The IP Studio

As the performance and cost-effectiveness of packet-switched networks continue to increase, broadcasters can benefit from handling real-time production-quality video and audio as first-class citizens on IP infrastructure. When combined with capturing richer production datasets, this provides new opportunities to produce innovative, and more personalised, products. BBC Research & Development is developing a framework to investigate going beyond traditional technologies such as SDI towards an IP-based infrastructure, using widely adopted networking protocols and techniques. The framework treats items of content, such as video frames, as well as data events generated in a production, as uniquely identified and time-stamped objects. For live working, these are multicast at high quality locally and published as web feeds for remote access; they are also stored for immediate use by downstream processes and devices, without the overheads associated with file-based transfers.

This document was originally published in the IBC 2013 Conference proceedings, and in the IET’s 'Best of IET and IBC' publication.

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