Timing synchronization measurement on site for IP-based televised production and broadcasting systems
Overview
With the development of ultra-high-definition technology in the television broadcasting industry, the demand for ultra-high-definition and new video services has been emerging and increasing. Due to the bottleneck of SDI technology, traditional televised production and broadcasting systems are unable to support many applications which restrict the development of ultra-high-definition industry. However, ICT related technologies such as IP, cloud computing, IoT, 5G, AI, etc have growing rapidly. It has improved the traditional systems with ICT technology, the production efficiency of richer programs, and the user experience, and also reduces the making cost. It becomes the common sense in the industry with such considering factors. Among these, the priority task to replace the SDI-based technology architecture with IP-based architecture of ICT technology in the televised production and broadcasting systems through IP technology.
Timing synchronization is the most basic and strict technical point in the systems. The traditional systems use analog black burst (BB) signals, high-definition digital synchronization signals, high-definition Tri-level sync signals to achieve frame alignment, so as to ensure the pictures and sound are synchronized. IP-based systems also need to add synchronization reference signals to synchronize the transmission of video and audio data streams. IP is the product of Internet. There has been one synchronous technology much earlier in the Internet. It is IEEE1588 profile, a synchronous technology on basis of network master-slave mode, which is used to transmit timing information in IP networks, to synchronize the time and frequency of all devices in the networks. At the same time, in order to meet the synchronization requirements of the IP-based systems, SMPTE has specially launched the ST2059-2 clock standards on the basis of IEEE1588 profile. This standard not only specifies the operation configuration parameters and attachment metadata for professional broadcasting environment, but also puts forward the index requirements that the network needs to meet.
To meet such test requirement in IP-based televised production and broadcasting systems, XGTime has launched the corresponding solutions and conducts on-site testing based on practical networks.
Test diagram
