SMPTE 2110 Standard For Professional Media Delivery Over IP Networks
The transmission of uncompressed video data can be accomplished using existing IP-based networks. The challenge is in developing the standards to allow for interoperability among dissimilar systems from different equipment vendors. This has always been an issue since there are many implementations of a system that it becomes difficult to make everything seamlessly work together. The SMPTE ST 2110 Professional Media Over Managed IP Networks suite of standards aims to provide one common internet protocol IP-based mechanism for the professional media industries. This takes the digital content from the studio to the cloud and distribution sites over a managed network that understands a common protocol. We’ll define the SMPTE standards along with AES67–2013 and IEEE 1588–2008 PTPv2 which relate to these standards.
The benefits of SMPTE is intra-facility data transmission. This allows various sites, from studio to data center, to easily share media quickly without relying on other systems. Facilities can rely on one common data center infrastructure e.g. No more separate switches using SDI for professional media and IP switches for more general digital data. The drive towards SMPTE will also lead to more products that offer intelligence to prioritize real-time media streams. That way there will be no need to use separate switching for professional media and general data. Another benefit is support for Ultra HD, including 4K, 8K and high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging, which will be consuming the bandwidth of major backbone networks.
Here are the SMPTE Standards:
SMPTE ST 2022–5, 2022-6
Common name: Uncompressed SDI over IP
Released: 2013
Comment: This standard was originally developed for transporting uncompressed video across long-haul networks, such as contribution feeds from remote sports venues although it is sometimes also used in studios. The standard includes forward error correction (FEC) for protection against short bursts of packet loss.
SMPTE ST 2110–10 (System)
Common Name: Professional Media over IP Networks (System and Timing)
Released: Expected in 2017. (Based on VSF TR-03)
Comment: This standard is primarily for in-studio use and forms the foundation of the 2110 series of standards. A variety of other standards in the 2110 series are being drafted to provide detailed specifications on individual media types, such as uncompressed video, uncompressed multi-channel audio, VANC data, etc.
SMPTE ST 2110–20 (Video)
Common Name: Professional Media over IP — Uncompressed Active Video
Released: Expected in 2017
Comment: Primarily for use inside the production facility. Uncompressed, raw pixel data is inserted directly into RTP packets. Carries only the active pixels in a video image. Can transport HDR, WCG, SD, HD, UHD-1, UHD-2, etc. Does not include transport of audio or ancillary data.
SMPTE ST 2110–21 (Video Timing)
Common Name: Professional Media over IP — Timing Model for Uncompressed Active Video
Released: Expected in 2017
Comment: For in-studio use. This standard defines the allowed amounts of variability in packet stream delivery rates for ST 2110–20 senders. Three different models are currently proposed and these models are especially important in buffer management.
SMPTE ST 2110–30 (Audio)
Common Name: Professional Media over IP Networks — PCM Digital Audio
Released: Expected in 2017 (Derived from AES67)
Comment: Provides a common, interoperable format for audio transport. This has been implemented (as AES67) by a large number of device and system manufacturers. Allows fine-grained synchronization between multiple audio channels to preserve sound-field integrity and maintain stereo audio phase relationships.
SMPTE ST 2110–40 (Ancillary)
Common Name: Professional Media over IP Networks — Ancillary Data
Released: Expected in 2017
Comment: Based on an IETF draft document draft-ietf-payload-rtp-ancillary which is, in turn, based on SMPTE ST 291–1. This ST 291–1 ancillary data for SDI is converted into IT packets.
IETF RFC 4566 (SDP)
Common Name: SDP — Session Description Protocol
Released: 2006
SDP are text files supplied by senders to give receivers the information they need to properly connect to and identify IP video streams. Information includes IP addresses, UDP port numbers, RTP types, clock identifiers, media sampling/channels, etc. As text files, they are human readable, not just machine readable.
AMWA — NMOS
Common Name: NMOS — Networked Media Open Specifications
Released: Ongoing (releases as needed)
Comment: Provides a way for devices to register themselves either with a central registry or on an ad-hoc basis; discover other devices in the network; establish connections between devices; provide identity information about and within streams; and to manage timing relationships between streams.
IEEE 1588–2008
Common Name: PTP — Precision Time Protocol ver. 2
Released: 2008
Comment: Part of the IP Studio Network Infrastructure and has applications outside the broadcast community. This standard distributes accurate (within 1 microsecond) clock to video, audio and other devices to permit synchronization between sources, processors and receivers.
AES67
Provides interoperability with Layer 2 technologies, like Audio Video Bridging (AVB), and interoperability between previously competing networked audio systems and long-term network interoperation between systems.
In addition we also have:
IETF RFC 4175 — Payload Format for Uncompressed Video.
SMPTE 291 — Ancillary Data Packet and Space Formatting.
A common data infrastructure that allows the separate transmission of video, audio and metadata (ancillary data) as needed can be attained with IP networks. It replicates the existing SDI networks but supports multiple streams. SMPTE 2110 takes the video/audio data apart. It can transport video on one stream, audio on another stream and metadata on yet other streams. It no longer requires the burden of a full SDI transmission and can simplify the work done. An example is taking audio and sending them off independently to a processing sub-system, without all the burden of video overhead in SDI. Another example is taking a closed-captioned stream and sending it to a service in the Cloud over IP, and the cloud service could translate it to many languages and send the resulting caption and audio streams back for multi-language program integration. This allows Big Media to build more efficient and flexible networks that are also interoperable with each other.
For more information please visit the SMPTE website:
Suggested Reading:
https://www.displaydaily.com/article/display-daily/is-video-over-ip-ready-for-nab-and-infocomm
