IP Infrastructure as the ‘Lubricating Factor’: Inside Fox and ABC’s Move to IP

The age of IP for broadcast may not yet have arrived, but the wheels of change are most certainly in motion. More and more broadcasters — notably ABC, Fox, NBC Sports Group — are looking to transition their live-broadcast environments from SDI-based to IP-based technology. With the move to IP comes a bevy of challenges and opportunities — on both the technological and the business side — as well as questions on the timing of the transition, user training, reasonable expectations, and the impact on broadcast-technology vendors. However, one thing is clear: the benefits of IP are undeniable.

Thomas Edwards

Thomas Edwards

“IP is the lubricating technology,” said Thomas Edwards, VP, engineering and development, Fox NE&O, during a session produced by Devoncroft at this month’s NAB New York Show. “It allows us to move things around faster and more flexibly. It means we can combine signals together. It means we can have multiple different formats. We can have standard dynamic range and high dynamic range. It means we can bring channels up and bring channels down. We can move the processing of our video to different places around our plant as necessary. We can move it from private cloud to public cloud and back again. And we can automate all of that. We can pull back analytics based on all the metrics we’re pulling back from all of this, so we know what’s going on. It’s what makes everything that we do a little bit easier.”

Fox Began With Remote Production
In Fox’s case, the transition to IP started with remote production when Fox Sports was looking to launch a new set of mobile units to cover U.S. Open golf (which it acquired the rights to in 2015). The massive I/O requirements of one of the largest productions on the annual sports calendar made an SDI router unviable in these new mobile units.

“For Fox Sports, it was a density issue,” says Edwards. “They could build an IP-routed truck with much larger capability than they could an SDI-routed truck. So something the size of 4,000×4,000 that you’d find only in a large network center, they can now put in a truck.”

Following the launch of the new mobile units — Game Creek Video’s Encore is the dedicated truck — Fox Sports opted to install an IP-based router in its network-operations center to handle all its monitoring. Air-critical applications are still on the previously installed SDI router, but Fox’s monitoring is 100% IP, thanks to the IP router and IP multiviewer.

“As we get comfortable with that],” said Edwards, “we can begin moving air-critical paths over [to the IP router].”

ABC Began With Linear Broadcast
Last year, Disney/ABC Television Group transitioned its linear-broadcast operations (playout, delivery, and network operations) to a unified IP/cloud architecture using Imagine Communications’ VersioCloud platform (powered by Zenium software-defined workflow management).

Todd Donovan

Todd Donovan

“The basic concept behind the ABC project was, we needed to reinvent the broadcast center,” said Todd Donovan, then SVP, engineering, Disney/ABC Television Group (he departed the company this month). “We had taken several steps immediately in preparation for the analog shutoff and for high definition. But none of those solutions were necessarily permanent or perfect; they were just meant to get across the goal line. So the mission that the leadership came up with was, we’re not just going to do more of the same; we’re going to assemble a great team … and take it in a radical new direction.

“If we were going to do cloud-based playback, we weren’t going to put it on top of an SDI router,” he continued. “That just seemed really backwards. The trick was finding the right infrastructure that was consistent with where we wanted to go. And IP let us do what SDI was never going to let us do.”

Since the launch of its IP/cloud-based architecture, ABC has already seen a variety of benefits in real-world scenarios. For example, last fall, Good Morning America was celebrating its 40th anniversary, and the creative team inquired about launching a GMA channel for one week. ABC’s IP infrastructure allowed this to be accomplished at a fraction of the effort that would have been required previously.

“Obviously, they had to produce the show, but we had no additional work to do in the broadcast center,” Donovan explained. “Between the way we’re staffed and the use of our technology, it just happened. And that was not a position we would have been in previously. We’re actually a smaller broadcast center now, so we’ve made ourselves more efficient, more streamlined, while also taking on incremental work. The technology has made that happen. It’s a home run.”

Donovan also cited the recent launch of a Disney Channel original-movies channel that ran temporarily on certain partnered MVPDs. This was accomplished by spinning up the channel on ABC’s existing IP infrastructure, rather than deploying additional resources — as would have been required in the past.

Are Broadcast Vendors Ready for IP?
Although broadcasters are faced with tough decisions in the move to IP, vendors face equal, if not more substantial challenges. As the demand for virtualized software/IP solutions rises and hardware becomes less central, broadcast vendors must rethink their business models while keeping up with rapidly changing technology.

“I think people have come to the conclusion … that you better have something to say about cloud and virtual and IP, because it’s not going to be a very long meeting if you bring in the guy who knows how to bend the sheet metal and [do] the arc welding,” said Donovan. “We’re not interested in that as much anymore.”

However, vendors have seen the writing on the wall and are rapidly adjusting their product offerings to serve the growing IP-solutions market.

“About a year ago at the SMPTE conference,” said Edwards, “I made a prediction that, if you’re a broadcast vendor and you don’t have a virtualized software IP-based solution on your roadmap, you’ll be out of business by 2020.

“At IBC this year,” he continued, “I realized that some vendors are ahead of that schedule significantly. I’m pleasantly surprised how fast it’s all coming together. Don’t get me wrong: these are first-gen products that we’re seeing right now, and I’ve not put them through the torture test in my lab yet. Certainly, it’ll take a year or two to perfect all of this. But, wow, it’s coming together faster than even I could have imagined.”

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