VITEC’s Family of Purpose-Built Broadcast Solutions Deliver Media Under Extreme Conditions
Today, we are immersed in a world of video, and with powerful mobile devices it’s streaming to the palm of our hands 24x7x365. This new era of ubiquitous video requires purpose-built solutions for specific applications; products that ensure broadcasters never miss a shot — all at the very highest quality, lowest latency, and consuming minimal bandwidth. A new game is on!
Supporting emerging video compression standards is central to this evolution. Advanced Video Coding (AVC/H.264) is the most pervasive codec standard for nearly all television and streaming applications, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube — which has 2 billion monthly active users. However, AVC is a standard that isn’t necessarily adequate to support all broadcast workflows.
Over the last five years, a more advanced CODEC standard has emerged that improves the compression quality of AVC by another 50%. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) is the latest compression standard designed to support UHD video streams. VITEC is a market leader focused on developing the HEVC CODEC and products that utilize both standards, with products that serve both legacy AVC and emerging HEVC workflows for contribution and OTT streaming.
VITEC’s priority is to deliver the highest studio quality content at the lowest bit rates.. VITEC’s MGW Ace Encoder and Ace Decoder pair can deliver pristine studio-quality video with 16 channels of audio at 8 to 30 Mbs. An uncompressed HD 1080p60 interlaced link is 1.5 gigabits per second (Gbs). To analogize the efficiency of HEVC, you could imagine compressing a cargo ship stacked with shipping containers down to the size of a speedboat. Thanks to all the new and advanced tools integrated in the HEVC standard, the Ace Encoder and Decoder links can maintain studio quality 4:2:2 10-bit performance, providing pristine links for remote and traditional postproduction workflows at aggressively low bit rates.
A traditional mezzanine codec, such as JPEG2000 (J2K) requires hundreds of megabits per second to maintain mezzanine studio quality. J2K is traditionally configured from 75 to 300 Mbs to deliver the SDI service. VITEC’s GEN2+ HEVC codec changes the game. It compresses content at 1/10 of the bandwidth of JPEG but with the similar video quality, assuring clean and reliable transport links from 8 to 30 Mbs based on content and customer requirements. HEVC is a mezzanine CODEC perfectly suited for the rigors and demands of live broadcast-quality streaming.
Broadcast workflows operating within a corporate network require the lowest possible glass-to-glass latency. Without consideration of the network latency, VITEC’s Tier 1 Broadcast contribution solutions deliver content with ultra-low-latency of under one frame glass-to-glass while still maintaining studio-quality 4:2:2 10-bit performance.
Many of the commodity products available today don’t offer the robust features to meet the entirety or variety of demands within a broadcast workflow. For decades, VITEC has created solutions for military contribution applications that require portability, reliability, and durability operating in very harsh environments. As we pivot VITEC and focus on Tier 1 Broadcast contribution, users can expect the same reliability and performance.
