Aperi showcases native IP live remote production in 4K at EURO 2016 match
In cooperation with UEFA, Aperi Corporation, a pioneer in bringing software-based realtime IP media processing to live production and networking, showcased its industry-first native IP live production for Saturday’s EURO 2016 quarter-final match between Germany and Italy. The Aperi platform enabled remote production in 4K from the IBC Centre in Porte de Versailles to the match in Bordeaux – a distance of more than 600 kilometres.
“We agreed on the project at NAB 2016 and were able to pull this off in less than six weeks of development and in close cooperation between partners,” said Aperi CEO Joop Janssen. “This event shows the capabilities of the Aperi platform and its powerful software-driven middleware. New applications can be developed in record time, which has tremendous implications for live production and for spinning functions up or down on demand.”
Alongside partners Barco-Silex providing the VC-2 codec IP core, Vidi for control management and Orange’s redundant 10GbE fibre connections, Aperi’s native-IP platform performed all functions in realtime software and with very low latency. Four 4K cameras were used and ‘clean’ switched (switched-timed) at the stadium from the control surface in the IBC. In addition to two 4K VC-2 encoded live feeds @ 3Gbps, a multiview mosaic feed in HD 1080i50 and a Ravenna IP audio stream, were fed back to the IBC.
“The fact that from the output of the cameras to the input of a display at the other end you manage all live production audio and video functions natively in the IP packet domain gives the host broadcaster tremendous flexibility and economies when covering a multi-site (potentially pan-European) live event like the UEFA EURO 2016 championships,” said Janssen. “This is something that has not been possible with current part-SDI/baseband remote production solutions.
“Aperi’s solution is so powerful that up to 20 camera feeds can be VC-2 encoded inside a 1RU box,” continued Janssen. “The clean-switching, multiviewer, Ravenna audio trunking and RTP encapsulation (SMPTE 2022-6,7 or TR-03) is included in a 2nd 1RU box at the stadium. In the IBC you need only 1RU to perform all the decoding and de-capsulation function,” he said.
Aperi has coined the term ‘Live IP Media Function Virtualisation”’ (MFV) to describe its virtualised platform, which offers instant deployment by starting and stopping software applications using lightweight virtual machines.
Aperi was founded in 2013, with the vision of bringing software-defined, realtime media processing closely integrated with non-blocking native-IP switch fabric to live media content production. Aperi’s open and standards-based solutions bring data centre robustness, agility and economics to the most mission-critical live sports, entertainment and news programme productions in the world.
The team comprises a combination of innovative cloud computing and networking technical experts and broadcast video industry veterans. Their track record spans decades of innovations and worldwide quality product development in the live broadcast media, transport and IT sectors.