The Latin-American broadcast scene seems to be divided in two: some countries have jumped on the IP bandwagon to various degrees—with Brazil probably leading the pack—while operators elsewhere still believe that IP-based productions are far too complex for broadcast engineers.
This is a pity, especially since the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Lawo and many other vendors offer a host of educational material that allow engineers to familiarize themselves with the fundamentals of network-based broadcast workflows, often at their own pace and whenever they have time for it.
It is arguably also short-sighted, because the future of broadcast is software-based. Not necessarily in the cloud, by the way, because broadcasters all over the world are hesitant to host their entire workflows there, for fear of unpredictable operational expenses. Generic servers stationed at the broadcast facility or in another central location that is managed exclusively by the broadcaster today perform the same job as a cloud service—minus the downsides.
But software and servers cannot be trusted, right? This is a surprising thought when you consider that audio and video editing tools have been running on computers for well over two decades. Even users who cannot imagine entrusting their audio or video processing to a generic server use DAWs and video editing suites on computers without so much as thinking about it. Unlike dedicated hardware devices, audio and video processing provided by HOME Apps quickly reboots on the same or a spare server in the event of a failure. A hardware processor needs to be (partially) replaced—or cables need to be repatched—which takes much longer.
Plus, the rebooted processing app retrieves the settings that were in effect before it stalled. Viewed from this angle, server-based processing clearly appears more convenient than working with hardware devices. Especially since logging and monitoring apps will tell the user what went wrong and where.
Most operators in Latin America know Lawo and admire the reliability, the comprehensive nature of its solutions and the versatility this affords for the most diverse workflows, including the ones a broadcaster has been dreaming of for years but never managed to implement due to hardware limitations. Interestingly, the use of the ST2110-30, RAVENNA and/or AES67 protocols for audio routing and mixing is widespread, not least because integrating Dante islands where required is easy. All of these protocols are IP. And ST2110 does the same reliable job for transporting video feeds to all required destinations for processing.
IP provides new options for sharing signals between multiple venues and the broadcast facility. In combination with a wide-area-network-capable broadcast control system, disconnecting one venue and connecting another to the same video and audio infrastructure at the production hub takes seconds with no physical cable repatching.
A Lawo-based IP infrastructure even allows using NDI and SRT sources alongside ST2110 streams. And once operators are comfortable with generic servers, they may consider using audio processing apps alongside video processing software, because these are even more versatile than their hardware equivalents. That, of course, remains a matter of choice, because the hardware equivalents are not about to disappear any time soon.
Depending on the scale of a production, less than a handful of servers will be enough to run both audio and video processing apps as they happily coexist on the same compute hardware. For bigger productions, more and additional processing apps or instances can be run at a fraction of the price for an additional dedicated hardware processor, which may only be used twice a year. Time-limited licenses and a credit-based licensing system that allows to leverage different app combinations at different times—on the same budget—make this a breeze.
Just to give you an idea of the upcoming winter sports event in Italy and the football world championship: IP will be all over the place—and a single international broadcast center (IBC) will be used to supervise and finalize all contributions from three different countries. the benefits are clear: fewer staff members, less traveling and the ability to rely on the expertise of the most talented operators for longer stretches. Quite a few rights-holders (broadcasters from specific countries) will be leveraging remote workflows based on a small crew that goes onsite and captures the sound and video of interviews as well as selected events to better serve their viewers at home. The resulting streams will be transported to the rights-holders’ countries and “produced” at their headquarters.
Those who think that IP only addresses the needs of large-scale operations should think again. Even college and regional broadcast operations have discovered to the agility and flexibility of IP and server-based processing and are amazed how much cabling is made obsolete.
Coupled with intuitive user interfaces, the efficient and practical nature of Lawo solutions, their versatility and a support structure you can count on, there should be nothing to stop you from adopting IP. Thanks to I/O converters, called “gateways”, there is no need to replace your entire infrastructure at the same time, allowing your video switcher to be used for another five years or even longer.
IP and server-based processing allow operators to do more with less. There is nothing to be scared of—but a lot to look forward to.
