LOS ANGELES—The on-going roll-out of IP connectivity in the broadcast plant is featured in a big way at SMPTE 2017 Technical Conference & Exhibition, with a demonstration of the technology in action.
Paul Briscoe and Luann Linnebar
The IP Showcase was set up in the show’s Centennial Hall. According to Luann Linnebar, Nevion’s director of business development, and one of the SMPTE Conference IP Showcase hosts, the concept for the demonstration had its roots in IP-connected equipment “Plugfests” or compatibility testing performed by a number of equipment manufacturers.
“We brought 50-some companies together in Texas this past August, and tested everything including cameras, microphones, production switchers, ingest, playout servers and routers to prove that a complete television production could be done with IP,” Linnebar said. She added that such IP interoperability testing has been going on for about two years.
“It started with a just handful of companies, and now we’ve grown to more than 50,” she said.
This large equipment package from the latest round of testing was assembled into a complete all-IP television facility and demonstrated in September at IBC 2017 in Amsterdam.
The SMPTE IP-Showcase equipment setup featured gear from multiple vendors.
Paul Briscoe, principal consultant with Television Technology Consulting, and another IP demo host, noted that the SMPTE IP Showcase—although scaled-down from 19 racks at the IBC Show to eight—even included the “theatre” area for IP-related presentations featured at the September conference.
“The only thing we didn’t include was the IP-connected production studio,” he said.
