In Broadcast - September 2013 - 53

ISSUE 23 - SEPTEMBER 2013 | WWW.INBROADCAST.COM

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

N E W S

InSTUDIO

Innovating For The Networked Future
By Tim Felstead
Head of Sales & Marketing,
ATG Broadcast

T

he role of systems integrators
includes studying the relative
merits of new engineering concepts
and, where appropriate, factoring
these into workﬂow proposals for
new projects.
Much of our systems integration
work in recent years has centred
on integrating 1080-line channels
alongside their 625-line equivalents.
More recently, the emphasis has
moved to adding completely new
1080-line channels.
Any broadcaster contemplating a
future upgrade beyond HD, whether
to 4K, 8K or some entirely new
display format, will be inﬂuenced
by the practical considerations of
transmission cost, optimal bit-rate
and the screen-size/resolution/price
of viewing devices. 1080-line HD
looks fantastic on a 60 inch screen

at normal viewing distance, let alone
on a handheld tablet.
Innovation has formed a key
element of ATG Broadcast’s success
right back to the transition from
tape-based to ﬁle-based content
management. Efﬁciency and ease
of operation have become dominant
requirements. Broadcasters and
production companies with the
capacity to produce large quantities
of high quality programmes will
clearly be the market leaders. We
need look no further than the car
industry to see the benefits of
production standardisation and tight
process control.
Energy consumption is an ever
more important factor in broadcast
systems design, more as a function
of efﬁcient workﬂow and its impact
on production cost than for any

call to save the planet (albeit a very
useful side effect).
Media asset management systems
look set to become complete
lifecycle managers, from initial
concept until whenever the rights
run out. Software architectures
and the skills required for deep and
fully-functional integration will be
crucial. Business and production
software systems will become far
more tightly integrated.
The ﬁle formats issues will never
be settled. Just as the introduction
of video tape resulted in seemingly
endless format wars, the industry
will never be free of incompatibility
concerns in the tapeless world.
However, sensible content
management companies will have
as many agreements in place as they
can to ﬁx media formats between
partners. They will also have an
intelligently chosen ‘mezzanine’
format in house. Quality control
processes will be selected and
implemented with care to ensure
each ‘factory’ is always running at
optimum efficiency.
One of the most promising

technologies currently being
developed is IP-based wide area
video networking. The concept is
already becoming commonplace for
high quality audio content delivery,
not just of ﬁles but of low-latency
streams. Video networking is a
logical extension. Also known as
audio/video bridging or ‘AVB’, it is
centred on the IEEE 802.1 standard.
Another standard with great potential
is Precision Time Protocol (PTP)
which offers considerable practical
and economic advantages to the
broadcast world. Originally deﬁned
as IEEE 1588-2002 and later revised
to IEEE 1588-2008, its purpose is
to synchronise clocks throughout a
data network.
Whatever your needs, live, ﬁlebased or both, ATG Broadcast
will be on hand throughout IBC
to help turn ideas into real-world
working systems.
53

MEDIA & BROADCAST
SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
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products and digital media solutions.
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In Broadcast - September 2013

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