The news making round the industry the last few years has been about the future of signal transmission. Will it continue to be a cable-based (baseband) solution, or will this migration to IP-based solutions finally take place?

Technicians are familiar with previous IP solutions, many of which have left a bad taste in their mouth from poor user-experience and poor quality. Protocols like HDbaseT, SDVoE, Dante Video, AMX, NDI and countless others have tried to gain traction over the years with varying success.

So how is this solution any different? Why has NDI not taken over as the next iteration of video signals and can stand alongside HDMI, DisplayPort, SDI and other standards that make up a video ecosystem?

The key difference is standardization. Protocols like HDBaseT, SDVoE and NDI are proprietary standards created by and owned by business entities or alliances. The HDBaseT Alliance was originally incorporated in 2010 in partnership between Samsung, Sony, LG and others. They worked together in agreement on how a new delivery system for AV could be created and deployed to the market. The SDVOE Alliance is similar in their creation and intent to create a new format for use in Pro AV.

Other popular protocols like Dante Video and NDI were created and owned by a specific company. Dante is the product name for a combination of hardware, software and network protocols for AV delivery and was developed by the Australian company Audinate. Audinate now sells the license for Dante support to other hardware and software manufacturers.

NDI was originally created by NewTek, best known for the Video Toaster of the 90’s and eventually the TriCaster system, an all-in-one video switcher capable of also recording, streaming, video playback and dynamic audio routing.

While all these formats can be licensed for use on practically any product, it can get quite tricky creating third-party devices (converters, encoders, cameras, displays, etc.) when using a proprietary (non-standardized) protocol. Because individual companies own these formats, it is always in their best interest to continue to develop and redesign the transmission protocol. Should NDI determine tomorrow that they can now encode 8k video down a single Cat6 cable they are able to do so, which theoretically could cause compatibility issues with pre-existing hardware using a previous license.

AV Professionals have long preferred a standardization of protocols. Currently the two largest entities who dictate these protocols are SMPTE, the Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers, and VESA, the Video Electronic Standard Association.

SMPTE is best known for their widely used SDI formats, including SMPTE 292M (HD-SDI), SMPTE 424M (3G-SDI) and the modern SMPTE ST 2082 (12G-SDI). SMPTE has ratified the upcoming ST 2083 standard, which could introduce 24G-SDI to the market.

Seeing that SMPTE has already ratified an 8K@30 standard with 24G-SDI, why change? There are a lot of downsides to the current infrastructure. As many know all too well, introducing a new standard of cable requires a new infrastructure of cable. In less than 10 years we have gone from HD-SDI to 3G-SDI, up to 12G-SDI. Each new adoption requires new cabling, new routers, new switchers, new input and output ports on cameras, projectors and monitors and countless other natural issues of rapid evolution.

This cost factor, along with the coordination of managing cabling that from the outside looks identical, has been one of the stopgaps in the innovation cycle and progress in terms of higher-bandwidth cables and capacities.

Here is where ST 2110 can come into play. The concept of ST 2110 does not differ much from the other AV over IP solutions, except for one major exception. ST 2110 is a SMPTE ratified standard, in the same vein as HD-SDI, 3G-SDI and 12G-SDI. This means that the protocol will not change, and manufacturers are able to use and adopt this standard with no licensing fees.

SMPTE also requires the ability to genlock their signals, allowing them to be used in broadcast-level scenarios where complete and true synchronization is a must. To facilitate this requirement, we turn to the Precision Time Protocol, aka PTP Sync. PTP is a network-based genlock, allowing all sources on a ST 2110 network to receive a master sync. PTP sync is easily adaptable to Black burst and Tri-level sync for pre-existing show scenarios.

The other major entity of standardization is VESA, the Video Electronic Standard Association. Like SMPTE, their goal is to determine resolutions standards for mass adoption into the industry to ensure compliancy of equipment used in Pro AV. VESA is also well known for creating the standard mounting bracket used on most televisions and monitors.

While SMPTE has their focus primarily on broadcast and broadcast standards, VESA is the more commonly used protocol in live events. VESA determines resolutions for cables such as DisplayPort and DVI, and allows protocols such as EDID, HDCP, DisplayID and more.