Tech Experts: The Promise of SMPTE 2110 and IP is More Accessible Than Ever
SILICON VALLEY.VIDEO NEWS
By Jeff Berman
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) 2110 suite of standards promise several advantages for broadcasters but those advantages, until now, have come along with design and operational challenges.
That, however, is about to change, according to technology industry experts who spoke to over 150 attendees on July 22 during the day-long Silicon Valley Video Works (SVVWorks) Video Workflow Workshop at LinkedIn in Mountain View, California.
Thanks to several new technologies and workflows that emerged in April at the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas, the promise of SMPTE 2110 and IP is now more accessible than ever, according to panelists who spoke during a session on “SMPTE 2110 and IP for the Masses.”
The panel discussion was “all about how do we look at making 2110 work for people who don't have a billion dollar budget and eight years of network experience,” moderator Dave Van Hoy, ASG president, said at the start of the session.
Van Hoy then asked the panelists, “The first question that I want to have everybody address today is what is the most important thing in your company and your minds in driving adoption around 2110? Is it cost? Is it performance? Is it complexity?”
The integration of 2110 and “trying to make it easier” started in 2017, recalled Thomas True, NVIDIA senior applied engineer for professional video and image processing. That included making it easier to interface the streams of 2110 with the general processing unit (GPU), he said.
“Right now, we’re engaging developers, developing and moving applications to the platform,” True went on to say. “It’s a step up for a lot of developers. We’ve tried to take some of the hard work out of it. They still need to learn deployment of the application. But it’s an attempt to make it easier and scalable.”
Steve Young, ASG senior principal, consulting, then pointed out: “I would say having done 2110 implementations in 2019 and then just this past year … it's certainly easier,” although still not easy, he said. “Also, I would say we're much better at training than we used to be. And that actually makes the adoption of the new systems easier for the end users.”
The industry is also getting better at tooling, Gary Schneider, LinkedIn lead media systems architect, told attendees.
Van Hoy asked Chin Koh, Net Insight head, presales engineering: “With your tools, do you see a day when we could begin to see much more user-configurable systems?”
Koh responded: “The biggest problem that we've always had is actually proper documentation -- understanding what needs to be configured from the start.”
But Koh then added: “The problem with 2110 networks is that there are so many things that need to be managed and not defining the actual workflow creates a lot of headaches for us.”
Also speaking was Bob Caniglia, Blackmagic Design director of sales operations – Americas. The company introduced 2110 IP Converters at NAB in April that are able to connect point-to-point, eliminating the need for a complex Ethernet switch, allowing users to enjoy the benefits of SMPTE-2110 IP video with simple Ethernet cables, remote power, and bidirectional video and without the need for an IT tech on standby.
“What we wanted to do was help people with existing systems bring 2110 into it,” Caniglia said. “We realized not everyone was going to rip everything out and start all over…so we wanted to develop this hybrid situation so people could get introduced to using it, but not so they had to go back to school to do it. We’re trying to put in some 2110 products so they can use it in the systems they already have.”
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1moThat was a great panel. Shout out to Dave Van Hoy as well! These Silicon Valley Video events have been excellent.