VITEC Spotlights 4K IPTV Workflow With Sony, Keeps HD in Mind

At NAB 2014, VITEC announced a partnership with Sony and offered a live demonstration of its new end-to-end 4K IPTV solution for real-time, multicast distribution of Ultra HD video at the Sony booth.

VITEC’s MGES-6000 Blade encoder ingests 4K content from professional 4K cameras via four HD-SDI ports and encodes and streams it over IP. Its turnkey 4K solution also includes a 4K desktop player with SDK that can be integrated into third-party applications for viewing 4K content on desktops, laptops, and embedded-media platforms.

“While 4K content is slow to penetrate the consumer market, the use of 4K cameras in live sports events as well as in high-profile enterprise applications is growing rapidly,” says Mark D’Addio, VP of business development and emerging markets, VITEC. “VITEC’s IPTV solution for ingest and streaming of 4K content over standard networks enables organizations to distribute 4K footage cost-effectively, using multicast directly to viewers’ screens and to public-area 4K TV monitors.”

The 100%-hardware 4K-encoding and -streaming solution delivers high-level video quality in low delay and is intended to facilitate distribution of 4K content in sports venues.

However, 4K is not at the top of most venues’ to-do lists. It may be interesting for stadiums, but the focus of VITEC’s current IPTV clients remains squarely on HD.

VITEC recently completed a project with the Green Bay Packers, installing encoders and approximately 500 set-top boxes throughout Lambeau Field to stream content on game days. Keeping latency low, says D’Addio, was of chief importance to the project.

“The latency is important because, [if] you’re watching a live event and you’re watching it on the screen — maybe in the suite or around the stadium — you don’t want to have a lot of delay,” says D’Addio. “We have a lot of products that have very low delay; we’re getting more and more into that. … We’re pretty excited about the way this is going.”