Imagine Communications Drives Industry Transition to UHD/4K in Collaboration with Sony’s Networked Media Interface Initiative

[:el]Imagine Communications είναι το νέο όνομα της Harris Broadcast, του τμήματος της Harris το οποίο αποσχίστηκε από την ‘μαμα’ Harris και αποτελεί έναν από τους μεγαλύτερους παρόχους τεχνολογίας στον χώρο του Broadcast και των νέων μέσων.
Η Imagine Communications, ηγέτιδα παγκοσμίως στην υποδομή video και τις λύσεις διαχείρισης ροής εργασιών που υπηρετούν δίκτυα μέσων, τηλεοπτικούς σταθμούς, παρόχους διαδικτυακών και τηλεπικοινωνιακών υπηρεσιών, καθώς και επιχειρηματικές αγορές, ανακοίνωσε τη σημαντική πρωτοβουλία της βιομηχανίας που βρίσκεται εν εξελίξει με τη Sony, για να διευκολυνθούν οι κρίσιμες μεταβάσεις σε Ultra High Definition/4K, αλλά και από τις παραδοσιακές SDI στις βασιζόμενες σε IP υποδομές δικτύου.
“Together with Sony, we are pleased to initiate an industry-wide adoption of the Sony Networked Media Interface, which resolves the issue of managing the distribution of UHD/4K signals in the network infrastructure,” δήλωσε ο Steve Reynolds, CTO της Imagine Communications . “This embrace of Sony’s new innovation is not a result of any single vendor’s unique efforts, but instead is a collaboration of the vendor community to ensure that our media and entertainment customers can transition to the next great leap in video quality enhancements and IP innovation.”
Οι σημερινές studio κάμερες χρησιμοποιούν HD-SDI καλώδιο για την μεταφορά ενός ασυμπίεστου baseband σήματος που μπορεί να απαιτεί έως 3Gb/s. Αφού το UHD παρέχει βελτιώσεις, εν συγκρίσει με το HD, το αυξημένο bandwidth για UHD/4K θα απαιτούσε κανονικά τέσσερα HD-SDI καλώδια και η αναπαραγωγή αυτής της μαζικής καλωδίωσης σε όλη την υποδομή του δικτύου παρουσιάζει σχεδόν απίθανες logistical προκλήσεις. Για την διευθέτηση αυτής της δυσκολίας, η Imagine Communications υποστηρίζει το Networked Media Interface της Sony, ενός νέου AV μέσω IP interface για βασιζόμενη σε IP δικτύωση, το οποίο παρέχει μεταφορά με μικρή καθυστέρηση των UHD/4K video, ήχου, αναφοράς (reference), μεταδεδομένων, αλλά και των δεδομένων ελέγχου.
We are delighted to work closely with Imagine Communications to ensure its end-to-end, market leading portfolio can be a catalyst for fostering and standardizing future architectures that are based on IP, open standards and interoperability,” δήλωσε ο Tetsuya Iwamoto, Γενικός Διευθυντής της Sony. “Sony is committed to being a key driver of this important evolution in our industry.”
Στην καρδιά του, το Networked Media Interface της Sony μπορεί να παρέχει ένα σχεδόν χωρίς απώλειες UHD/4K συμπιεσμένο stream μέσω IP σήματος. Αν και ένα τέτοιο σήμα σε κάποιες των περιπτώσεων μπορεί να απαιτεί έως 12Gb/s, η τεχνολογία της Sony παρέχει ελάχιστη συμπίεση του σήματος ώστε να επιτρέψει τη μεταφορά του σε μία μορφή πακέτου από τυπικά 10 GBEs οπτικής ίνας, ή twisted pair καλωδίωσης.
Η AmyDV, ως VIP Partner της Imagine Communications, διαθέτει και υποστηρίζει τις λύσεις της στην ελληνική αγορά.
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Imagine Communications, a global leader in video infrastructure and workflow management solutions serving the media networks, broadcast stations, on-line and communication service providers and enterprise markets, announced a key industry initiative underway with Sony to enable the critical transitions to Ultra High Definition/4K, and from legacy SDI to IP-based network infrastructures.

“Together with Sony, we are pleased to initiate an industry-wide adoption of the Sony Networked Media Interface, which resolves the issue of managing the distribution of UHD/4K signals in the network infrastructure,” said Steve Reynolds, CTO of Imagine Communications. “This embrace of Sony’s new innovation is not a result of any single vendor’s unique efforts, but instead is a collaboration of the vendor community to ensure that our media and entertainment customers can transition to the next great leap in video quality enhancements and IP innovation.”

Today’s studio cameras use one HD-SDI cable to carry a single uncompressed baseband signal that may require up to 3 Gb/s.  Since UHD provides substantial improvements compared to HD, the increased bandwidth for UHD/4K would normally require four HD-SDI cables, and replicating this massive cabling increase throughout the network infrastructure presents nearly impossible logistical challenges.  To resolve this challenge, Imagine Communications supports Sony’s Networked Media Interface, a new AV over IP interface for IP-based networking that provides low latency transport of UHD/4K video, audio, reference, metadata and control data.

“We are delighted to work closely with Imagine Communications to ensure its end-to-end, market leading portfolio can be a catalyst for fostering and standardizing future architectures that are based on IP, open standards and interoperability,” said Tetsuya Iwamoto, General Manager with Sony. “Sony is committed to being a key driver of this important evolution in our industry.”

At its heart, Sony’s Networked Media Interface can provide a virtually lossless UHD/4K compressed stream over IP signal.  Although such a signal in some cases may require up to 12 Gb/s, Sony’s technology provides minimal compression of the signal to enable it to be carried in packet form over common 10 GBEs fiber or twisted pair cabling.

“The logistical issues associated with the massive bandwidth increase required for UHD/4K are almost forcing the industry to migrate to an IP-centric network environment,” Reynolds added.  “Fortunately, we have enablers that help us in this transition such as Sony’s Networked Media Interface.  Add to that the new capabilities like ubiquitous 10 GBEs and 40 GBE IP switching provided by the reliable IT vendor community and other innovations like Imagine Communications’ recently announced Magellan SDN Orchestrator, and the industry now has complete solutions to enable their gradual transition to UHD/4K.”

The Magellan SDN Orchestrator utilizes dynamic signal-flow connections, managing signal mappings, addressing, and translations between legacy protocols and IP.  This unique, hybrid approach to SDN allows the entire bit flow to be software-defined, providing for managed workflows that support the concurrent coexistence of IP streams, files, and baseband signals.  Media companies can now use familiar workflow processes and controls while also managing on-ramps and off-ramps for baseband over IP via a software control layer, significantly improving the way video is managed throughout broadcast facilities.  This solution also leverages existing data center-grade COTS switching technology that allows media companies to ride the ever-improving cost/performance curve of the IT industry, avoiding the expense of installing proprietary IP switching for the sole purpose of routing baseband over IP.

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