InBroadcast - November 2024 - 24

24
www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 14 - Issue 11 | November 2024
InStudio
Integrating SDI and IP
into an Efficient Broadcast
Production System
By Gisbert Hochguertel, Ikegami Europe.
S
DI (Serial Digital Interface) was one of the
television industry's
great success stories,
formalised from 1989 onward as a set of SMPTE
standards which expanded over the following
decades to embrace SD and HD, 4K-UHD and
8K-UHD.
Then along came IP (Internet Protocol). IP in fact
predated SDI by 15 years but took a long time to
reach the speed and capacity needed to transport
digital video. IP was first proposed in 1974 by
Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn, credited as being " the
fathers of the internet " . It achieves over practically
unlimited distances what SDI was designed to
accomplish within a specific location. Broadcasters
were quick to recognise the speed and efficiency of
IP as a way to send digital video, audio and related
metadata files
between connected
locations,
typically completed programme files for playout be
a remote transmission service provider.
IP-connected live video links eventually allowed
broadcast content creators to stream live video,
audio and related data relatively quickly back
to base from practically any point on the planet.
This allowed programme production companies
to achieve substantial savings by replacing large
control vehicles with much smaller trucks. Live
video and audio content
is then transferred
via IP to the host broadcaster's headquarters
a separately located production site. This style
of
(REMI), became especially useful as a Covid-19
workaround, reducing the number of production
staff needing to travel long distances.
IPX-100 SDI to ST 2110
expansion adaptor
Introduced
at
operation, the remote integration model
oriented mini base station designed to bridge
between conventional
broadcast
and
the
wider world of SMPTE ST 2110 IP infrastructure.
Compatible with all cameras in the Ikegami XE and
HD series, the IPX-100 offers the core features of
our established BSX-100 base station plus optional
ST 2110 Media-over-IP support.
Figure 2 shows an example workflow with
multiple cameras covering an event from various
locations at a sports arena. Each camera carries
SDI video and related data via up to 3.5 km of
SMPTE hybrid fibre cable to an IPX-100 SDI to
ST 2110 IP interface. The resultant IP data feeds an
IP network switch which feeds in turn to a vision
mixer at TV station for live transmission, or edited
for later playout.
At just 2U high by half 19-inch rack width, the
IBC2024 in Amsterdam, the
Ikegami IPX-100 (Figure 1) is a full-featured IPIPX-100
is one third smaller in size than the
BSX-100. ST 2110-22 (JPEG-XS) encoding will be
introduced as a software option, an important
feature allowing the data rate to adapt to the
available IP bandwidth. Equipped to operate as
a fully self-contained unit, the IPX-100 includes
an integral
test signal generator which allows
system configuration before cameras or other
sources are connected. ST 2110 connectivity can
be set up independently by IT specialists prior to a
production. On the day of the event, the cameras
can then be connected easily to the IPX-100 by
a conventional SMPTE-hybrid fibre cable over a
distance of up to 3.5 km. Figure 3 shows an IPX-100
local-monitoring configuration. The camera head is
powered by the IPX-100 so there is no operational
difference for the cameraman compared with using
a conventional fibre-cabled camera.
The IPX-100 converts the broadcast signals to ST
2110 compliant signals and, as such, serves as a
gateway to IP. The IPX-100 is also available with an
optional 3G/HD-SDI input/output to serve as an
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