Description

IP networking is the future of broadcast plants. In contrast with traditional SDI cabling, IP offers significant benefits of scale, flexibility, and economy. However, the transition of live broadcast workflows to IP has been slow. Hurdles include cost, uncertainty regarding reliability, lack of trained personnel to install and maintain these networks, and relative immaturity of solutions. Several broadcasters have begun the IP transition already; all content companies, including broadcasters, Pay TV operators, post-production facilities, and so forth are seriously beginning to explore IP-fication. IP provides significant benefits such as new topologies, ease of capacity expansion, and flexibility of upgrades and reconfiguration. These benefits more than compensate for upfront disruption and expense. Vendors such as Arista Networks, Cisco Systems, and Nevion are leading the way in IP-fication products and solutions. Every component vendor in the ecosystem including top-tier providers such as Belden (including Grass Valley), Ericsson, Evertz, Harmonic, and Imagine Communications are moving swiftly towards incorporating support for IP networking in their workflow orchestration solutions as well as individual processing components.