Xilinx accelerates broadcast industry adoption of video over IP


Xilinx announced the launch of its SMPTE 2022-5/-6
intellectual property core, the company’s newest building block for broadcast
equipment developers delivering the internet protocol (IP) -based systems
needed to cut the high cost of transporting raw, high-bit video from remote
events, to studios, to post editing houses, and other points along the
production process.


The core brings Forward Error Correction (FEC) for video
over IP to Xilinx’s Broadcast Real-Time Video Engine Targeted Design Platform
so developers can quickly build flexible, high-bandwidth systems capable of
recovering IP packets lost to network transmission errors and ensure the
picture-perfect quality of uncompressed, full bandwidth professional video.


“The ability of Field Programmable Gate Arrays
(FPGAs) to bridge broadcast and communications domains and perform real-time
video processing in a highly integrated fashion ultimately leads to
dramatically reduced capital expenditures and operating expenses for the
broadcast industry,” said Robert Green, senior manager, Broadcast Business
at Xilinx.


“Now that video can be reliably delivered over 10
Gbps Ethernet (10 GbE), the convergence of broadcast and telecommunications
will, for example, lead to far fewer broadcast trucks and eliminate miles of
cable at events such as NASCAR and World Cup Football,” Green added.


The SMPTE 2022-5/-6 video networking standard defines a
transport protocol for the carriage of real-time, non-piecewise constant,
variable bit rate (VBR) MPEG-2 Transport Streams over IP networks.


The capability to robustly support multiple, uncompressed
High-Definition (HD) and 3D high-resolution video streams encapsulated in SMPTE
2022-5/-6 Ethernet IP packet format is critical to the deployment of a new
generation of broadcast equipment that will eventually replace many of the
portable infrastructures that support outside live broadcast and remote
production.


With this announcement, Xilinx brings FEC functionality to its SMPTE 2022-6
intellectual property core first announced at NAB 2011, to enable the recovery
of video data lost to network transmission errors.  


“SMPTE 2022 and the Xilinx 10 Gbps video over IP
technology will make equipment available to me so I can focus on doing my job
and not worry about delays between production steps to physically transport
video tapes or HDD from place to place,” said Matthew Miller, freelance
video editor and head of Mad Capper Studios whose production credits include
“Project Runway,” “Ancient Aliens,” “America’s Next
Top Model,” and many others.


Having the ability to remove delays in getting content to
the production team through dailies or for offline editing and color grading,
as well as using high-performance, compute-intensive  platforms based on
Xilinx FPGAs for real-time video processing, compression and modulation, means
that high quality content can be captured, processed and delivered faster than
ever before.


The inherent flexibility of FPGAs as compared with
Applications Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and Application Specific Standard
Products (ASSPs) means that equipment can quickly be adapted to changing
standards and have longer life in the field after installation.


FPGAs also reduce cost for SMPTE 2022-5/-6 systems
through single-chip integration of other real-time video, audio and data
processing functions, allowing for the quick adoption and deployment of 10 GbE
video over IP for city-to-city or stadium-to-studio wide area networks (WANs).


Deployable today for designs targeting the Virtex-6 FPGA
family, system integration, lower bill of materials and system bandwidth can be
further enhanced with the new 28nm Kintex-7 FPGAs, which are available with up
to 32 high-speed GTX transceivers capable of supporting 12.5 Gbps line rates
for an increase of 2x the system bandwidth.


“Time-to-market is very critical for our competitive
position in the industry,” said Andrew Osmond, vice president of
Engineering, Nevion USA. “By using Xilinx FPGAs in conjunction with the
Broadcast Real-Time Video Engine Design Platform we are able to push our
VideoIPath video services solutions into 10 GbE and beyond with the highest
quality product and the lowest latency for live video transmission and
production.”


The Broadcast Real-Time Video Engine incorporates Xilinx
video and image processing intellectual property cores that can be integrated
using the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA Broadcast Connectivity Kits.


The kits’ FPGA mezzanine card (FMC) connectors allow
designers to quickly evaluate and integrate many different video interfaces
such as SD/HD/3G-SDI, AES3 audio, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, 10 GbE for SMPTE
2022-5/-6 video over IP and other interfaces into broadcast applications
needing real-time video performance, such as breaking news, live events and
sports coverage.


By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]