Mediatech (International) Ltd.

SMPTE IP/IT Technologies Workshop
May 22, 2015 Hong Kong

May 22, 2015

SMPTE IP/IT Technologies Workshop
Hong Kong Design Institute - 22 May, 2015 Hong Kong

Mediatech (International) Limited is proud to announce its sponsorship of the SMPTE IP/IT Technologies Workshop, held on May 22nd 2016 at the auditorium of the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI). Representatives from leading multiscreen developer Elemental Technologies and media transport veterans Net Insight were invited by Mediatech to present talks about the future of broadcasting.

After a welcoming speech by SMPTE Asia Pacific Governor K.L. Lam and Hong Kong Section Chair Wicky Law, Mr. Mark Cousins, Elemental Technologies Manager of Professional Services for the Asia Pacific Region, gave his presentation: “Moving Up to UHDTV: What You Need to Know”.

Mark began his presentation with an overview of UHDTV, which included a brief technical outline of the current standards, as well as projects underway that will utilize the format. Mark went on to address the ongoing considerations of UHDTV with relation to Rec. 2020, on aspects such as chroma subsampling, bit depth and colour space. Mark described the visual constraints surrounding the use of 8-bit colour depth for UHD video and also advised against the use of 4:2:0 chroma subsampling for higher quality video on UHD displays. Mark then presented an example for a typical Live UHDTV workflow, touching upon the SMPTE 425M standard and its different mapping modes that permits uncompressed 2160/50p UHD signals to be carried over 3G-SDI. Mark closed his presentation reflecting on the future direction of UHDTV, where he foresees this technology will be applied, and how it may evolve over time.

During the intermission, guests were invited to take a look at the technical demo supplied and set up by Mediatech, which included a basic playout system that provided input to an Elemental Live Encoder and subsequently into a wireless router. Guests were encouraged to use their own mobile devices to watch the stream by connecting to the wireless access point, simulating multiscreen delivery. The content was also fed across a pair of Net Insight Nimbra 680s, and a pair of Net Insight VA210s to showcase Net Insight’s service-oriented video transport.

Mr. Chong Kok Leong, Net Insight AB Director of Sales for the Asia Pacific Region then took the floor to present his topic: “Media Transport of Today and Tomorrow”.

Mr. Chong began with a brief introduction of Net Insight and the services they provide to the broadcast and media market. Mr. Chong spoke on how video consumption had changed since the days of linear programming, and presented data on recent market trends that showed how the shift was giving rise to the need for a converged IP-based infrastructure. Mr. Chong identified live content as simultaneously one of the most lucrative sources of revenue - as well as potentially the most expensive in terms of CAPEX, stressing the importance for investing in cost-efficient solutions for remote production. Mr. Chong next introduced the Net Insight Media Switch Routers (MSR) platform, a suite of appliances specializing in high quality video transport over managed networks. The MSR platform allows an operator to provision a dedicated service pipeline for media transport over the managed network, which provides guaranteed bandwidth at a fixed latency. The service pipeline is also able to dynamically reroute itself on the network in the case of network interruption. Mr. Chong also introduced the Video Appliances (VA) platform, a series of appliances specialized for live content contribution over the internet.

Following both presentations, guests were invited to ask questions. Mr. Raymond Mo of Mediatech then gave the closing speech, which marked the official end to the workshop.