be format agnostic, which provides the ability to leverage an infrastructure investment over a longer period of time while remaining responsive to industry changes.

What’s your companies IP based flagship project or product?

Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, offers a complete Glass-to-Glass IP Solution. The main component today, GV Convergent, enables operators to control the routing of IP signals using the same control surface they’ve been using for years to control SDI, providing transparent control in hybrid IP/SDI workflows. GV Convergent SDN leverages proven IT technologies, such as COTS routing switches and SDN control, to maximize flexibility. It is simple to use, operationally efficient and supports a wide range of hardware and software control panels with seamless control of IP within a baseband infrastructure.

Grass Valley also offers IP gateways that are easily added to existing signal-processing and routing platforms to enable hybrid workflows — SDI/IP — during an IP migration. For example, the new Densité IP Gateway enables customers to update and upgrade their existing infrastructure for IP migration by adding Densité IPG-3901 Gateway modules to existing Densité frames. This approach makes it possible for IP products to integrate with existing SDI infrastructure and for SDI devices to connect to a video-over-IP infrastructure. And the latest NVision 8500 IP Gateway can be added to any existing NVision 8500 router. The gateway cards can be installed in the same router frame which previously only managed SDI signals. They convert IP to SDI and SDI to IP through real-time packetizing of uncompressed baseband video for use over Ethernet networks.

Empfehlungen der Redaktion:

02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Aspera, Francois Quereuil
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Axon, Jan Eveleens
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Cisco, Thomas Kernen
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Broadcast Solutions, Rainer Kampe
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Dimetis, Joachim Kniesel
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: EVS, James Stellpflug
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Harmonic, Ian Trow
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Imagine, Jochen Kuhnen
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: LSB, Axel Kern
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Lawo, Andreas Hilmer
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Matrox, Dan Maloney
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Nobeo, Stefan Hoff
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Quantel/Snell, Tim Felstead
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Riedel, Ramon Pankert
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: SonoVTS, Stefan Krömer
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Sony, Norbert Paquet
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: TPC, Andreas Lattmann
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: TV Skyline, Wolfgang Reeh
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Teracue-Eyevis, Karl-Heinz Wenisch
02.07.2015 – IP-Special: Qvest Media, Daniel Url
09.07.2015 – Grass Valley: Edius 8
03.07.2015 – Wige: Ü-Wagen-Modernisierung mit Technik von Grass Valley
21.04.2015 – NAB2015-Video: Klaus Weber stellt die Kamera LDX86 vor
17.04.2015 – NAB2015: Grass Valley stellt Focus 70 Live vor
15.04.2015 – NAB2015: Grass Valley zeigt IP-Workflow mit Cisco
14.04.2015 – NAB2015: 4K-Kamera LDX 86 Universe von Grass Valley
19.11.2014 – Grass Valley: Auf einem guten Weg