1. Ethernet AVB: The next step in broadcast infrastructures Jan Eveleens, CEO jan.eveleens@axon.tv www.axon.tv Professional Networked Media

2. Live Production as we know it

3. Key challenges in current infrastructures  (lack of) flexibility  Topology (central router)  Supporting new standards  Cabling  Specific for our industry  Dedicated  one cable per signal (type)  Uni-directional  A LOT……

4. A typical example  Green-field installation (UK):  157 x Analog audio distribution amplifiers  78 x Digital audio distribution amplifiers  410 x (!) Analog CVBS distribution amplifiers  Mostly for reference distribution  1018 x (!) Digital video (SDI) distribution amplifiers  Total required rackspace:  93 x 4RU frames = 372 RU  approx. 10 x full-height 19” Racks !!!  Many, many kilometers of coax cable, thousands of BNC connectors  And this just for reference and signal distribution……..

5. Live Production infrastructures: the next wave ! Composite SDI HD-SDI 3 Gbps Ethernet today

6. Why going Ethernet in Live Production (1) ?  Required link speed available now  and affordable: A 10Gbps ethernet port is already cheaper than a 3Gbps SDI I/O  Sheer size of ethernet industry drives innovation and cost erosion  Ethernet switch market > $20B (10Gbps switch market already > $10B)  Compare this to: total SDI router market: ~ $300M…… or even total broadcast equipment market: ~$16B.  Another interesting datapoint: revenu of Cisco (2012): $46B…. Mbps

7. Strong Ethernet roadmap going forward  Ethernet (backbone) link speed expected to hit 1 Tbps (!) in the next decade !!

8. Why going Ethernet in Live Production (2) ?  Allows distributed architectures  Full bi-directional/duplex connections  Multiple (different) signals multiplexed/transported on one cable  Video, audio, (meta) data, control, monitoring, etc  Also supports standard ‘legacy’ traffice (files, emails, etc)  Drastically reduce cabling  Save costs (cables, connectors, install), space and weight (!)

9. SDI 9 Central reference with distribution Central reference with distribution A central router Many cables, often in big parallel bundles Many cables, often in big parallel bundles Already quite some Ethernet equipment

10. AVB 10

11. AVB 11 A distributed router Central reference With no additional distribution Central reference With no additional distribution

12. How to make Ethernet work for real-time applications 12 Audio Video Bridging (AVB) Bandwidth Reservation Traffic Shaping Configuration Time Synchronization

13. What are the key AVB standards ?  The key standards for AVB are:  IEEE 802.1BA: Audio Video Bridging Systems  IEEE 802.1AS: Timing and Synchronization for Time- Sensitive Applications (gPTP),  IEEE 802.1Qat: Stream Reservation Protocol (SRP),  IEEE 802.1Qav: Forwarding and Queuing for Time-Sensitive Streams (FQTSS)  IEEE 1722: AVB payload transport layer protocol.  IEEE 1722.1: AVB discovery, enumeration & control protocol 13

14. Typical characteristics of an AVB network  All nodes are fully synchronised to a (very stable) network clock  Allows very accurate recovery of media clocks  SDI can be recovered within broadcast quality jitter specifications  Audio clock can be recovered maintaining phase relation  Low latency: typically 2ms overall network delay  Allows for complex/distributed networks (multiple hops)  The network self-manages bandwidth reservation such that links will never get overcommitted and/or packets are dropped  Uses multi-cast, so only one copy of each active source on any given link or backbone 14

15. What can be transported with AVB ? The following elements are part of IEEE 1722 transport protocol:  PCM audio in various sample rates  SDI video (with embedded video and audio)  Raw, uncompressed video  1080p video at ~2Gbps (!)  Time-sensitive data (eg ancillarily or metadata)  IEEE 1394 formats  So this also enables transport of compressed (MPEG-TS) streams  RTP formats 15

16. A very important element: interoperability 16 Ensuring that AVB nodes talk to AVB nodes AVnu Alliance

17. Who/what is AVnu Alliance  The AVnu Alliance is an industry forum dedicated to the advancement of professional-quality audio video by promoting the adoption of Audio Video Bridging (AVB).  The organization creates compliance test procedures and certification processes that ensure interoperability of networked AVB devices.  4 key markets:  Professional Audio  Professional Video  Consumer  Automotive 17

18. Founding Members of the AVnu Alliance 18

19. AVnu Alliance members 19

20. How real is Ethernet AVB ?  100Mbps, 1Gbps,10Gbps and 40Gbps Ethernet AVB switches are shipping  Several professional AVB audio products on the market from several vendors:  Audio processors, audio consoles, speakers, etc  Intercom systems  First broadcast quality AVB video products have started shipping  AVnu certification process is up and running 20

21. Summarising the key benefits of Ethernet - AVB  Based on existing and open standards from a very reputable and succesful standards body (IEEE)  Provides one framework for time-synchronised, real-time transport of video, audio and data  Proven technology that is available now: large professional AVB audio systems being deployed in the field  Interoperability is going to be taken care of: AVnu alliance  Plug-and play : no conflicts or fiddling with IP addresses, etc  Fool-proof: the network is self-managing, it does not rely on the skills of network engineers or a (proprietery) software management layer.  Perfect co-existence (and reserved bandwidth for) with standard IP traffic (eg. control, monitoring, etc) 21

22. Questions ? More info can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Video_Bridging www.avnu.org www.axon.tv