IP, AVB, 4K And LTO To Feature At SMPTE 2014

The SMPTE 2014 Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition is to feature sessions on networked media, file-based workflows, cloud case studies and asset management.

Taking place this year from 20 – 23 October in Hollywood, California, the event is significant for those in motion-imaging and media technology, production, operations, and the allied arts and sciences.
"Engineering leaders and high-level business professionals from broadcast, cinema, and IT view the SMPTE annual conference as a unique opportunity to examine and discuss the technologies and trends shaping our industries," said Paul Chapman, SMPTE 2014 program chair and senior vice president of technology at FotoKem. "While SMPTE 2014 sessions address a wide range of important topics, we've created in-depth sessions that apply a tremendous wealth of expertise to specific topic areas that are making a profound impact on how content is created."
"We are excited to launch the SMPTE 2014 program with an opening keynote by Chris Fetner, director of global content partners operations at Netflix," added Pat Griffis, SMPTE education vice president and executive director of technology strategy in the office of the CTO at Dolby Laboratories. "Clearly, Netflix has been a disrupter in the industry, and we hope to learn what is shaping the company's technology decision-making during Chris' talk."
Mr Fetner will make this year's keynote address, which will then be followed by 'Networked Media in the Facility', a session focussing on the use of packetised methods to move media and metadata in real-time over networks.
The first part will address AVB standards, along with IP networks in the live broadcast plant, in live production, and in contribution broadcasting. The second will cover level-setting concepts of the networked media ecosystem, the suitability of commodity Ethernet switches for uncompressed video, and the workflows and infrastructure enabling next-generation postproduction.
Finally, the session will explore network-delivered references, the generation of SMPTE standards-based synchronous video signals using just current time, and ensuring precision time protocol (PTP) design and performance across large networks.
'File-Based Workflows' will discuss the findings of the Joint Task Force on File Formats and Media Interoperability in addressing issues associated with the exchange of professional media. The session will continue with a presentation on the business benefits of frame-rate manipulation and the automation of closed-captioning, timing, and language verification; and will conclude with a summary of specific bandwidth savings and quality improvements offered by High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) compared with other means used for contribution of interlaced content.
Part two features a discussion on media identity and the importance of maintaining when content exists simultaneously within multiple domains This will be followed by presentations covering the challenges associated with asset management and delivery of assets to any platform and all devices using a single workflow. It will conclude with a presentation outlining the impact of remote content access on both production and delivery to the second screen.
'Cloud Case Studies' will explore a range of implementations of cloud-based services, investigating integration, deployment and security. The session begins with a look at the benefits of purpose-built private cloud solutions, and then looks at the practical use of the cloud to enable end-to-end live streaming to the second screen. Two further panelists will discuss concerns over and strategies for securing media content and applications in the cloud.
The 'Asset Management' session will reveal the results of an industry survey of digital storage in professional media and entertainment and continue with a presentation on how the use of LTO tape with linear tape file system (LTFS) technology may accelerate 4K workflows.
Speakers from Fraunhofer IIS will introduce the concept of a file-delivery ecosystem that builds on the scalability of certain media formats and the "substitution strategy" that was introduced at SMPTE 2012. Part two begins with a presentation on media archiving, standards, and the Library of Congress. A subsequent presentation will examine tools based on SMPTE's recently published standard Archive eXchange Format (AXF) and application from the set through production workflows. This will be followed by a presentation that explores advances in film and video digitisation and open standards-based solutions for long-term archiving and preservation.

A detailed event schedule for SMPTE 2014 is available online at www.smpte2014.org.

(IT/JP)