VSF Upgrades RIST Main Profile With Security, Authentication Functions

The Video Services Forum (VSF) announces the release of Technical Recommendation TR-06-2:2020 entitled “Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) Protocol Specification – Main Profile.” RIST Main Profile builds on top of the low-latency, reliable Internet delivery of RIST Simple Profile (TR-06-01, released in 2018), adding features such as support for in-band data, encryption, authentication, and bandwidth optimization. It also adds support for high bitrate streams, making it possible to use RIST for uncompressed or lightly compressed content.

This new VSF Technical Recommendation is freely available HERE.

Whenever possible, RIST Main Profile is built on top of existing RFCs and Standards to ease implementation. This is especially important for encryption and authentication, since the use of proven, widely implemented technologies greatly improves the security of the solution.

“Main Profile RIST provides critical encryption and security capabilities that work across multiple vendors, enabling high-quality, live video broadcasting using standard Internet connections,” says VSF President Richard Friedel, EVP, Engineering, FOX Television Stations (FTS). “As media companies seek to produce content from an ever multiplying range of new locations, RIST offers a flexible set of capabilities while allowing content to be easily shared across terrestrial and cloud platforms.”

Cobalt, DVEO, Evertz, Net Insight, Nevion, QVidium, VideoFlow, and Zixi participated in a successful demonstration of Main Profile at IBC 2019. This demo was followed by an in-depth interoperability test in February by many of the same vendors, culminating in a live, trans-oceanic demonstration conducted at the VidTrans 2020 conference (February 25-27) at the Marina Del Rey Marriott, Los Angeles, CA.

“Because RIST is both open-spec and open-source, literally any organization can implement a compatible solution,” says Wes Simpson, President, Telecom Product Consulting and co-chair of the RIST Activity Group within the VSF. “The new features of RIST Main Profile provide an unmatched set of capabilities that give users the ability to operate and control every stream with unprecedented reliability, flexibility, and security.”

The VSF RIST Activity Group continues to work on adding functionality to RIST. Work on the new Enhanced Profile has started, to bring in features including auto-configuration, adaptive encoding, support for satellite links, and others.