SMPTE Publishes New Report

SMPTE has published a new, 52-page report – Report of the Study Group on Flow Management in Professional Media Networks – which looks at current and future technologies for media content flow management in professional media networks (PMN), explores user requirements, examines potential transmission methods for management commands, provides an overview of existing standards and specifications now available to the professional media industry, and offers a series of recommendations to the industry including some for future work.

Flow management is the mechanism for controlling how real-time media flows are guided through a fabric of Ethernet switches from senders to receivers with the appropriate functionality of media clean switching, reserved media bandwidth, and guaranteed required quality of service. Ideally, operators managing flows within an IP infrastructure should be able to use router panels and interfaces from the familiar SDI infrastructure, but the industry has yet to put forward the necessary underlying professional-grade protocols and mechanisms for this purpose. While work is already in progress within some organisations, open standards are not yet available.

The SMPTE report addresses the gap in existing standardisation and ultimately makes recommendations for SMPTE standards work in the areas of QoS profile, congestion management, and authentication in PMN. It also discusses the need for harmonization of device control protocol standards currently available to the industry. Recommendations for the broader media industry include topic areas such as flow switching methods, software-defined networking (SDN) control, and anomaly detection.

Howard Lukk, SMPTE Director of Engineering and Standards, said: "The Study Group report delves into critical considerations for establishing effective, interoperable flow management across IP networks. Based on the expertise of SMPTE Members and input from across the industry, the report offers a solid foundation on which to build future standards work – and thereby accelerate the industry's shift toward more efficient, scalable, agile, and flexible IP infrastructures and workflows."

The 'Report of the Study Group on Flow Management in Professional Media Networks' is available to read at www.smpte.org/standards/reports.

Image: Howard Lukk, SMPTE Director of Engineering and Standards.

www.smpte.org

(JP/LM)