Ethernet AVB:The next step in broadcast infrastructures

Jan Eveleens, CEOjan.eveleens@axon.tvwww.axon.tv

Professional Networked Media

Live Production as we know it

Key challenges in current infrastructures

(lack of) flexibility Topology (central router) Supporting new standards

Cabling Specific for our industry Dedicated

one cable per signal (type) Uni-directional A LOT……

A typical example

Green-field installation (UK): 157 x Analog audio distribution amplifiers 78 x Digital audio distribution amplifiers 410 x (!) Analog CVBS distribution amplifiers

Mostly for reference distribution 1018 x (!) Digital video (SDI) distribution amplifiers

Total required rackspace: 93 x 4RU frames = 372 RU approx. 10 x full-height 19” Racks !!!

Many, many kilometers of coax cable, thousands of BNC connectors

And this just for reference and signal distribution……..

Live Production infrastructures: the next wave !

Composite

SDI

HD-SDI

3 Gbps

Ethernet

today

Why going Ethernet in Live Production (1) ?

Required link speed available now

and affordable: A 10Gbps ethernet port is already cheaper than a 3Gbps SDI I/O

Sheer size of ethernet industry drives innovation and cost erosion Ethernet switch market > $20B (10Gbps switch market already > $10B) Compare this to: total SDI router market: ~ $300M…… or even

total broadcast equipment market: ~$16B .

Another interesting datapoint: revenu of Cisco (2012): $46B….

40.000

10.000

1.000

100

10

1

1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014

ETHERNETVIDEO

Mb

ps

Strong Ethernet roadmap going forward

Ethernet (backbone) link speed expected to hit 1 Tbps (!) in the next decade !!

Why going Ethernet in Live Production (2) ?

Allows distributed architectures Full bi-directional/duplex connections Multiple (different) signals multiplexed/transported on one

cable Video, audio, (meta) data, control, monitoring, etc Also supports standard ‘legacy’ traffice (files, emails, etc)

Drastically reduce cabling Save costs (cables, connectors, install), space and weight (!)

SDI

9

Central referencewith distribution

Central referencewith distribution

A central routerA central router

Many cables,often in big

parallel bundles

Many cables,often in big

parallel bundles

Already quite some Ethernet

equipment

Already quite some Ethernet

equipment

AVB

10

AVB

11

A distributed routerA distributed routerCentral reference

With no additional

distribution

Central referenceWith no

additional distribution

How to make Ethernet work for real-time applications

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Audio Video Bridging (AVB)

Bandwidth Reservation

Traffic Shaping

Configuration

Time Synchronization

What are the key AVB standards ?

The key standards for AVB are: IEEE 802.1BA: Audio Video Bridging Systems IEEE 802.1AS: Timing and Synchronization for Time-

Sensitive Applications (gPTP), IEEE 802.1Qat: Stream Reservation Protocol (SRP), IEEE 802.1Qav: Forwarding and Queuing for Time-Sensitive

Streams (FQTSS) IEEE 1722: AVB payload transport layer protocol. IEEE 1722.1: AVB discovery, enumeration & control protocol

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Typical characteristics of an AVB network

All nodes are fully synchronised to a (very stable) network clock Allows very accurate recovery of media clocks

SDI can be recovered within broadcast quality jitter specifications Audio clock can be recovered maintaining phase relation

Low latency: typically 2ms overall network delay Allows for complex/distributed networks (multiple hops)

The network self-manages bandwidth reservation such that links will never get overcommitted and/or packets are dropped

Uses multi-cast, so only one copy of each active source on any given link or backbone

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What can be transported with AVB ?

The following elements are part of IEEE 1722 transport protocol: PCM audio in various sample rates SDI video (with embedded video and audio) Raw, uncompressed video

1080p video at ~2Gbps (!) Time-sensitive data (eg ancillarily or metadata)

IEEE 1394 formats So this also enables transport of compressed (MPEG-TS) streams

RTP formats

A very important element: interoperability

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Ensuring that AVB nodes talk to AVB nodes

AVnu Alliance

Who/what is AVnu Alliance The AVnu Alliance is an industry forum dedicated to the

advancement of professional-quality audio video by promoting the adoption of Audio Video Bridging (AVB).

The organization creates compliance test procedures and certification processes that ensure interoperability of networked AVB devices.

4 key markets: Professional Audio Professional Video Consumer Automotive 17

Founding Members of the AVnu Alliance

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AVnu Alliance members

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How real is Ethernet AVB ?

100Mbps, 1Gbps,10Gbps and 40Gbps Ethernet AVB switches are shipping

Several professional AVB audio products on the market from several vendors: Audio processors, audio consoles, speakers, etc Intercom systems

First broadcast quality AVB video products have started shipping

AVnu certification process is up and running

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Summarising the key benefits of Ethernet - AVB

Based on existing and open standards from a very reputable and succesful standards body (IEEE)

Provides one framework for time-synchronised, real-time transport of video, audio and data

Proven technology that is available now: large professional AVB audio systems being deployed in the field

Interoperability is going to be taken care of: AVnu alliance

Plug-and play : no conflicts or fiddling with IP addresses, etc

Fool-proof: the network is self-managing, it does not rely on the skills of network engineers or a (proprietery) software management layer.

Perfect co-existence (and reserved bandwidth for) with standard IP traffic (eg. control, monitoring, etc)

Questions ?

More info can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Video_Bridging

www.avnu.org

www.axon.tv