Is the Technology Ready Yet for Live Standards Conversion in the Cloud?

Broadcasters and media companies engaged in live international content distribution are familiar with the need for standards conversion.?Multiple broadcast frame rates and formats are in use throughout the world, and with an ever growing number of standards to support in mobile and streaming services, high quality live standards conversion is an essential part of many businesses.

The prevailing hardware model has been successively refined to the point of motion compensated HD standards conversion available in compact 1U and 2U form factors or as single modular cards for commonly available infrastructure racks.?A wide variety of workflow tools have been added to these converters including audio shuffling and routing, high dynamic range and wide colour gamut mapping, picture enhancement tools, video/audio delay compensation, and metadata management.

Connection and control of hardware standards converters is easy.?Multiple SDI and/or SFP input/output connectors enable the unit to be connected to the facility router, and settings can easily be modified via front panel buttons or a web interface.?A video confidence monitor on the front panel enables the operator to make a quick check of continuity, and audio headphones sockets enable audio quick checks.?Remote operation via a control interface or SNMP allows the unit status to be visible at all times, including feeding into automated control and monitoring systems which can raise alarms if any problems arise.

The workflow complexity of attempting to use an on-premise converter within a live cloud-based workflow is daunting enough, even before the costs are considered.?Therefore, access to a software-based standards converter service in a cloud environment is a tempting prospect for broadcasters. Capital expenditure on physical hardware can be replaced with operating expenditure which is only charged when the conversion is needed.?A cloud-based converter can be accessed from any location within the broadcaster’s network as physical content delivery via BNCs is replaced by logical signal flow into software input/output processes.?

However, here we encounter our first challenge. The SDI signal is now streamed data, wherein audio, video and metadata are multiplexed within a transport stream, controlled by a streaming service protocol.?The essence (audio and video) may be compressed and therefore need to be decoded before the standards conversion can be applied, and re-encoded on the output.?This implies the availability of the appropriate codecs and sufficient processing resource for transcoding.

Our next challenge arises when monitoring the inputs and outputs to the converter.?Since the operator will not be co-located with the equipment, proxy audio and video signals needs to be delivered to a control room, with attendant issues of available bandwidth, security and latency.

The biggest technical challenge is the decomposition of the complex motion compensated processes into a new architecture which can take advantage of the parallel processing capabilities offered by cloud instances.? Many years of refinement have led to highly efficient processing capabilities in hardware converters, but how do we replicate high quality real-time performance in software-only solutions??It’s tempting to use GPUs but cost and availability are an issue in rapid deployment services.

However, implementation in software can also bring advantages.?As new standards and requirements emerge, modifications can be deployed in prototype (test) services which enable easier switchover into the live transmission path.?The hardware model required removing the converter from use while firmware upgrades were made, whereas a test software service can run in parallel to the main path.

Rental models become much easier in software.?Provision of rental hardware for live events could become problematic if the broadcaster had not planned far enough ahead or had unexpected breakdown of equipment close to a major event.? Since software services can be spun up on cloud processing platforms at short notice, additional event provision becomes more feasible.

Paola Hobson | InSync Technology Ltd | Petersfield, United Kingdom