Eurovision Services Leverages SRT Protocol for New IP Delivery Solution

Eurovision Services has launched a new line of services specifically tailored to distributing live broadcast-quality video over the public internet using the open-source SRT protocol. After successfully testing its two new SRT gateways as part of a proof of concept for remote production earlier this year, Eurovision Services is now launching commercial services offering IP delivery of live broadcast-quality video using SRT for permanent or occasional use as an alternative to satellite and fiber.

The company’s two new SRT gateways are at the heart of the new services, which can be used to route transmissions from the Eurovision Global Fiber Network (FiNE) over public internet to reach customers anywhere in the world with internet access. The new solutions include two different service levels, each with two different levels of redundancy:

• Eurovision Stratus
  • Eurovision Stratus delivers primary and secondary signals from a single source over the public internet via two geographically separate SRT gateways for a customer to decode using their own equipment with parameters (URL and passphrase) provided in a synopsis sent by e-mail. An additional layer of redundancy can be made available using a second Eurovision Services source, in which case the customer receives two primary and two secondary signals.
• Eurovision Cirrus
  • With Eurovision Cirrus, Eurovision Services supplies the terminal equipment for the customer premises so that it can offer a fully-managed, end-to-end service on equipment that it has already tested and validated for receiving SRT signals. Eurovision Cirrus offers the same levels of redundancy with primary and secondary signals received from the two Eurovision Services SRT gateways, which can be doubled by adding an extra source signal.

Later this year, Eurovision Services will launching a third new SRT service using a broadcast receiver with a permanent management connection to the Eurovision FiNE network for even better integration.

Eurovision Services was an early supporter of SRT, having joined the SRT Alliance back in 2017 when it consisted of just 35 organizations. Just over a year ago, Eurovision Services was certified “SRT ready” by the alliance after developing its SRT gateway. In the meantime SRT has become a de-facto industry standard and the SRT Alliance now comprises over 450 organizations, with 85 SRT-ready solutions available on the market.

The SRT protocol offers benefits such as high security with AES 256-bit encryption, high reliability and low latency. For its new services, Eurovision Services complements these benefits with its decades of experience in transporting live broadcast-quality video to offer unparalleled accessibility thanks to the 250 points of presence on the Eurovision Global Network, as well as the redundancy provided by its two high-capacity SRT server farms.

“The move to IP delivery was already under way, but the Covid-19 pandemic has increased its pace exponentially,” explains Michele Gosetti, Head of Global Sales & Marketing, Eurovision Services. “After deploying Audio over IP last year and successfully testing our SRT gateways earlier this year as part of a complete remote production proof of concept, I’m delighted that we have been able to set up and deliver these new services in a matter of months. It will help us to meet demand that is already there from our customers and I see great potential for these new services to open up a new, cost-effective solution for permanent channel distribution, as well as to reach areas where satellite coverage is not available and fiber links are prohibitively expensive.”