Virtual VidTrans 2021
Monday & Tuesday March 1 & 2, 2021
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Synopses of Presentations (alphabetical by presenter)
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Tweaking ECP Performance: A libRIST Deep Dive
Sergio Ammirata, Ph.D. - SipRadius
Whereas our RIST forum online presentations have focused on visual demonstrations of RIST benefits, in this one we'll focus on optimizing an error correction protocol over congested networks. In bandwidth limited emulated network simulations, we've recently improved libRIST recovery performance by about 40%. Before, we might top out at about 50% continuous packet loss; now we can reliably transmit video at a loss rate of 70% dropped packets with just a one second buffer. We will discuss the specific algorithms used in the librist library used to accomplish this. By actually looking at the code in this demo, we hope to increase understanding of the actual mechanics of error correction protocols, and thereby communicate their usefulness even better. Perhaps we'll even inspire enhancements in the code of one or two from those viewing this demo. That's what Free and Open Source Software is all about, isn't it? And we'll finish up with a very quick demo at a ridiculously high loss rate.
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Case Studies especially those involving the transition to IP or IT-based technologies. Live sports and the application of IP/IT technology
Chris Clarke - Cerberus Tech
During the pandemic, live sports production and distribution has adapted to empty stadiums and unpredictable schedules. IP technology has played a crucial role in enabling live sports to be broadcast cost-effectively, with socially distanced production and remote commentary.
A great example is the Scottish Premier League Football season. The SPFL began in August 2020 and ends in May 2021. All the required hardware needed to be shipped to maintain social distancing and IP infrastructure had to be set up remotely. All 228 matches are distributed using a SaaS live delivery platform, with 142 of the matches produced by QTV Sports. Live feeds are distributed to QTV and directly to SPFL Clubs and partners, enabling them to deliver to social media and their own TV channels, as well as to UK broadcasters.
The shift to IP has proven benefits for live content distribution. While IP offers the most cost-effective delivery approach, for it to become ubiquitous, it must be:
- self-managed
- cloud agnostic
- compliant with multiple protocols
- flexible and scalable
- easy to use
This session will outline the key considerations when shifting to IP for live sports. Drawing on the SPFL and other sports which have been successfully delivered using IP technology.
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Two years of RIST around the world: What have we learnt
Kieran Kunhya – Open Broadcast Systems
This presentation will look into the two years of experience rolling out RIST in many locations around the world for a variety of use cases including Primary Distribution (for satellite replacement or augmentation), News Interviews, Programme Contribution and Monitoring. It will go into both operational detail and technical detail into the benefits as well as issues with using RIST and compare it with other technologies out there.
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Bit-Rate Evaluation of Compressed HDR using SL-HDR1
Ciro Aloisio Noronha, Ph.D. – Cobalt Digital
This presentation evaluates two options for transporting HDR over a communications link using compression. The first option is to simply run the HDR signal through a 10-bit capable encoder and transport the bitstream. The second option is to use SL-HDR1 to convert the HDR signal to SDR plus metadata, compress that signal, transport SDR plus metadata, and reconstruct the HDR on the receiving side. Given a desired quality level, the presentation evaluates the required bit rates in both cases. The technique used is the well-known BD-rate, and the objective quality measures are PSNR_DE100 and PSNR_L100. The evaluation is done over a number of sequences, both using AVC and HEVC. We found that, in most cases, there is a bit rate advantage to using SL-HDR1. This presentation is an update on the work presented at VidTrans 2020, using quality metrics that better correlate with perceived quality, and an industry-standard method (BD-rate) for the comparison.
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New paradigm to assess video quality in broadcast workflows
Margaret H Pinson - National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
Broadcasters would benefit from a no reference (NR) metric that assesses video quality. An NR metric provides root cause analysis (RCA) would identify problems in live workflows, such as mis-configured cameras. We will describe a new paradigm for developing NR metrics and explain why prior efforts have struggled. Current results include a framework for NR metric development (available at https://github.com/NTIA/NRMetricFramework), an NR metric developed according to this paradigm, and an interactive web demo where participants can try this NR metric. We will close with a call for action, asking participants to share sample videos with researchers that show impairments that need to be identified. Conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), this research builds upon industry specifications that broadcasters shared at the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG).
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Micro-Case-study How to do a regular ‘COVID’ live muti-camera production for zero cost
Andrew Rayner – Nevion
A mini 10 minute overview of how I have produced live, multi-location full-music-based church services entirely with free off the shelf software. It will have some serious tech points as well as being a ‘for tech interest’ overview.
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Time and Timing
Andrew Rayner – Nevion
Since the beginning of television, we have been focussing relentlessly on the timing of the broadcast chain.
From the timing craziness of compensating on the studio floor for the 42 second latency of John Logie-Baird's hybrid film/flying-dot-scanner through to the use of PTP in modern production, we have been obsessed with both absolute and relative time.
As we start to move to virtual compute based live production systems, some of our raster-scan heritage can be left behind – if we are willing!
This presentation will bring us up to date with some timing thoughts on both the latest revisions to ST 2110 and compute-hosted and compute-friendly live production.
Don’t be late for these few minutes of fun!
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A new HybridSAT/IP for seamless interference recovery
Adi Rozenberg – Video-Flow
Satellite interference are growing every year from different sources, for over now with the introduction of 5G and the freeing of C-Band frequencies. Sun spot activity is rising and also harsh weather condition. These are adding more interference to Satellite feeds for the earth ground stations monitor, handle and document. the interference causes a visual artifacts to the services and must be addressed.
This presentation will review the interference sources and then present a novel new technical solution that overcomes the outcome of the interference; The solution is a hybrid approach that allows a simple recovery system in parallel to the Satellite feed with no changes to the satellite distribution and reception. The solution is using a low cost internet IP system to detect and fix any interference to output an error free signal. Lab result show 30-40% error resilience for bit error, burst loss with a very low connection requirement.
The joining of low cost internet and Satellite is a perfect match and is different than any solution in the market The presentation will explain the system major components, Lab results and field test result.
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Live, Uncompressed Video in the Cloud
Evan Statton - AWS
Media companies working with live uncompressed video over IP have been very successful with on-premises ST 2110 solutions interoperating between many vendors. However, the cloud is a very different environment than a single-tenant, private broadcast plant. The lack of available solutions led AMWA to issue its “User Requirements for High Value, Low Latency, Live Video Production on Public Cloud”. The Cloud Digital Interface (CDI) SDK has been developed to provide reliable, low-latency, uncompressed video frame sharing as well as audio and metadata between services in the cloud. This session takes a look at CDI’s technical approach and API, as well as how it facilitates multi-vendor interoperable transport of uncompressed video in real time (or faster than real time). We then discuss the open source nature of the technology, which allows for additional implementations & extensions to be developed.
