Multi-vendor SMPTE ST 2110 system extended to WAN environment
Oslo, Norway, 9th November 2021 – The participants of 5G-VIRTUOSA, the EU-funded project exploring 5G and virtualization in broadcast production, announced today that the second phase of the project has been successfully completed. This phase involved transferring the multi-vendor IP production environment built in the first phase to a three-site WAN environment in Germany – demonstrating a multi-site, all-IP networking of TV studios. This phase lays the foundation for the final phase of the project, which will add 5G connectivity to the production environment.
The purpose of the EU project VIRTUOSA is to explore “Scalable Software Defined Network Architectures for Cooperative Live Media Production exploiting Virtualized Production Resources and 5G Wireless Acquisition”. In practical terms, this means demonstrating through real-life examples how 5G can be combined with virtualization concepts to enable broadcasters to produce live content (such as sports or music coverage) more efficiently and cost-effectively across locations, to meet growing consumer demand.
The project participants are: Nevion AS (Norway), Mellanox Technologies LTD (Israel) andLOGIC media solutions GmbH (Germany).
In phase 2, a WAN connection was established between several German broadcaster’s production facilities: the ARD Sternpunkt in Frankfurt as the MCR/Main hub, and WDR in Cologne and SWR in Baden-Baden as “remote locations”. The basic structure of all locations consisted of a spin-leaf network topology, each controlled and monitored by a separate SDN/NMOS controller (Nevion’s VideoIPath). In addition, the controllers were federated so that they resources (such as equipment) could be shared between locations. Each location also had SDI/IP adaption to connect SDI equipment to the IP network, and the video was transported between locations using JPEG XS compression. All this functionality was provided by Nevion Virtuoso.
LOGIC, which integrated the system, also performed the tests to establish that the latency between the locations was satisfactory for live production.
The 5G-VIRTUOSA team will be running a webinar on Tuesday 23rd November at 17:00 CEST, to explain the outcome of phase 2 of the project, and lay out the plans for phase 3 (including a call for real life use cases) More details can be found here: https://5g-virtuosa.eu/exploring-5g/
The 5G-VIRTUOSA project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 866656.
About Mellanox Technologies
Mellanox Technologies (NASDAQ: MLNX) is a leading supplier of end-to-end Ethernet and InfiniBand intelligent interconnect solutions and services for servers, storage, and hyper-converged infrastructure. Mellanox intelligent interconnect solutions increase data center efficiency by providing the highest throughput and lowest latency, delivering data faster to applications and unlocking system performance. Mellanox offers a choice of high-performance solutions: network and multicore processors, network adapters, switches, cables, software and silicon, that accelerate application runtime and maximize business results for a wide range of markets including high performance computing, enterprise data centers, Web 2.0, cloud, storage, network security, telecom and financial services. More information is available at: www.mellanox.com
About LOGIC media solutions GmbH
LOGIC is a German-based media infrastructure architect and distributor of professional broadcast and telecommunication equipment. Almost 20 years of experience on the market and excellent connections to the German media companies makes LOGIC one of the leading value-added reseller not only in regards to IP based productions. Solutions based on traditional SDI technology as well as services within the cloud can be covered with the portfolio and team LOGIC provides to their customers. For more information please visit www.logicmedia.de
About Nevion
As the architect of virtualized media production, Nevion provides media network and broadcast infrastructure solutions to broadcasters, telecommunication service providers, government agencies and other industries. Increasingly based on IP, virtualization and Cloud technology, Nevion’s solutions enable the management, transport and processing of professional-quality video, audio and data – in real time, reliably and securely. From content production to distribution, Nevion solutions are used to power major sporting and live events across the globe. Some of the world’s largest media groups and telecom service providers use Nevion technology, including AT&T, NBC Universal, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., NASA, Arqiva, BBC, CCTV, EBU, BT, TDF and Telefonica.
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