Reliable UDP (RUDP): The Next Big Streaming Protocol?

Those who have had a little experience will probably have heard of TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol). They are transport protocols that run over IP links, and they define two different ways to send data from one point to another over an IP network path. TCP running over IP is written TCP/IP; UDP in the same format is UDP/IP.

TCP has a set of instructions that ensures that each packet of data gets to its recipient. It is comparable to recorded delivery in its most basic form. However, while it seems obvious at first that "making sure the message gets there" is paramount when sending something to someone else, there are a few extra considerations that must be noted. If a network link using TCP/IP notices that a packet has arrived out of sequence, then TCP stops the transmission, discards anything from the out-of-sequence packet forward, sends a "go back to where it went wrong" message, and starts the transmission again.

If you have all the time in the world, this is fine. So for transferring my salary information from my company to me, I frankly don't care if this takes a microsecond or an hour, I want it done right. TCP is fantastic for that.

In a video-centric service model, however, there is simply so much data that if a few packets don't make it over the link there are situations where I would rather skip those packets and carry on with the overall flow of the video than get every detail of the original source. Our brain can imagine the skipped bits of the video for us as long as it's not distracted by jerky audio and stop-motion video. In these circumstances, having an option to just send as much data from one end of the link to the other in a timely fashion, regardless of how much gets through accurately, is clearly desirable.

It is for this type of application that UDP is optimal. If a packet seems not to have arrived, then the recipient waits a few moments to see if it does arrive -- potentially right up to the moment when the viewer needs to see that block of video -- and if the buffer gets to the point where the missing packet should be, then it simply carries on, and the application skips the point where the missing data is, carrying on to the next packet and maintaining the time base of the video. You may see a flicker or some artifacting, but the moment passes almost instantly and more than likely your brain will fill the gap.

If this error happens under TCP then it can take TCP upward of 3 seconds to renegotiate for the sequence to restart from the missing point, discarding all the subsequent data, which must be requeued to be sent again. Just one lost packet can cause an entire "window" of TCP data to be re-sent. That can be a considerable amount of data, particularly when the link is known as a Long Fat Network link (LFN or eLeFaNt; it's true -- Google it!).

All this adds overhead to the network and to the operations of both computers using that link, as the CPU and network card's processing units have to manage all the retransmission and sync between the applications and these components.

For this reason HTTP (which is always a TCP transfer) generally introduces startup delays and playback latency, as the media players need to buffer more than 3 seconds of playback to manage any lost packets.

Indeed, TCP is very sensitive to something called window size, and knowing that very few of you ever will have adjusted the window size of your contribution feeds as you set up for your live Flash Streaming encode, I can estimate that all but those same very few have been wasting available capacity in your network links. You may not care. The links you use are good enough to do whatever it is you are trying to do.

In today's disposable culture of "use and discard" and "don't fix and reuse," it's no surprise that most streaming engineers just shrug and assume that the ability to get more bang for your buck out of your internet connection is beyond your control.

For example, did you know that if you set your Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) -- ultimately your video packet size -- too large then the network has to break it in two in a process called fragmentation? Packet fragmentation has a negative impact on network performance for several reasons. First, a router has to perform the fragmentation -- an expensive operation. Second, all the routers in the path between the router performing the fragmentation and the destination have to carry additional packets with the requisite additional headers.

Also, in the event of a retransmission, larger packets increase the amount of data you need to resend if a retransmission occurs.

Alternatively, if you set the MTU too small then the amount of data you can transfer in any one packet is reduced and relatively increases the amount of signaling overhead (the data about the sending of the data, equivalent to the addresses and parcel tracking services in real post). If you set the MTU as small as you can for an Ethernet connection, you could find that the overhead nears 50% of all traffic.

UDP offers some advantages over TCP. But UDP is not a panacea for all video transmissions.

Where you are trying to do large-video file transfer, UDP should be a great help, but its lossy nature is rarely acceptable for stages in the workflow that require absolute file integrity. Imagine studios transferring master encodes to LOVEFiLM or Netflix for distribution. If that transfer to the LOVEFiLM or Netflix playout lost packets then every single subscriber of those services would have to accept that degraded master copy as the best possible copy. In fact, if UDP was used in these back-end workflows, the content would degrade the user's experience in the same way that historically tape-to-tape and other dubbed and analog replication processes used to. Digital media would lose that perfect replica quality that has been central to its success.

Getting back to the focus on who may want to reduce their network capacity inefficiencies: Studios, playouts, news desks, broadcast centers, and editing suites all want their video content intact/lossless, but naturally they want to manipulate that data between machines as fast as possible. Having video editors drinking coffee while videos transfer from one place to another is inefficient (even if the coffee is good).

Given they cannot operate in a lossy way, are these production facilities stuck with TCP and all the inherent inefficiencies that come with the reliable transfer? Because TCP ensures all the data gets from point to point, it is called a "reliable" protocol. In UDP's case, that reliability is "left to the user," so UDP in its native form is known as an "unreliable" protocol.

The good news is that there are indeed options out there in the form of a variety of "reliable UDP" protocols, and we'll be looking at those in the rest of this article. One thing worth noting at the outset, though, is that if you want to optimize links in your workflow, you can either do it the little-bit-hard way and pay very little, or you can do it the easy way and pay a considerable amount to have a solution fitted for you.

Reliable UDP transports can offer the ideal situation for enterprise workflows -- one that has the benefit of high-capacity throughput, minimal overhead, and the highest possible "goodput" (a rarely used but useful term that refers to the part of the throughput that you can actually use for your application's data, excluding other overheads such as signaling). In the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) world, from which the IP standards arise, for nearly 30 years there has been considerable work in developing reliable data transfer protocols. RFC-908, dating from way back in 1984, is a good example.

Essentially, RDP (Reliable Data Protocol) was proposed as a transport layer protocol; it was positioned in the stack as a peer to UDP and TCP. It was proposed as an RFC (Request For Comment) but did not mature in its own right to become a standard. Indeed, RDP appears to have been eclipsed in the late 1990s by the Reliable UDP Protocol (RUDP), and both Cisco and Microsoft have released RUDP versions of their own within their stacks for specific tasks. Probably because of the "task-specific" nature of RUDP implementations, though, RUDP hasn't become a formal standard, never progressing beyond "draft" status.

One way to think about how RUDP types of transport work is to use a basic model where all the data is sent in UDP format, and each missing packet is indexed. Once the main body of the transfer is done, the recipient sends the sender the index list and the sender resends only those packets on the list. As you can see, because it avoids the retransmission of any windows of data that have already been sent that immediately follow a missed packet, this simple model is much more efficient. However, it couldn't work for live data, and even for archives a protocol must be agreed upon for sending the index. It responds to that rerequest in a structured way (which could result in a lot of random seek disc access, for example, if it was badly done).

There are many reasons the major vendor implementations are task-specific. For example, where one may use UDP to avoid TCP retransmission after errors, if the entire data must be faultlessly delivered to the application, one needs to actually understand the application.

If the application requires control data to be sent, it is important for the application to have all the data required to make that decision at any point. If the RUDP system (for example) only looked for and re-requested all the missing packets every 5 minutes (!) then the logical operations that lacked the data could be held up waiting for that re-request to complete. This could break the key function of the application if the control decision needed to be made sooner than within 5 minutes.

On the other hand, if the data is a large archive of videos being sent overnight for precaching at CDN edges, then it may be that the retransmission requests could be managed during the morning. So the retransmission could be delayed until the entire archive has been sent, following up with just the missing packets on a few iterations until all the data is delivered. So the flow, in this case, has to have some user-determined and application-specific control.

TCP is easy because it works in all cases, but it is less efficient because of that. On the other hand, UDP either needs its applications to be resilient to loss or the application developer needs to write in a system for ensuring that missing/corrupted packets are retransmitted. And such systems are in effect proprietary RUDP protocols.

There is an abundance of these, both free and open source, and I am going to look at several of each option (Table 1). Most of you who use existing streaming servers will be tied to the streaming protocols that your chosen vendor offers in its application. However, for those of you developing your own streaming applications, or bespoke aspects of workflows yourselves, this list should be a good start to some of the protocols you could consider. It will also be useful for those of you who are currently using FTP for nonlinear workflows, since the swap out is likely to be relatively straightforward given than most nonlinear systems do not have the same stage-to-stage interdependence that linear or live streaming infrastructures do.

Let's zip (and I do mean zip) through this list. Note that it is not meant to be a comprehensive selection but purely a sampler.

The first ones to explore in my mind are UDP-Lite and Datagram Congestion Control Protocol. These two have essentially become IETF standards, which means that inter-vendor operation is possible (so you won't get locked into a particular vendor).

Table 1: A Selection of Reliable UDP Transport

DCCP
Let's look at DCCP first. DCCP provides initial code implementations for those inclined. From the point of view of a broadcast video engineer, this is really deeply technical stuff for low-level software coders. However, if you happen to be (or simply have access to) engineers of this skill level then DCCP is freely available.

DCCP is a protocol worth considering if you are using shared network infrastructure (as opposed to private or leased line connectivity) and want to ensure you get as much throughput as UDP can enable, while also ensuring that you "play fair" with other users. It is worth commenting that "just turning on UDP" and filling the wire up with UDP data with no consideration of any other user on the wire can saturate the link and effectively make it unusable for others. This is congestion, but DCCP manages to fill the pipe as much as possible, while still inherently enabling other users to use the wire too.

Some of the key DCCP features include the following:

• Adding a reliability layer to UDP
• Discovery of the right MTU size is part of the protocol design (so you fill the pipe while avoiding fragmentation)
• Congestion control

Indeed, to quote the RFC: "DCCP is intended for applications such as streaming media that can benefit from control over the tradeoffs between delay and reliable in-order delivery."


UDP-Lite
The next of these protocols is UDP-Lite. Also an IETF standard, this nearly-identical-to-UDP protocol differs in one key way: It has a checksum (a number that is the result of a logical operation performed on all the data, which if it differs after a transfer indicates that the data is corrupt) and a checksum coverage range that that checksum applies to, whereas vanilla UDP -- optionally in IPv4, and always in IPv6 -- has just a simple checksum on the whole datagram and if present the checksum covers the entire payload.

Let's simplify that a little: What this means is that in UDP-Lite you can define part of the UDP datagram as something that must arrive with "integrity," i.e., a part that must be error-free. But another part of the datagram, for example the much bigger payload of video data itself, can contain errors (remain unchecked against a checksum) since it could be assumed that the application (for example, the H.264 codec) has error handling or tolerance in it.

This UDP-Lite method is very pragmatic. In a noisy network link, the video data may be subject to errors but could be the larger part of the payload, where the important sequence number may only be a smaller part of the data (statistically less prone to errors). If it fails, the application can use UDP-Lite to request a resend of that packet. Note that it is up to the application to request the resend; the UDP-Lite protocol simply flags the failure up and the software can prioritize a resend request, or it can simply plan to work around a "discard" of the failed data. It is also worth noting that most underlying link layer protocols such as Ethernet or similar MAC-based systems may discard damaged frames of data anyway unless something interfaces with those link layer devices. So to work reliably, UDP-Lite needs to interface with the network drivers to "override" these frame discards. This adds complexity to the deployment strategy and certainly most likely takes the opportunity away from being "free." However, it's fundamentally possible.

So I wanted to see what was available "ready to use" for free, or close to free at least. I went looking for a compiled, user-friendly, simple-to-use application with a user-friendly GUI, thinking of the videographers having to learn all this code and deep packet stuff just to upload a video to the office.


UDPXfer
While it's not really a protocol per se, I found UDPXfer, a really simple application with just a UDP "send" and "listener" mode for file transfer.

I set up the software on my laptop and a machine in Amazon EC2, fiddled with the firewall, and sent a file. I got very excited about the prompt 5MB UDP file transfer taking 2 minutes and 27 seconds, and I then set up an FTP of the same file over the same link but was disappointed that the FTP took 1 minute and 50 seconds -- considerably faster. When I looked deeper, however, the UDPXfer sender had a "packets per second" slider. I then nudged the slider to its highest setting, but it was still only essentially 100Kbps maximum, far slower than the effective TCP. So I wrote to the developer, Richard Stanway, about this ceiling. He sent a new version that allowed me to set a 1300 packets-per-second transmission. He commented that it would saturate the IP link from me to the server, and in a shared network environment a better approach would be to the tune the TCP window's size to implement some congestion control. His software was actually geared to resiliency over noisy network links that cause problems for TCP.

Given that I see this technology being used on private wires, the effective saturation that Stanway was concerned about was less of a concern for my enterprise video workflow tests, so I decided to give the new version a try. As expected, I managed to bring the transfer time down to 1 minute and 7 seconds. So while the software I was using is not on general release, it is clearly possible to implement simple software-only UDP transfer applications that can balance reliability with speed to find a maximum goodput.


Commercial Solutions
But what of the commercial vendors? Do they differentiate significantly enough from "free" to cause me to reach into my pocket?

I caught up with Aspera, Inc. and Motama GmbH, and I also reached out to ZiXi. All of this software is complex to procure at the best of times, so sadly I haven't had a chance to play practically with these. Also, the vendors do not publish rate cards, so it's difficult to comment on their pricing and value proposition.

Aspera co-presented at a recent Amazon conference with my company, and we had an opportunity to dig into its technology model a bit. Aspera is indeed essentially providing variations on the RUDP theme. It provides protocols and applications that sit on top of those protocols to enable fast file distribution over controlled network links. In Aspera's case, it was selling in behind Amazon Web Services Direct Connect to offer optimal upload speeds. It has a range of similar arrangements in place targeting enterprises that handle high volumes of latency-sensitive data. You can license the software or, through the Amazon model, pay for the service by the hour as a premium AWS service. This is a nice flexible option for occasional users.

I had a very interesting chat with the CEO of Motama, which has a very appliance-based approach to its products. The RUDP-like protocol (called RelayCaster Streaming Protocol or RCSP) is used internally by the company's appliances to move live video from the TVCaster origination appliances to RelayCaster devices. These then can be hierarchically set up in a traditional hub and spoke or potentially other more complex topologies. The software is available (under license) to run on server platforms of your choice, which is good for data center models. They have also recently started to look at licensing the protocol to a wider range of client devices, and they pride themselves in being available for set-top boxes.

The last player in the sector I wanted to note was ZiXi. While I briefly spoke with ZiXi representatives while writing this, I didn't manage to communicate properly before my deadline, so here is what I know from the company's literature and a few customer comments: ZiXi offers a platform that optimizes video transfer for OTT, internet, and mobile applications. The platform obviously offers a richer range of features than just UDP-optimized streaming, and it has P2P negotiation and transmuxing so you can flip your video from standards such as RTMP out to MPEG-TS, as you can with servers such as Wowza. Internally, within its own ecosystem, the company uses its own hybrid ZiXi protocol, including features such as forward error correction, combining applications layer software in a product called Broadcaster that looks like a server with several common muxes (RTMP, HLS, etc.) and includes ZiXi. If you have an encoder with ZiXi running, then you can contribute directly to the server using the company's RUDP-type transport.


Worth the Cost?
I am aware none of these companies licenses their software trivially. The software packages are their core intellectual properties, and defending them is vital to the companies' success. I also realize that some of the problems that they purport to address may "go away" when you deploy their technology, but in all honesty, that may be a little like replacing the engine of your car because a spark plug is misfiring.

I am left wondering where the customer can find the balance between the productivity gains in accelerating his or her workflow with these techniques (free or commercial) against the cost of a private connection plus either the cost of development time to implement one of the open/free standards or the cost of buying a supported solution.

The pricing indication I have from a few undisclosed sources is that you need to be expecting to spend a few thousand on the commercial vendor's licensing, and then more for applications, appliances, and support. This can quickly rise to a significant number.

This increased cost to improve the productivity of your workflow must be at some considerable scale, since I personally think that a little TCP window sizing, and perhaps paying for slightly "fatter" internet access, may resolve most problems -- particularly in archive transfer and so on -- and is unlikely to cost thousands.

However, at scale, where those optimizations start to make a significant productivity difference, it clearly makes a lot of sense to engage with a commercially supported provider to see if its offering can help.

At the end of the day, regardless of the fact that with a good developer you can do most things for free, there are important drivers in large businesses that will force an operator to choose to pay for a supported, tested, and robust option. For many of the same reasons, Red Hat Linux was a premium product, despite Linux itself being free.

I urge you to explore this space. To misquote James Brown: "Get on the goodput!"

By Dom Robinson, streamingMedia

French Service Provider Offers Smart Digital Delivery

With fully managed delivery via satellite, DSL and fiber-optics, Paris, France-headquartered SmartJog offers “reduced transportation costs” and “simplified logistics” that avoid use of said cans and other physical media such as drives, DVDs and USB keys. “SmartJog facilitates the secure storage, digital asset management and digital delivery of trailers and feature films,” according to the company’s d-cinema offer. In essence, DCPs (Digital Cinema Packages) “are sent from post houses and distributors to theatres where SmartJog’s library server receives and stores all digital-cinema content.”

In June, SmartJog so delivered the 100th film to theatres in its pan-European network. The A-Team landing at 45 locations in France, later on followed by three more theatres in Belgium and Spain, marked Fox’s sixth title with the provider. At the same time, SmartJog itself recorded 2,630 hours of DCP traffic sent in less than six months. That’s an amazing accomplishment by any measure, but even more so in view of the relatively short company timeline. Considering that the inaugural 2K file was first delivered to Pinewood Studios in February 2005 and that phase one of a circuit-wide installation --at CGR in France-- was completed in June 2008, SmartJog has been jogging at a steady pace indeed.

Nicolas Dussert, the company’s European theatrical sales director, confirms the ratio between cinema-related services and all others, such as broadcast, new media and home entertainment, to be already 30/70. While d-cinema has opened additional doors when it comes to delivering the completed picture, he confirms that studios have already been using SmartJog services during production for the exchange of “time-critical digital dailies” and “fast-turnaround” transfers of visual-effects shots, for instance. “We already have all the necessary connections with the labs,” he says. “The distributor can deliver and retrieve the DCP to and from anywhere in the world.”

Closer to release, audio and reference picture too are delivered to post houses for local-language versions and local master creation. In preparation of a film’s launch, SmartJog then takes on “global servicing” of trailers, electronic press kits and television spots to local distribution offices and broadcast stations.

Under the headline of “Smart D-Cinema,” marketing materials summarize this “all-in-one solution” as providing “a centralized place for digital-cinema needs.” Even more, when it comes to theatrical solutions, “SmartJog is the vetted and approved digital delivery system used by the entertainment industry for the safe transfer of their most valuable assets.”

So what do theatre owners need to get access to those assets? “Exhibitors purchase the satellite dish, which can be had for about 1,000 Euros,” Dussert estimates (US$1,300), “and one of our two server options. They will also need an Internet connection,” he says of the validation process for sending and receiving. “Via a secure web interface, both distributors and exhibitors can manage, track and receive e-mail notification of their file transfers.” The “Gateway Server” of 3 TB is recommended/used for the delivery of DCPs only and not used as a storage device, whereas the “Central Library Server” comes with 12 TB, translating into up to 85 movies at 150 GB each, or 20 hours of JPEG-2000 encoded content.

“All of our servers come fully integrated with the satellite receiver hardware,” Dussert assures, “and contain all the necessary software for automatic and time-saving uploading of content to playout servers.” Speaking of the latter, SmartJog is “seamlessly integrated and totally interoperable” with the cinema servers and theatre management systems (TMS) from ADDE, Datasat Digital, Dolby, Doremi, Dvidea, Qube and XDC.

Although the goal is to deliver everything electronically, SmartJog’s servers feature the option to load content locally from physical media or via both internal and external networks as well. This way, Dussert reasons, exhibitors can cover all ways in which distributors may be delivering. “Also, in case of any problem such as file corruption, we have partnerships with the labs for every country in order for the distributor to be able to deliver a hard drive if need be. If we have a bad satellite receiver,” he elaborates, “we can call the lab to arrange for a back-up. But we don’t deal with their actual distribution and shipping of any physical media.”

Consequently, when Dussert calls the SmartJog network a hybrid, he is not referring to the physical media options but to the combination of fiber, DSL connections and satellite dishes on the cinema roof. “Because of a very good infrastructure in France, we can deliver a full feature one of three ways. Most theatres receive content via satellite, as it gives theatres a dedicated capacity. Distributors and post houses can benefit from multicast, sending one-to-many. For example, when delivering the same DCP/file to hundreds or thousands of theatres, the delivery time is cut down.” The receiver allows live broadcasts with one and the same equipment set-up too. Speaking technically, Dussert explains, “In Europe for satellite we currently have 72 Mbps of bandwidth capacity, which will allow us to deliver content for live events in the future as well as our store-and-forward service.”

Regardless of the bandwidth, SmartJog also covers delivery of pre-show and cinema advertising. The experience with SmartJog in that particular area prompted pan-European exhibitor Kinepolis Group to expand their relationship in Belgium (13 locations), France and Spain (seven and three, respectively) in November 2009. “Kinepolis had been using the SmartJog system and network for a few years already to receive advertising content from Médiavision, as well as cinema trailers to our cinemas in France,” recalls Bob Claeys, research and development director for the Group. “Since we were very actively rolling out digital equipment in all of our cinemas in France, Belgium and Spain, we needed to find a solution capable of scalability in terms of storage and digital delivery. SmartJog’s all-in-one-solution offers just that and is already compatible with our equipment such as our Dolby servers. Adding their ‘Central Library’ allows us to store content received in our multiplexes without the need to add multiple reception and storage equipment. The flexibility of the SmartJog solution also lets us manage the delivery of our own promotional content to all of our cinemas in Europe seamlessly.”

With exhibitor partners that also include CGR (34 sites connected), Europalaces (67 sites of Gaumont and Pathé), independent and other theatre chains (82) at the home base in France, Benelux and Spain, SmartJog’s connected d-cinema network “counts 196 sites with over 850 screens in eight countries and growing,” Dussert assures. “After France and Benelux we’re now rolling out in Germany with help from fellow TDF subsidiary Media Broadcast, and deploying in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal. In addition to these key markets, we will certainly go to other countries, of course, like the United Kingdom and Ireland.” For now, “including those in cinemas, SmartJog has a total of 922 servers deployed in 65 countries. Working with every studio, there are 92 distributors and vendors in 25 countries that utilize our service to send their DCPs. We work with all distributors and currently deliver an average of four feature films each week.”

Another “really important” aspect of those deliveries is that SmartJog checks DCI compliance of the packages, Dussert continues. “If you make a hard drive, you don’t verify the copy.” With SmartJog, however, “when labs put the DCPs on their server, there is a verification of the conformity of all files to guarantee that the DCP is complete, there are no missing files, and all is in compliance with d-cinema standards. This integrity check happens in real time, automatically. Otherwise, you could have a corruption.” Again, e-mail notifications will confirm, “You received a DCP and it is complete.”

Completing the picture further, “we have a dedicated data center where distributors can store their DCPs,” Dussert affirms. “Via USB key, they can go in locally, be it Belgium or Switzerland, and access their full catalog to select any and all versions to send to a certain theatre. Also, the French market can share a DCP with another country, for example. Our system gives clients the ability to share elements with vendors, local offices. If one cinema gets the original version and the one dubbed into French, we send the first DCP completely. For the second DCP, the system automatically detects which version has already been sent from the lab and only adds those parts that differ from and/or are supplemental to the one originally delivered.” As a case in point, that could be the dubbed language track or Swiss and German subtitles. “We only transmit the percentage that is different, cutting down on time and bandwidth—and on cost, of course.”

A Quick Jog Through Time
Developed only ten years ago by France Telecom, SmartJog became an independent company in early 2002 and was subsequently purchased by TDF, a leading provider of audiovisual, new media and broadband services, in September 2006. Today, SmartJog counts more than 4,600 clients worldwide that cover everything from new media, broadcasting and digital dailies to video-on-demand, mobile TV and in-flight entertainment. On the theatrical front, SmartJog works with distribution, post-production, dubbing facilities, advertising agencies, print labs, and digitally equipped movie theatres, of course.

Some milestones for d-cinema include:
February 2005: SmartJog delivers first 2K files to Pinewood Studios in the U.K.
December 2005: Launch of French initiative ISA for DCI-compliant film distribution to digital theatres in Europe.
September 2006: SmartJog demonstrates the electronic distribution of Paris Je t’Aime, the first 4K DCP ever done in France (Éclair Laboratories) at the Entertainment Technology Center at the Warner Pacific in Hollywood.
April 2007: SmartJog connects its first commercial theatre in France: Cineplex Paris Forbach.
May 2007: SmartJog transmits U23D DCP from Los Angeles to the Cannes Film Festival.
December 2007: SmartJog unveils its first Central Library server with 3 or 6 TB of storage and signs reselling agreements with Cinemeccanica, Cine Digital Services and Decipro, three leading installers in France.
February 2008: SmartJog sends a feature film DCP to Kinepolis Nancy (France) over a metropolitan fiber-optic.
June 2008: Phase 1 completed of SmartJog rollout to CGR theatres in France.
July 2008: Screenvision France transmits pre-show content and trailers in DCI-compliant format to five CGR theaters via SmartJog.
August 2008: Pathé Distribution is first distributor to use SmartJog for the electronic distribution of Faubourg 36 trailer DCPs to 14 connected theatres in France (ten CGR theatres, two at Europalaces, Le Paris Forbach and Le Stella Janze).
August 2009: SmartJog reaches milestone of 500 digital screens connected and 100 theatres connected.
June 2010: SmartJog delivers 100th movie to theatres in Europe, Twentieth Century Fox's The A-Team
July 2010: SmartJog delivers over 22,000 GB of traffic for broadcasters, both domestically and internationally, for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. That is the equivalent of 6,000 ten-minute playouts.

By Andreas Fuchs, Film Journal International

Ash Fallout Affects Films' World Premieres

The London world premiere of Iron Man 2, planned for Monday (April 26), and the European charity premiere of Julie Anne Robinson's The Last Song (April 20) are the first major movie events to be grounded by the continued volcanic dust cloud that has shut down airspace across the whole of continental Europe.

"Due to the continuing air travel uncertainty, Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment have taken the decision to move the Iron Man 2 world premiere and junket to Los Angeles," the companies said.

International distribution of the movie seems as yet unaffected. "Luckily, we had the copies of Iron Man 2 delivered a week ago, just before the volcano erupted," said an employee at German distrib Concorde, which will be bowing the Marvel actioner next month. "If they had been delayed, it would have been tight getting the film dubbed and mixed for the May 6 release."

If the Icelandic ash continues to keep European planes grounded, the widespread use of digital distribution technology means that majors will be better shielded from any ill effects. An increasing proportion of copies for Hollywood tentpoles are now delivered digitally to cinemas via satellite, making air traffic regulations irrelevant. And virtually every major studio uses SmartJog or a similar digital delivery system to provide its international outlets with press and marketing material.

"We had some sound material scheduled to be sent on DVD by Fed-Ex that was held up," said Alexandra Meister of Germany's Senator Film. "But we were able to switch over to an FTP server for that. There haven't been any major problems so far."

Europe's big TV players are adopting a wait-and-see approach to the mounting confusion arising from the dust cloud of volcanic ash still hovering over the continent five days after European air space was totally shut down, with a slew of companies including NBC Universal, Fremantle, Disney, Zodiak Television and Endemol maintaining that they were monitoring the situation.

By Mimi Turner and Stuart Kemp, The Hollywood Reporter

T-VIPS Stands Out in 3D

T-VIPS JPEG2000-based solutions are ideal for the contribution of full resolution stereoscopic 3D, as the wavelet transformation of JPEG2000 provides the same processing for all pixels and the frame-by-frame nature of this compression codec provides consistent quality for all images and ensures that errors are not propogated from frame-to-frame.

T-VIPS’ 3D JPEG2000-based solutions on display at the NAB Show, include the TVG450, which has its NAB debut, and the TVG480, which previews at NAB and is designed for post production and digital cinema. The T-VIPS TVG450 is the industry’s first JPEG2000 video gateway, based on the latest advances in JPEG2000 compression and IP networking and supports SD, HD, 3G HD (1080p) and 3D contribution over IP transport networks.

T-VIPS has worked with All Mobile Video (AMV) to outfit AMV’s new 3D production truck with the TVIPS TVG450 JPEG2000-based video gateway, to transport 3D video over IP/Ethernet. The TVG450 can be seen on the AMV truck at the Sony booth throughout the NAB show. The compact size and low-weight of the TVG450 make it ideal for mobile video applications. The demonstration shows the T-VIPS TVG450 feeding a new Sony 10 bit LMD 4251 TD 2D/3D display.

T-VIPS in 3D video Transport
3D is the next differentiator in home entertainment, with many major broadcasters planning to launch 3D TV services during 2010. In order to deliver an excellent viewer experience, home mastering requires left and right eye images in full resolution. TVG450 JPEG2000 Gateway enables this through support for the synchronous backhaul of dual channel stereotopic 3D video.

High quality needs to be maintained throughout the contribution chain so that editing and production can be performed at the left eye/right eye signals with the maximum resolution and quality. The advantage of this solution is that it provides high video quality though 10 bit dynamic range, full HD resolution for both left and right eye and low latency.

Source: T-VIPS

2010 NAB Show Standouts

One fixture at the NAB Show has methodically plied the exhibit floor for more than 30 years. Mark Schubin, engineer in charge at the Metropolitan Opera and possibly one of the most renowned video experts in the business, walks down each aisle at least twice, speed-reading every display.

“3D is kind of dimming everything,” he says, walking at his usual deliberate pace through the South Hall on Tuesday. He stops short when something catches his eye. The TV Logic OLED 3D monitor. Schubin dons the specs, takes a look, moves on.

Monitors displaying 3D images are so prevalent they nearly cause second-hand eye fatigue. Schubin is not a 3D proselytizer by any stretch. He’s seen the format come and go many times, and often lectures on the deleterious physical effects of 3D gone wrong. However, 3D is catching the public’s imagination as never before, and media companies--and their suppliers--are responding. With a potential live 3D opera cinecast in mind, Schubin found some noteworthy technologies on the NAB Show floor.

I joined my long-time friend, mentor and teacher for dinner the night before he left Las Vegas. He shared his notables, logged on a single sheet of paper in neat, miniscule hand.

He was veritably excited about a Pace-Fujinon camera that allowed for simultaneous shooting of 2D and 3D. Right now, two distinct operations are required to shoot 2D and 3D, and 3D-only coverage is not likely anytime soon. The majority of viewing is still in 2D. Pace and Fujinon have coupled 3D and 2D cameras for a single operator who can zoom the different lenses at a synched or differentiated rate.

A fan of Fraunhofer, Schubin said the Munich, Germany concern was showing 3D stereoscopic software that enabled not just two, but up to nine views. The more views, the lower the resolution, but he said five looked “not bad.”

High-speed camera specialist Vision Research of Wayne, N.J., was showing high-speed 3D, eliciting an affirmation of “cool.”

A company by the name of Ateme had a 3D explanation chart covering set-up and transmission for the various stereoscopic formats. Another, Monogram, has a “3DTV station in a box” that appears to work as advertised, he said.

Belden even brought 3D wire in the form of 16-94D dual, red-green color-coded cable.

In the polar-opposite-of-3D arena, Schubin said there were signs on the floor that “tape is not dead.” He said Sony rolled out new videotape gear, and a new archiving tape, LTO-5, was unveiled. To boot, For-A and Cache-A have come up with a way to record directly to LTO-5, effectively creating… wait for it… yet another tape format.

Other non-3D items on the Schubin cheat sheet included Panasonic’s AF-400 camera under glass. He said it was basically a Lumix GH-1 still camera rendered into a high-sensitivity video camera with a shallow depth of field.

NTT showed “Fun TV,” a 4K signal with selectable views. NICT showed something similar last year, Schubin said.

This year’s NAB Show was the first to feature what Schubin referred to as “ghetto” organization, in that similar exhibitors were placed together in somewhat segregated areas. He discovered an “Academic Ghetto” in South Hall where several schools were displaying research projects.

Ryerson University in Toronto was doing research on how people actually watch different video formats. “They’ve shot things in 4K, 4K3D and hi-def, and they have an eye-tracking system to see what viewers eyes are doing while they are watching.” The research can inform videographers, cinematographers, producers and directors, he said. Different focuses may be optimal for different formats. No resulting data is yet available.

Another research lab--Aerial 3D--was demonstrating volumetric laser display. “You’re actually looking around the image,” Shubin said, though it’s not technically holography. He likened the display to a lava lamp.

Over in the “ghetto for cellular modems,” Schubin found Streamcast claiming to bond up to four high-speed cellular modems to create one 20 Mbps channel “where ever you can get a cell signal.” E.g., anywhere in Vegas but Central Hall. Two other companies—TVU and Verizon--were showing similar technology.

Schubin was delighted to find joystick-editing inventor Dennis Christenson at the show. Christenson was in the Leader booth with microwave technology that carried uncompressed video in the 60 GHz band with zero latency. Schubin said Fuji TV showed similar technology at IBC two years ago, but “these guys reduced it to a chip.” It can go in a cell phone to download movies from a kiosk, or be used as a professional microwave link. The smaller size would allow far greater flexibility in locating temporary microwave links for live events like bike races and marathons. And because it’s in the 60 GHz, it wouldn’t have to be licensed.

Fraunhofer had an ultra low-latency transmission codec that Schubin described as “awfully close to zero.”

HaiVision made his “fun” category for bringing a tank full of sharks, reflecting the company emblem. Only these were real sharks. Nine of them. None were wearing 3D glasses.

A lot of human beings put on 3D glasses at the show, but not all of them saw 3D images being displayed, Schubin said. “I went to a booth with active glasses and put them on… someone else came over and put the active glasses and watched. He said, ‘did it work?’ I said, ‘yeah.” He said, ‘I didn’t see it.’ I said, ‘you have to turn the glasses on.’ I saw this throughout the show.”

And finally, for the man who takes thematic T-shirts to a whole new level of sartoriality--his favorite of the show: “Are you real, or is this 3DTV?”

The 2010 NAB Show runs through tomorrow. Mark Schubin’s musings are available at www.SchubinCafe.com. Enjoy, and travel safe.

By Deborah D. McAdams, Television Broadcast

Contribution Network Priority for 3DTV

There are no barriers to Pay TV operators who want to follow DIRECTV and BSkyB by launching 3DTV services. Side-by-side 3DTV (full HD shared between both eyes) does not require new set-top boxes so the customer premise burden falls on subscribers, who need to buy a 3D television set. The transmission bandwidth premium is limited so there is no immediate need for a new generation of compression solutions for the last mile.

Those are the views of Benoit Fouchard, Chief Strategy Officer at compression vendor ATEME , whose company provides a range of contribution and headend MPEG-4 AVC encoders. However, ATEME is looking at how compression in the contribution networks needs to change, and Fouchard says this is where the R&D priority is today.

“The natural evolution for 3DTV services is to deliver side-by-side 3D content into the customer home but in the contribution network start to migrate from side-by-side to full 3DTV with two separate, fully synchronized 1080p50/60 HD channels fed back from an outside broadcast to the broadcast facility,” he explains.

The higher quality 3D content could be used to deliver full 3D to outdoor venues and retailers. Both these ‘business-to-business’ distribution outlets expose the benefits of 3DTV to the public so there is a good business case for providing the higher quality, with extra bandwidth. Fouchard points out that relatively few set-top boxes are needed to cover these distribution points so the introduction of a new generation set-top box on this limited scale is viable, especially if the Pay TV platforms can earn revenues from the outdoor venues (e.g. pubs).

Beyond major movie releases, ATEME expects 3DTV broadcasts to be limited to high profile premium content like World Cup soccer, and even then only the biggest games. Because of the production costs it could be several years before popular TV shows are aired in 3D and broadcasters will be taking a long look at 3D TV set penetration figures before committing.

It is the premium nature of 3D content and its general scarcity that removes the pressure from the transmission network in the short-term. As Fouchard points out, “If you already have a large HD offering, adding a channel of 3D, even using two streams of 1080p HD, is not a great burden when you consider the marketing impact that it achieves. So in the short-term, transmission bandwidth is not an issue. In the long-term it is a totally different story and then you have to refer back to the 3D TV penetration forecasts and think about changes in compression.”

ATEME predicts that for full 3D MVC (Multiview Video Coding), where a single stream combines full frames for each eye temporally interlaced, there will be enough temporal and spatial redundancy between the different views to ensure that bandwidth is never doubled. Fouchard says a 70-80% bandwidth premium is a reasonable expectation at this stage. And of course, consumers may be prepared to pay extra for 3D television.

One of the immediate R&D requirements for ATEME, looking at 3D contribution, has been to reassess the way it analyses compression performance. Fouchard says that when handling 3D content, this needs to move away from machine scoring to subjective scoring based on how the human brain reacts to 3D effects. “We are having to reconstruct our psycho-visual models based on 3D perception,” he reveals. ATEME has already found that some of the visual effects that work well in two dimensions, like blurring in relation to fast motion, become a problem in 3D. For example, blurring cancels the 3D effect.

Fouchard believes one of the main drivers for the deployment of 3D television by Pay TV operators will be to ensure they can match what Blu-ray disc players have to offer. “They will be keen not to relinquish ownership of 3D in the home. The same rationale is leading to the availability of 1080p HD movies in VOD libraries,” he says. “The message to consumers is that you do not need a Blu-ray player to enjoy 3D content after it has been in the cinema. I think 3D will also be part of a strategy to position entertainment for the home as opposed to entertainment out of the home.”

By John Moulding, Videonet

T-VIPS Sets Sights on 3D TV

Video distribution outfit T-VIPS used IBC to demonstrate its deployment-ready 3D high-definition video transport solutions. Its demonstration saw 3D content compressed in JPEG2000 format using T-VIPS’ JPEG2000 gateways, before being transported over an IP link and decoded by a separate T-VIPS video gateway and viewed on a 3D display. Video gateways include the next-generation TVG450, launched at IBC.

Helge Stephansen, CTO of T-VIPS, said: “3D really is just around the corner and we’re going to play a part in the roll-out of this exciting new technology. Not only will 3D be important, but it’s also becoming a major differentiator in the cinema business, where our pioneering lead in video transport utilising digital cinema’s native codec JPEG2000, provides us with a natural advantage,” says Helge Stephansen, CTO, T-VIPS. “The demonstration of our JPEG2000-based video transport solutions shows the marketplace that the video transport pieces of the 3D jigsaw are available now and ready to move 3D from the lab bench to commercial reality.”

By Rose Major, Rapid TV News

Magnum Semiconductor Offers Full 3D 1080p50/60

Magnum Semiconductor, the leader in professional-grade compression processors, is demonstrating AVC coding of 1080p50/60 content at traditional 1080i50/60 bit rates for practical 3D stereoscopic video applications at the IBC 2009 show in Amsterdam. Magnum offers its flexible powerful multi-core media-processor DXTPro architecture for implementations of 3D solutions in the broadcast infrastructure and at home.

“With support for 1080p50/60 encoding and decoding at traditional 1080i bit rates, Magnum enables 3D stereoscopic video application developers and platform OEMs to deliver cost-effective 3D video solutions for the complete broadcast video chain,” said Gal Garniek, VP Marketing and Sales at Magnum Semiconductor.

“TDVision's patented 2D+Delta TDVCodec algorithms exploit redundancy between left and right eye video frames for bit rate reduction, while maintaining full resolution and backward compatibility with all existing 2D displays in 2D HD, as well as forward compatibility with all existing and future 3D-ready displays and methods. Magnum’s powerful DXTPro multimedia processor opens the way to realizing real-time stereoscopic 2D+Delta systems for the broadcast and video production industry”, said Ethan Schur, Chief Marketing Officer at TDVision.

Source: Magnum Semiconductor

SENSIO Launches New 2D Content Broadcast Feature in 1080P60/50

SENSIO Technologies presents a premiere at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) of the new functionality offered by SENSIO 3D technology: live broadcasting of 2D content in 1080p60/50. In addition to enabling broadcasting in 3D, SENSIO 3D technology also enables broadcasting of 2D in 1080p on the existing distribution infrastructure, currently limited to 1080i, without adding bandwidth.

“We are extremely proud to enhance our product offering, and to demonstrate that SENSIO has an added value in the transmission of both 2D and 3D content. We now have a complete solution to offer broadcasters that enables the transmission of live 2D and 3D events both into movie theaters and into the home,” says Nicholas Routhier, SENSIO’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

Two demonstrations will be presented in the International Datacasting Corporation (“IDC”) stand, located in Hall 1 at Stand C29. The first will demonstrate broadcasting of 2D content in 1080p/60 and the second will be a 3D demonstration. With a 3D camera system and an encoder and decoder equipped with SENSIO’s technology, visitors can film themselves in front of the cameras and see themselves live in three dimensions on Hyundai IT’s LCD HD 3D television.

Source: SENSIO Technologies

Nordic Digital Alliance Merges with IntelliNet

Digital-cinema service provider Nordic Digital Alliance (NDA) and digital-cinema advertising service provider IntelliNet agreed to merge to jointly offer a fully comprehensive package of digital-cinema deployment, content-management software and digital-delivery services for exhibitors, distributors and advertising companies in Scandinavia and beyond.

With Arts Alliance Media (AAM) as a leading shareholder and integrated technology provider, the combined group will be more capable of meeting pan-European demand. With the merger the Nordic Digital Alliance and Arts Alliance Media group now serves more than 1,000 screens across France, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Oscar Hovland, IntelliNet’s chief communications officer, will become managing director of the combined entity, which will retain the name Nordic Digital Alliance. Former NDA managing director Jan-Robert Jore was appointed chairman of NDA.

Software development teams at Arts Alliance Media and IntelliNet are working together to integrate IntelliNet’s advertising Campaign Distribution Engine (CDE) into AAM’s digital-cinema Theatre Management System (TMS). The final result will be an end-to-end solution that enables exhibitors to receive and schedule pre-show ads, trailers and feature films on their digital-cinema projectors.

“Over the past few years our commercial collaboration and mutual admiration have resulted in us joining forces today. Our six years working with digital advertising solutions and NDA’s comparable endeavors in digital-cinema services are compatible and strengthen both parties. We are excited about the prospects of working closer with Arts Alliance Media in expanding our reach across Europe,” NDA’s Hovland stated.

Source: FilmJournal

Movie Theater Streams 2K Resolution Film Using BitTorrent

The Far North Living Lab started by the Northern Research Institute (Norut) aims to create a platform for digital creativity. Recently the lab kicked off with a spectacular experiment in which they used the (EU funded) Tribler BitTorrent client to stream a 2K resolution film onto the big screen.

The lab’s launch was held at a local movie theater where the film Carved by Jonas Rejman was projected, with consent from the copyright holder of course. To our knowledge this is a digital streaming world premiere for BitTorrent, and one that shows how the technology can actually help digital cinema and independent filmmakers.

The Far North Living Lab’s experiment shows that it’s even possible to stream movies if the connection is good enough, but Dr. Njål Borch, a senior researcher involved in the project added that downloading the film beforehand is probably a better option.

For this test run the researchers did not use a real-life BitTorrent swarm, since that would make it pretty much impossible to get the 19Mbit/s download speed required to stream the film onto the big screen.

“We didn’t use a publicly available torrent, as not many would put out those kind of bitrates,” Borch told TorrentFreak. “We seeded it from our own computers including some local seeds in order to get the speed up, but we’re currently upgrading the connection to the cinema to a 1 Gig fiber optic cable that will allow us to perform these kind of experiments with no local seeds.”

The lab’s next stunt will be to stream a live concert to the city of Beijing as well as a few selected rural areas.

Source: TorrentFreak

Smartjog Deploys its Digital Cinema Library to Theatre Chain, Europalaces

SmartJog, the leader in managed digital delivery worldwide, announced that French theatre chain, Europalaces, the owner of Gaumont and Pathe cinemas, has signed an agreement for the purchase and deployment of its high capacity SmartJog Digital Cinema Central Library Servers.

The first phase of deployment was recently completed to 33 sites in France, with planned Phase 2 to start shortly. While SmartJog has been deploying its Libraries since last year to theatres in France, Europalaces is the largest chain to commit to a substantial rollout in Europe. Over 65 theatres and 400 digital screens are currently connected to the SmartJog delivery platform.

With this major deployment into Europalaces theatres in France, Switzerland and the Netherlands, the TDF Pan-European Digital Cinema Network, a secure satellite and fiber delivery service operated by TDF subsidiaries, SmartJog and Media Broadcast, will grow to over 200 theatres by the end of 2009.

SmartJog's Digital Cinema Central Library Server is the only hardware on the market which is capable of storing very large amounts of data and receiving Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs) via satellite and fiber. This agreement will enable Europalaces to receive all its digital content via SmartJog.

The Central Library Server, which combines up to 12 Terabytes of storage with central management features, is backed by a 5-year warranty and 24/7 remote system monitoring via terrestrial connection. Upon arrival of DCPs in the library server, automatic checks are performed to ensure the integrity of the files and DCPs can be automatically ingested into the local digital cinema playback servers or theatre management system (TMS). Content can also be loaded locally from a physical medium or via an internal network. A secure and easy-to-understand web interface is available for the management of deployed Central Library Servers.

The theatres that were part of the first phase of deployment, are already electronically receiving trailers and pre-show material from Mediavision, the leading cinema advertising company in France.

The SmartJog Digital Cinema Library, a hardware device with added-value software, is now available for purchase throughout Europe from SmartJog and its network of resellers.

Source: DCinemaToday

Reliance Globalcom, Adlabs Films Delivering Indian Movies to U.S.

Reliance Globalcom has announced that Adlabs Films is using its global network to deliver Indian movies to U.S. audiences. Adlabs, India’s largest entertainment conglomerate, is leveraging Reliance Globalcom’s network to transfer digitized movies to screens in the U.S.

“Reliance Globalcom’s global network acts as an international digital artery that allows Adlabs to offer content and media services globally,” says Anil Arjun, CEO, Adlabs Films. “With Reliance Globalcom’s extensive fiber assets, multi-metro connectivity and service assurance, we have the agility to serve the industry by moving film and media assets quickly and securely anywhere in the world. This means more movies and HD content like broadcasts of national sporting events and ceremonies can reach the big screen faster, more efficiently and in more locations around the world.”

Adlabs has successfully distributed many films over Reliance Globalcom’s fiber network, including the latest Indian hits such as Ghajini, Luck by Chance and Delhi 6. The films were all mastered in the DCI-approved 2K format in Mumbai by Adlabs Digital Cinema, sent over OFC to New York and screened in Adlabs’ Big Cinemas digital cinemas in New Jersey and California.

“Reliance Globalcom’s network infrastructure is ideal for Hollywood studios, production houses, effects companies and broadcasters that require a high-speed network with the security and availability to move files that are often as large as 2-3 terabytes in full-resolution mode,” says Ted Raffetto, president of the Americas region, Reliance Globalcom.

Reliance Globalcom will be supporting Adlabs’ plans to expand to 166 digital screens in the U.S. in the coming months. Adlabs intends to continue to leverage the Reliance Globalcom network to bring more international content to audiences worldwide.

Source: Digital Cinema Report

Quantum Digital to Broadcast Satellite Programme Live to UK Cinemas

Quantum Digital, the leading supplier of satellite solutions to UK cinemas, will film and broadcast live via satellite a special presentation on 14th July from London, featuring key industry professionals, designed for cinema owners and distributors to understand how satellite technology is becoming increasingly adopted and how best to utilise it.

The broadcast will be available to satellite-equipped UK cinemas free-to-air as an industry awareness initiative. Anyone who is on-screen with a movie during the broadcast can watch via a TV. A special DVD of the presentation will also be made available, including an Information Pack. The programme will also be made available on YouTube.

Despite having the most widely deployed satellite system in the UK, with close to 100 cinemas equipped with professional 1.2m dishes, the presentation will take an impartial, agnostic view and explain what considerations need to be made even if taking a system and transmission from another provider.

Quantum’s Marc John says: “It won’t be an advert. It doesn’t matter who you buy kit from, everything’s interoperable. There are still fundamentals that need to be understood. Broadcasts sometimes run on systems supplied by Quantum without us being involved in the transmission, so it’s a general refresher as well as a ‘heads-up’ for managers about a few things, particularly how to get ready for DCP delivery via satellite. I take so many calls. A nationwide link seemed practical, especially as live questions can be taken via SMS.”

Quantum’s unparalleled experience managing live broadcasts and direct relationship with exhibitors installing satellite systems, has provided unique and invaluable knowledge which can be shared to the benefit of all. “Managers and projectionists play a big role in the success of this. They discover things that not even the best manuals in the world can tell you. And no matter how much anyone knows about satellite, we still rely on local know-how when it comes to digital era sound and projection. The exchange of information around the country has been priceless since the satellite network launched in 2006.”

The educational Satellite Education Programmes will be annual broadcasts, with a supplementary YouTube series - the first of its kind - to launch over the summer, to include video diaries of satellite site surveys and installations taking place, interviews with cinema managers and projectionists, along with in-depth projection room coverage showing how live and DCP content delivered via satellite is interfaced within the d-cinema set-up. Twitter will also be utilised to ensure the widest possible networking of information and dialogue.

Source: DCinemaToday

Dolby and Arqiva Partner to Provide Electronic Delivery to Cinemas

Dolby Laboratories launched Dolby Direct Distribution Services -- a pan-European satellite content delivery network for digital cinemas. The service is provided in association with leading digital network solutions provider Arqiva and uses their international satellite infrastructure to distribute feature movies, trailers, and advertising content direct to their participating exhibitors and cinemas throughout Europe.

Dolby Direct Distribution Services will simplify the cinema distribution process, eliminating physical delivery and manual upload of digital content onto individual cinema servers. The new services, coupled with Dolby's world class JPEG 2000 compression and two-pass encoding system, delivers Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs) efficiently without compromising quality. The incredibly low file sizes offered by Dolby DCPs are a key element in the efficient use of satellite as a highly effective delivery platform.

"Dolby is committed to utilizing the most effective methods to deliver cinema content. Our new service using Arqiva's satellite delivery network offers very exciting opportunities in that area," said Richard Welsh, Digital Cinema Services Manager, Dolby Laboratories. "Arqiva's extensive experience in delivering live content via satellite to cinemas, coupled with their core satellite expertise and international infrastructure, makes them an excellent technology partner for this innovative service."

Arqiva operates at the heart of the broadcast and mobile communications industry and is at the forefront of digital network solutions and services. The company provides much of the infrastructure behind television, radio, and wireless communications in the UK and has a growing presence in Ireland, mainland Europe, and the United States.

"We see electronic content distribution as the future of cinema and satellite is the most efficient means of delivering content to multiple sites across countries and continents," said Barrie Woolston, Commercial Director of Arqiva's satellite and media division. "We are delighted to have entered into this partnership with Dolby which we believe represents an important advance for digital cinema."

Source: Dolby

Digital Rapids Advances Digital Content Distribution

Digital Rapids today raised the bar for ease and efficiency in the digital distribution of media content, unveiling two new solutions for the delivery of media and data files between content owners, creators, collaborators, and distribution partners. New features in the Digital Rapids C2 data delivery software include support for unicast, multicast and hybrid distribution models, and a flexible architecture supporting dynamic deployments with exceptional cost-effectiveness. The new MediaMesh RX appliance, introduced today as a technology preview, receives and repurposes media and associated data from centralized distribution sources, forming the ideal endpoint for syndicated delivery of ad spots through long-form content to broadcast affiliates and distribution partners.

The rapidly expanding scope of content distribution opportunities brings with it the need for easier and more efficient mechanisms to deliver content to distribution points. Traditional physical methods for delivering content between production facilities, networks, affiliates and distributors -- such as shipping video tapes by courier -- are no longer efficient. Fully digital distribution via IP-based networks or satellite offers reduced manual effort, greater immediacy and tremendous cost savings over tape-and-truck transport.

Digital Rapids C2 overcomes the performance limitations typical in IP-based networks, which limit the speed, reliability and efficiency of these transfers to a fraction of their potential. C2 streamlines the transfer of media files between contribution, collaboration and distribution points, transferring media and data files to multiple destinations securely, reliably, and with a tremendous speed advantage over standard file transfer technologies like FTP.

C2's flexible network topology allows transfers to be performed simultaneously between multiple points in parallel, maximizing efficiency when transferring files to multiple recipients. Transparent recovery enables transfers to resume automatically from intentional or unexpected connectivity interruptions. Transfers can be initiated from an easy desktop client, watch folders or a new Web Services API, with delivery confirmation receipts providing proof of successful transfer. C2 supports multiple distribution models to take advantage of available network capabilities, from unicast Internet delivery to multicast-enabled networks, satellite-based transmission and hybrid architectures.

C2 is ideal for media distribution -- where content files usually are large, have high value, and can be time-sensitive -- but equally well-suited for non-media applications. C2 brings the same benefits of speed, reliability, security and efficiency to the transfer any type of data file, from medical imaging and scientific data sets to financial databases.

MediaMesh RX, the new media receiving appliance, provides robust functionality at the endpoint of the digital distribution chain. Comprehensive features including verified receipt, visual Quality Control verification, inventory management, transfer to broadcast servers, print-to-tape and play-to-air are tightly integrated in an intuitive graphical interface. Transcoding and re-packaging capabilities allow received media to be repurposed and conformed to local requirements "at the edge" of the content distribution pipeline, eliminating the need for distributing numerous variants. The combination of C2 and MediaMesh RX enables ad spots, promos, paid programming, syndicated shows, long-form and digital cinema content to be distributed to affiliates and distribution partners efficiently, automatically and at substantial cost savings.

MediaMesh RX works seamlessly alongside Digital Rapids' ingest, encoding and transcoding solutions to form complete workflows from ingest through delivery. It can also be easily incorporated with third-party systems through open standards, workflow features such as watch folders and Web Services APIs for custom development.

Source: StreamingMedia

Omneon and Aspera Partner to Deliver Content Distribution Solutions

Omneon Inc. and Aspera Inc. announced at NAB the terms of a broad partnership in which Aspera will acquire the Omneon Castify content distribution business unit and the two companies will collaborate on making CDN solutions more widely available to broadcast and technology markets. Omneon will continue to market the ProCast CDN product, with Aspera assuming ongoing development, engineering and operational responsibility for the technology, with the goal of creating a more powerful and complete content distribution platform for customers. Aspera expects to integrate its fasp transport technology with ProCast and the Omneon APIs to create a highly manageable and high performance solution for moving content between Omneon systems.

The agreement will expand Aspera’s reach in supplying market-leading content delivery solutions and will allow Omneon to continue to focus on providing best-of-breed video servers and media storage platforms. The deal will ensure seamless integration of Aspera and Omneon technology and will also enhance new solutions to support distributed workflows that were not possible before.

“With the growth of file-based workflows, the demand for a tightly integrated solution for producing, storing and delivering content across geographically distributed locations will continue to increase. Aspera’s acquisition of Castify combined with our partnership with Omneon will enable both companies to deliver the kind of high performance, tightly integrated solutions that customers demand,” said Michelle Munson, president and co-founder of Aspera. “The team and product line match up very well with our area of expertise, and we look forward to leveraging our partnership with Omneon to make the platform’s unique content distribution capabilities available to an even broader user base.”

Based on its patent-pending fasp protocol, only Aspera software fully utilizes existing infrastructures to deliver the fastest, most predictable file transfer experience. Aspera provides innovative, high-performance and secure data transfer software that eliminates the fundamental transport bottlenecks facing today’s file-based workflows and delivery applications.

Unlike conventional file transfer technologies that perform very poorly over the WAN, only Aspera fasp technology fully utilizes existing network infrastructures to deliver the fastest, most predictable file transfer experience with maximum end-to-end transfer speeds, regardless of the distance of the endpoints. These gains are maintained across the dynamic conditions of the network and for even the most difficult satellite, wireless, and unreliable international links. Users have extra-ordinary control over transfer rates and bandwidth sharing, and full visibility into utilization.

The Castify team has created a portfolio of products and technologies providing an end-to-end software solution that enables enterprises and service providers to build scalable, easily managed, and cost-efficient service acceleration and content delivery platforms over the Internet and on Intranets. Taking advantage of advanced reliable IP Multicast, WAN acceleration technology, network management, and bandwidth control, Castify enables organizations to initiate, monitor, and manage the delivery of content either as file transfers, progressive downloads or real-time streams.

Enabling the Castify product line with Aspera technology will result in a portfolio of software solutions that work across existing network infrastructure and enable the easy deployment of a wide variety of mission-critical applications including Portal Acceleration, eLearning, Wide Area File Delivery, Business TV, IPTV, Push VOD, Hotel VOD and Digital Cinema.

Source: SYS-CON

Reliance Globalcom Delivers Films Over Fiber

Reliance Globalcom is offering up its fiber optic backbone to major film studios and production houses as a way to globally distribute their content in a way that it says can speed time to market and help studios to avoid piracy.

Adlabs Films Ltd., a fast-growing film production and distribution house in India, has leveraged Reliance's global backbone to send a number of its digitized films to the U.S. In doing so, Adlabs was able to quickly and securely transfer films including Ghajini, Luck by Chance, and Delhi 6 from its digital cinema labs in Mumbai to two of its BIG Cinema locations, in New Jersey and California.

"In the past, the industry would send films by courier, which could take two or three or four days to get films from India to the U.S.," says Ted Rafretto, Reliance Globalcom's president of the Americas. By comparison, the Adlabs films, which could be as large as 2 or 3 terabytes a piece, took as little as five hours to transfer over Reliance's fiber optic network.

Rafretto says that kind of speed could allow movie studios to have faster time to market, which would enable them to better coordinate and synchronize global movie launches and ad campaigns.

While speeding the distribution of films, Rafretto says, fiber optic delivery also lowers the likelihood of a film being pirated. Because the files aren't subject to being handled by couriers, and because they are encrypted during transfer, a film isn't likely to be intercepted and copied before it reaches the big screen.

While Adlabs so far has only used the Reliance network to transfer films to two of its U.S. movie theaters, the company plans to expand that to 166 digital screens it owns in the U.S. market.

By Ryan Lawler, Contentinople

International Datacasting Corporation at NAB

International Datacasting will be showcasing the following at NAB 2009:
- Digital Cinema applications - Complete end-to-end solutions for the delivery of both file encoded (i.e. JPEG2000 DCP) movies as well as live 2D and 3D alternative content events for digital cinema and e-cinema applications. Key features include ultra high speed dual-tuner receivers, multiple layers of encryption/CAS for extra security, built-in "on the fly" forward error correction using IDC's flagship Datacast XD software and DVB-S2 8PSK or 16APSK delivery. IDC will be unveiling the latest addition to the Superflex Pro Cinema product line, the Pro Cinema Caching Server, a high capacity integrated caching server for digital movie file distribution.

- The SuperFlex Pro Cinema 3D Live Encoder and Decoder, with leading Sensio 3-D technology onboard, will be a highlight of the IDC booth. The Pro Cinema Live line of products expands the range of offerings for digital projector equipped cinemas by delivering high quality stable 3D live content at half the bandwidth of other approaches that have been tried before. The SuperFlex Pro Cinema 3D Live Encoder and Decoder supports both 2D and 3D live and pre-recorded events, which allows movie houses and other venues increased new revenue opportunities via alternative content programming.

- Expanded SFX Pro Video receivers - Developed specifically for professional video distribution applications, the SFX Pro Video line of DVB-S/S2 receivers feature hardware decoding of MPEG2 and MPEG4 AVC SD and HD video in a single 1 RU high 19-inch rack configuration complete with an integrated hard drive for drop and insert store and forward applications. The Pro Video line of receivers now include file playback capabilities as well as enhanced decoding of IP video input streams. The SFX Pro Video features a choice of IP, DVB-S or S2 satellite and ASI inputs and a multiple outputs that include IP, ASI, component video, HDMI and HD-SDI. Ideal for SD and HDTV broadcast as well as live digital and e-cinema applications.

- IDC will be showcasing the SFX Pro Video 4104, an extension of the core Pro Video product line. Already installed in networks around the world, the 4104 enables the distribution of both pre-recorded files and live events to be delivered on two separate carriers, which provides operational flexibility and reduced capital costs for theatre owners and operators.

Source: International Datacasting

Dolby’s 3D Color Correction Solution Licensed to IDC for 3D Live Events

At ShoWest 2009, Dolby Laboratories and International Datacasting Corporation (IDC) announced they have signed a licensing agreement to incorporate Dolby’s 3D color correction solution into IDC’s 3D live decoder hardware for live 3D content delivery to movie theatres.

“Both IDC and Dolby recognize that great image quality is essential to the live 3D experience. By leveraging Dolby’s expertise in color correction, IDC’s 3D live products, developed with Sensio Technologies, will take the 3D live experience to the next level,” said Ron Clifton, President and CEO of IDC.

“Exhibitors around the world want to present pristine live 3D content, and with Dolby’s 3D color correction in IDC’s products, they will have the ability to present alternative content in Dolby 3D,” said John Carey, Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Products and Services, Dolby Laboratories. “Both Dolby and IDC deliver innovative products for digital cinema, and this relationship reinforces our commitment to make the latest advancements available to our 3D exhibitors.”

IDC plans to integrate Dolby’s proprietary 3D color correction solution into its SuperFlex Pro Cinema 3D Live Decoder to deliver advanced image quality to movie theatres equipped with Dolby 3D Digital Cinema systems. In addition, Dolby plans to include network-integration capabilities to ensure correct control of the Dolby 3D system.

The Pro Cinema 3D Live Decoder was developed by IDC in conjunction with Sensio Technologies in order to expand IDC’s digital cinema suite of products used for file-based movie delivery. The Pro Cinema 3D Live Decoder allows the streaming of live alternative content to movie theatres via satellite.

Source: BusinessWire