Follow-up Workshop “Media Production over 5G NPN: Deep dive into protocols"

Vislink highlighted the main critical advantages of an SNPN deployment such as security, constant bandwidth availability, predictable latency, in general non-contention with other users. In contrast, adaptive bitrate is currently used in cellular bonding scenarios to when non-contention cannot be guaranteed. Vislink provided a proof-of-concept to compare 5G and OFDM finding similar latencies with a small (but acceptable) difference between the two. The latency of a cellular bonding system may be of several seconds.

NuLink presented several solutions in which media production devices have been integrated with 5G user equipment to be deployed in private networks. The solutions are integrated with NDI providing different functionalities such as camera/return, teleprompter, return video monitor, intercom, integration of PTZ cameras with joystick control,... Solutions for audio are also available enabling microphone input and headphone output or the integration with loudspeakers.

Qualcomm presented a live 8K production using mmWave. The focus was on the capabilities of mmWave uplink carrier and dual connectivity to achieve peak data rates in the range of Gbps. Qualcomm has been testing different codec configuration options including HEVC/AVC (in the sub-6 commercial bands) and JPEG XS (in mmWave ranges).

NRK did trials with a proprietary solution (VideoXLink) which allows using SRT. NDI 5, which introduces reliable UDP, will be tested in the future alongside the use of prosumer equipment (e.g. smartphones for video mixing).

France TV and Globecast presented a trial using 5G for uplink contribution with two 4K streams at around 35 Mbps. However, very little details on system internals. Different tests are being performed including a single SIM card experiment with HD at 10 Mbps, 4K with six SIM cards to obtain 90 Mbs and 4K with two SIM cards at 35 Mbps.

Ross Video focused on media contribution, streaming and file-based work flows. For remote connected workflows, the presentation highlighted the opportunities around automation of workflows and gathering information and metadata on the actual usage of the equipment, location, configuration,… that could be used to optimize such workflows.

Agile Content presented the two different approaches between “primary production”, involving the production of feeds, with accurate mixing sync and with related processing, bandwidth and storage capacity, and “secondary production” on the field of streaming, personalization, feeds from social networks, segmentation, etc. On “primary production” Agile Content was concentrated on enabling different versions (low-quality-low-latency vs high-quality-higher-latency) that allows new ways of performing mixing from remote locations. For this an open-source protocol, called ElasticFrame, is proposed.

BBC presented research work on contribution transport protocols and the proposal to introduce QUIC-based RTP tunneling for high-quality and low-latency ingest of media over public networks.