Tackling the HD Challenge

Omneon is a leading provider of media server and active storage solutions used to support the acquisition, production, management and distribution of digital media content. The company's products allow broadcasters and media production facilities to streamline their workflows and capitalize on the transition to a file-based environment.

With a proven track record of integrating IT and broadcast best practices with advanced system architectures, Omneon has established a leadership position in the market for providing customers with infrastructure solutions that are flexible, scalable, reliable and highly cost-effective.

Free White Papers

Easing the Transition to HD Using Omneon Spectrum™ Media Servers

May 23, 2006

Tackling the HDTV Challenge

Abstract

High-definition television (HDTV) represents both a
monumental improvement in the quality of the broadcast experience and a
significant upgrade in the technology contained within the broadcast
plant. It also presents broadcasters and cable networks with a
significant business challenge.

In moving to HD, broadcasters
must make myriad choices on formats, standards and bit rates before
selecting new equipment for HD ingest, production and playout. U.S.
broadcasters must also clear the extra hurdle of maintaining their
existing standard-definition analog broadcasts while launching a new HD
service, which means designing systems that can support both SD and HD
operations for several years.

HDTV presents a unique challenge
for media servers because the vast amounts of information contained in
HDTV pictures require exponential increases in both disk storage and
bandwidth. Additionally, media servers must have the flexibility to
support multiple formats, including both a variety of SD and HD formats
simultaneously. Omneon Video Networks offers a unique solution to these
challenges with its Spectrum media server products, a line of HD and SD
media servers based on modular components that allow broadcasters to
quickly launch HDTV today while providing the flexibility to easily
scale in the future. Omneon's Spectrum servers are designed to support
the highest-quality HDTV video while enabling the same functionality
that broadcasters enjoy in the standard-definition world for functions
such as automation, editing and closed captioning.

HDTV is no longer a future challenge for broadcasters, but is instead part of their day-to-day reality. In the U.S., the major broadcast networks such as ABC, CBS and Fox offer the bulk of their prime time dramas and sitcoms in HDTV, along with a bevy of major sports programming. Basic cable networks such as ESPN, Discovery and TNT have also begun offering HDTV programming, following the early lead of subscription services such as HBO and Showtime. Many smaller networks and local broadcast stations have also made the move to HDTV, or are readying to do so.

There are several factors driving the adoption of HDTV worldwide. In the U.S., the biggest impetus is the federal government's timetable for the adoption of digital television service, a process that formally started back in 1996. While legislation in Congress is still pending, the current expectation is that broadcasters will have to fully convert to digital television (DTV) broadcasting and return their analog spectrum by 2009. Television set manufacturers and cable operators are also obligated to provide equipment that will enable viewers to watch the digital signals once analog broadcasts cease. Outside of the US, many broadcasters are also being driven by either government mandate or competitive pressure to embrace HD programming. Global sporting events like the World Cup and the Olympics put increasing pressure on television networks to support HD broadcasting.

Competition for viewers and advertising dollars has always been fierce between programming networks, and HDTV has become an important way to maintain a network's competitive edge. The desire to provide the highest quality service available to the most demanding viewers is what drove early HDTV adopters like HBO and CBS to launch their slates of HD programming, and it is what is driving networks like MTV and TNT to hop into the HD game today.

The dropping prices of digital television products have also spurred consumers to buy HDTV sets. In the first half of 2005, consumer electronics manufacturers shipped some 3.8 million digital television sets, driven by a drop of over $200 in the factory-to-dealers sales price of DTV sets, which are averaging $1,159 per DTV set, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). CEA says that 86 percent of consumers buying DTV sets are opting for the highest quality HDTV sets, and that as of August 2005, seven million U.S. households were capable of receiving HD programming via over-the-air broadcasts or cable.

Broadcasters are now looking to modernize their facilities to accommodate this change in the market by either adding HDTV capabilities or upgrading HD equipment they already have. At the same time the broadcast industry has seen a number of product introductions of HD equipment at price points roughly equal to the price of standard definition equipment making the cost of launching HDTV less onerous than in the past.

This white paper covers details related to some of the many considerations related to implementing HD in the broadcast plant, including formats, bit rates, resolution, and HD acquisition and production requirements. In addition, this paper will describe how Omneon is addressing these types of HDTV issues for broadcasters.

HD Basics Standards

One of the particular challenges of HD broadcasting is the large number of standards and formats to choose from. For the most part this choice has already been made at the broadcast group or organization level, but it is still a factor to contend with when selecting equipment.

The U.S. digital television standard, also called the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) standard, allows for 18 different broadcast formats, six of which are HDTV, while the video standards from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) provide for 10 different permutations of HDTV. The major choice is whether to use the 1080-line interlace (1080i) or 720-line progressive (720p) high-definition format. After that, there is a choice of various frame rates such as 24, 29.97 or 59.94 frames per second. Table 1 below summarizes the different standardized video input formats governing High Definition technology, originated from both SMPTE and the ATSC.

Formats

Besides the MPEG transmission format for broadcasts to the home, there are also a number of HDTV acquisition and production formats, most based on tape. They range from the high bit-rate Panasonic D-5 and Sony HDCAM formats to Panasonic DVCPRO HD (at 100 Mb/s) to the new low-bit-rate HDV format created by JVC and Toshiba, which stores 720p HD at 19 Mb/s and 1080i HD at 25 Mb/s.

For high-end content such as HD ingest or HD satellite news distribution there is no clear front-runner yet as to which HD format will become dominant. Typically, satellite feeds will be transport streams carrying a MPEG-2 payload or perhaps one of the new advanced encoding formats such as MPEG-4 or Windows Media 9.

Table 1: HD Video Formats

While it is unclear if the Long-GOP HDV format is of high enough quality for general HD production applications, it is nevertheless an important emerging format and is one that is expected to be popular as a news acquisition format for cost-effective HDTV production. HDV may have a similar impact on HD production as the DV format has had on standard definition news acquisition, allowing expensive, heavy cameras to be replaced with lighter, low-cost gear that still produces acceptable picture quality for professional use.

Ingest

The implementation of high definition in a facility requires new technology across the workflow primarily affecting ingest and playout. For ingest the choice of encoder plays a major role in determining the overall quality of the material being captured and then used throughout the workflow. As HDTV evolves, encoding solutions are becoming more sophisticated and more cost-effective, making the entry point into a HDTV workflow more practical. Specific guidelines for using encoders are discussed in more detail in the sections below.

The general process for ingesting begins with an uncom- pressed or baseband HDTV signal. This signal is routed to a HDTV encoder, which compresses the signal into a lower-bit-rate format (such as MPEG2) suitable for storing in a video server. The typical encoding solution encapsulates the compressed video signal onto an ASI transport stream, which is then used to feed either the transmission process or is ingested into video servers which have the capability to capture the ASI stream and in real-time extract the compressed HDTV essence material for storage as a file within the system. This file is then available for editing, QC, proxy generation or even playout.

Bit Rates

The bit rate range for HD depends on the requirements of the application. The ATSC transmission standard is approximately 19 Mbps and this includes compressed MPEG-2 video and Dolby AC-3 audio. The typical video bit rate in this situation is about 17.7 Mbps. For most play-to-air operations the output of the video server will be a baseband HD signal which is then routed to a downstream MPEG encoder to create the transmission transport stream. It's recommended that the original ingest process use the highest possible bit rate that the system can support in order to minimize the concatenation effects of two MPEG encoding stages.

Encoders

There are a number of encoder parameters that need to be taken into consideration when implementing HDTV, with the most important variable being whether to use 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 encoding.

Many HDTV broadcasters are using external encoders to initially capture material using 4:2:2 encoding, even if the end product may be transmitted using 4:2:0, which is the ATSC transmission standard for over-the-air broadcasts. The motivation for storing video at such a high quality is the same as using a higher bit rate for ingest--keeping the quality high through the multiple steps in the production process.

While most HDTV broadcasters are choosing 50 Mb/s, 4:2:2 Long-GOP (LGOP) MPEG-2, some are going as high as 70-80 Mbps LGOP. The encoder selected therefore must handle video bit rates from about 16-17 Mbps all the way to 80 Mbps. For this range of bit rates, coupled with 4:2:2 support, a broadcaster should expect to pay in the range of $40,000 to $75,000 for an encoder.

Audio

HDTV presents broadcasters with a number of choices of digital audio, including the Dolby® AC3, PCM, and Dolby-E formats. As with HD video, different digital audio formats make sense for different links in the HD broadcast chain.

Dolby AC3 is the audio format transmission standard specified in the ATSC standard. It encodes the 5.1 channel surround sound in about 640 Kbps, making up a relatively small part of the 19.3 Mbps ATSC transmission stream that is broadcast to consumers' HDTV sets.

PCM audio consists of discreet channels of uncompressed audio and takes up the most amount of storage space. This is typically the preferred format when dealing with surround sound that may be processed prior to transmission. Surround sound requires at least 6 channels or 3 AES/EBU pairs of input to the selected encoder to carry the 5.1 channel sound. In addition, the selected encoder needs to encode and map the PCM audio to the MPEG Transport Stream in accordance with SMPTE-302M. In order to maintain the phase integrity between the 6 surround sound channels, the 6 channels (8 if one is also ingesting the stereo mix) need to be mapped to a single audio PID (Program ID) in the transport stream.

Dolby-E is a method used to carry the Dolby encoded 5.1 channel audio in a single AES/EBU pair. It was designed to simplify the movement of surround sound audio in a facility, and uses a higher bit rate than the AC3 transmission standard in order to allow any decoding and re-encoding steps that may be required. Because the data carried in the AES/EBU transport is encoded data and not audio, the selected encoder needs to be able to bypass any sample-rate converters that are used for processing audio inputs.

Broadcasters today are taking various strategies in tackling digital audio. Some have elected to simply pass Dolby-E. They use external Dolby-E encoding for audio, which is combined with the video and encoded into MPEG transport streams. Others are using AC-3, as they are only interested in the final delivery of audio to the consumer.

Still others are focused on mixing their own surround sound for demanding applications such as live sports broadcasts. Maintaining the phase of surround sound is a challenge--it's not uncommon for sports broadcasts to be mixed from over 16 channels of incoming audio.

Closed Captions/Subtitling

In standard definition broadcasting, it is very well understood how closed captioning data goes into the VBI (vertical blanking interval) of the analog signal. Handling closed caption or subtitling information for HD is very different from the way it is handled in SD.

In HD the data for closed captioning is carried in the VANC and HANC data area of the uncompressed video signal. When the signal is compressed in an HD encoder, the data is mapped onto MPEG user data. There are two standards that describe how closed caption data is handled in the uncompressed video signal and a single standard on how it is handled in the compressed signal. The relevant standards for the uncompressed domain are SMPTE-334M and EIA-708-B (EIA-608-A for SD). For compressed video ATSC A53B specifies an area in the MPEG-2 user data where the closed caption data is stored.

When playing out baseband HD an MPEG HD decoder that supports closed captioning extracts the MPEG user data stored in accordance with ATSC A53B and inserts it in the VANC/HANC of the baseband HD signal in accordance with the EIA-708/608 and SMPTE-334M specifications. This methodology replicates the closed captioning functionality of the analog NTSC transmission system.

Timecode

Timecode is also a challenge in HDTV since the MPEG compression used to transmit, record and store HDTV pictures separates the video images into separate frames of information of varying sizes. Since the key focus in analog broadcast operations is frame accuracy, this quirk of compression obviously presents a difficulty. For example, editing requires that some frames must be moved or eliminated. The difficulty arises in that MPEG stores time code as data, and thus editing can result in frames without contiguous timecode.

Timecode data is also carried in the VANC and HANC area. The main standard covering timecode in the uncompressed domain is SMPTE RP-188. An MPEG HD encoder will generally extract this timecode and insert it in the GOP header of the MPEG stream. For many broadcast and production applications, this is not acceptable because timecode is only available at the beginning of every GOP. Depending on the GOP length selected, this will result in an actual timecode value every 6 to 15 pictures or frames. If the input signal has discontinuous timecode, the exact frame where the discontinuity occurred will not be identifiable in the resultant MPEG stream.

To address this issue, SMPTE-328M specifies a method where every frame of the MPEG transport stream carries the timecode value associated with that frame. The timecode value associated with a particular frame is stored in the MPEG user data. If the selected encoder supports SMPTE-328M timecode insertion, compatible servers are able to extract this information in order to provide production customers with complete timecode indexed access.

When playing out baseband HD, an MPEG HD decoder that supports SMPTE-328M can extract the timecode data and map it into the HD baseband signal in accordance with the SMPTE RP-188 specification.

Playout

Just because a broadcaster has begun providing HD content, doesn't mean that all content is available in HD. In fact, it is highly unlikely that a broadcaster will convert all SD content to HD, or vice versa, in order to create a homogenous broadcasting environment. The more likely scenario is that there will be a mixture of HD and SD material that needs to be played to air as part of a single playlist. This leaves the broadcaster with two choices: either play out empty sections of a timeline and hope that viewers and advertisers will tolerate the gaps in programming, or replicate all SD material on the HD channel and all the HD content on the SD channel. The former is unacceptable and the latter is a costly proposition involving stand-alone up and down converters and additional channels of automation.

Aspect Ratio

The typical aspect ratio of a high definition signal is 16:9 and for a standard definition signal it is 4:3. When up-converting or down-converting a video program, the aspect ratio needs to be adjusted to match the requirements of the desired output format.

For up-conversion, a 4:3 aspect ratio signal has to be adapted to a wide aspect ratio. Under this situation the output aspect ratio can be placed in a 16:9 "Pillar Box," cropped with a 14:9 "Crop," or stretched with a 16:9 "Anamorphic" effect depending on what the input SD source aspect ratio is. Diagram 1 below illustrates the choices.

Diagram 1: Up-Conversion Aspect Ratio for Output Format

For down-conversion, a 16:9 aspect ratio signal has to be adapted to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Under this situation the output aspect ratio can be Letterbox, 14:9 Crop, Full Screen, or Anamorphic depending on what the input HD source aspect ratio is. The diagram below illustrates these choices.

Diagram 2: Down-Conversion Aspect Ratio for Output Format

The Omneon HD Solution

Combining years of broadcast expertise with the best practices from information technology (IT) Omneon products deliver the best of both worlds. While Omneon's HD products are designed specifically to meet the unique demands of broadcast customers, they utilize standard IT methodologies and components to create a comprehensive solution that provides modular scalability, format independence, open platform flexibility, fault resilience and cost effectiveness. Omneon's modular approach allows broadcasters to design their initial system to meet their precise format, channel count, and storage requirements, and manage the growth of their system--including the addition of HD--in cost-effective incremental steps.

Omneon Spectrum HD Media Server

The Omneon Spectrum media server combines high-quality HD playout capability with flexible features to provide a complete HD ingest and playout solution in one low-cost integrated platform. HD MultiPort playout modules can support one or two channels of HD MPEG playout of 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 material at bit rates up to 78 Mbps. The Omneon Spectrum HD also supports the use of external encoders and DVB/ASI streams, allowing network feeds to be ingested directly into the media server for playout.

Through the use of the MediaPort 4010 MPEG ingest module, the Omneon Spectrum HD integrates HD MPEG ingest with MPEG transport stream demux in a single device. The MediaPort 4010 MPEG ingest module can demultiplex a transport stream into independent video and audio elementary streams and maintain frame accurate synchronization. This simplifies ingest workflow by eliminating the need for offline processing of MPEG transport streams and enables direct connection to backhaul distribution over DVB/ASI.

Storage for the Omneon Spectrum system is handled by scalable arrays that have the capacity to hold hundreds of hours of HD MPEG video. The software RAID controller in the Omneon Spectrum provides fully protected, reliable storage scalability, allowing additional storage arrays to be easily added to expand system capacity. Since Omneon Spectrum systems store content on the same file system, regardless of format or resolution, HD and SD content can be stored on the same server. This means that existing SD systems can add HD capabilities without changing the storage subsystem, restriping the array or managing multiple file systems.

For playout, the output module of the Omneon Spectrum HD provides dual independent HD MPEG output channels each with 16 channels of embedded audio. It supports the broadest range of MPEG bit rates--19 Mbps to 78 Mbps--and can frame accurately switch between 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 material.

Omneon MediaDirector

The Omneon MediaDirector is the central component of the Omneon Spectrum HD system. Serving as an overall system controller, it keeps track of the file system and manages the flow of data to and from all other components in the system, including storage (Omneon MediaStores), real-time media (Omneon MediaPorts and MultiPorts) and network traffic (Gigabit Ethernet). Media ingest, storage and playout are all coordinated through the MediaDirector, which manages bandwidth requirements to ensure that all real-time media I/O receives guaranteed, uninterrupted data throughput.

The MediaDirector provides software RAID capabilities to access and protect all data stored on the system's disk arrays. MediaDirectors access system storage arrays through multiple Fibre Channel loops, ensuring both resiliency and performance necessary for on-air operations. The interface to Omneon MediaPort and MultiPort audio and video I/O components is provided by multiple high-speed serial buses. This design provides maximum flexibility with regard to video format while also ensuring channel count scalability. Gigabit Ethernet provides high-bandwidth data communication via SMB, FTP and AFP (Apple File Protocol).

Omneon MediaPort 4010 Ingest Module

Partly due to the newness of HD and partly due to the idiosyncrasies of encoding solutions, many broadcasters have clear preferences for the encoders that are used to capture HD material. For this reason, Omneon HD systems allow broadcasters to use the encoder of their choice to encode HD material for storage and playback on and to connect an external encoder. Omneon provides the MediaPort 4010, an interface device that connects to external encoders via ASI to capture and demultiplex HD essence material in real time. The combination of an Omneon Spectrum server with a best-of- breed HD encoder provides a solution that offers higher quality than other servers and with more flexibility, HD as 4:2:2, 50 Mb/s MPEG-2 video.

Omneon MultiPort 4000 Series

The Omneon MultiPort 4000 Series are media interface components of the Omneon Spectrum that deliver native HD playout capability with support for a broad range of HD bit rates, profiles and even external converters. The MultiPort 4000 Series offers independent multichannel HD playout from a single device. It supports up to two channels of MPEG-2 HD playout with bit rates ranging from 19 Mbps to 78 Mbps and offers robust audio playout options with 16 channels of embedded audio. Additionally both 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 chroma sampling is supported by the MultiPort 4000 Series along with 1080i/25, 1080i/29.97 and 720p/59.94 formats. Redundant power supplies ensure reliability of on-air operations.

Omneon MultiPort 4100 Series

The MultiPort 4100 Series supports simultaneous playback of both SD and HD MPEG-2 material. In addition to its MPEG-2 decoding capability, this family of media interface components provides built-in up- and down-conversion, enabling broadcasters to mix HD and SD material on the same timeline with synchronized continuous HD and SD outputs.

Supporting up to 2 channels of MPEG-2 HD and SD outputs (4 total outputs, each HD/SD pair as an independent channel), the MultiPort 4100 Series supports LGOP and I-frame HD playback for bit rates ranging from 19 Mbps to 78 Mbps and LGOP, I-frame and IMX SD playback for bit rates ranging from 3 Mbps to 50 Mbps. Both 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 chroma sampling is supported along with 1080i/25, 1080i/29.97, 720p/50 and 720p/59.94 formats. For broadcasters using an external converter for up- or down-conversion, the MultiPort 4100 Series also includes connectors and delay compensation to accommodate these devices.

For broadcasters who have a mix of SD and HD material and who must support both HD and SD channels, the MultiPort 4100 Series reduces automation complexity in half since both HD and SD outputs can be controlled as a single channel.

Closed Captioning HD With Omneon

Omneon's MultiPort 4100 Series products support both 608 and 708 up- and down caption conversion, reducing the need to integrate additional external encoders/decoders to handle this function. An example of this functionality can be seen in Diagram 3 below.

Diagram 3: Closed Captioning HD with the Omneon Spectrum and the Omneon MultiPort 4100 Series

HDV Support with Omneon

Omneon's open standards approach enables support for HD formats broadcasters choose to work with, including HDV. HDV support allows Omneon Spectrum users to implement a cost-effective "capture, edit, and play" workflow that takes advantage of lower-cost HDV equipment for affordable HD production and playout. The Omneon Spectrum media server handles direct storage of HDV-based material for later playout. HDV playout functionality can be combined with other Omneon MultiPort 4000 and 4100 Series modules, which allow HDV clips to be played back-to-back with an automatically up-converted SD clip on the same timeline.

Some customers are adopting HDV as an acquisition format which is then ingested into an HDV-capable editing platform, such as Apple Final Cut Pro®, where it is then edited. The finished material is then transferred over standard network connectivity to an Omneon Spectrum media server base station where Apple Final Cut Pro nonlinear editor is used to edit the content for playout.

Diagram 4: HD and SD Playback with Omneon Spectrum Media Server and the Omneon MultiPort 4100.

Managing HD Content as Files

Many broadcasters are shifting to HDTV operations at the same time they are starting to embrace IT technologies and file-based operations. For some broadcasters simply moving to file-based operations, whether they be SD or HD, can be daunting.

The biggest change is eliminating much of content's physical connection to tape and becoming comfortable with using metadata rather than labels on the side of a tape to track content. This makes the process of ingesting material far more critical. As broadcasters ingest content they need to do a good job of verifying that content and generating accurate metadata for managing the file in the future. Once content becomes a file and goes into nonlinear storage (either in online or archive storage) it may not be dealt with again until it becomes part of a broadcast playlist. So the metadata must be 100% accurate.

In general, managing HD content in a file-based server system is no different than working with SD. Once content is in file format, it's a file, albeit a larger one with HD.

HD and SD can easily coexist in the same file system, and with playout devices such as the Omneon MultiPort 4100 that can automatically configure the output for the proper format, the boundary between SD and HD becomes seamless.

An important consideration in dealing with HD files is that in addition to their using up more storage space, they also use up more bandwidth as they progress through the workflow.

Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) is proving to be a viable solution for moving HD files. With a wire speed of up to 120 megabytes per second, GigE can provide up to ten times real time speed for transferring HD files at 50 Mbps, which with audio is equivalent to 7 or 8 Megabytes per second.

Editing

The increased file size of HD media also impacts editing applications. There is simply more data to transfer and store, which places additional demands on networks and storage infrastructures and impacts the total number of editing seats that can be supported per GigE networking port.

An even bigger challenge in editing HD on a server is that it requires editing video in compressed format. For example, editing HD on Omneon servers requires editors that can work with Long GOP MPEG-2 (though DVC Pro HD can be used as an alternative if the system is configured with DVC Pro HD external codecs over the SDTI interface).

While editing MPEG-2 Long GOP content used to be a stumbling block because of the computing power required to edit the different size frames used in MPEG compression, processing power has improved to the point where there are viable MPEG-2 editing solutions. Both Avid and Pinnacle nonlinear systems offer Long GOP editing today, and Apple is also supporting Long GOP editing through its support of the 25 Mbps HDV format.

Automation

HDTV broadcasting can present a challenge for automation systems, since most broadcasters are launching an HDTV service while still maintaining a standard-definition service. That can mean buying a second channel of automation which can costs approximately $20,000 from most automation suppliers. Running simultaneous HD and SD paths also requires two separate decoding chains, while still playing one clip and still cueing the next one.

A key feature of the Omneon Spectrum media server is that it supports HD and SD in the same timeline. This can help to significantly simplify the HD automation interface since the automation system would only need to deal with controlling a single automation channel and load clips onto the playout timeline, regardless of whether the clip is a HD or a SD clip.

The automation system would send a command to cue and to play a clip. The Omneon media server system then looks at the clip, sets up a decoding chain to do the right thing based on what type of clip it is, i.e. SD or HD and then sends it to a down-converter or up-converter as necessary.

Since the Omneon Spectrum media server makes SD and HD simulcasting look like a single channel to the automation system this helps streamline HD operations, creating cost savings for broadcasters as a result.

Omneon's 4100 series decoders are also highly configurable between SD and HD. For example, if cueing a clip that was originally in HD, that clip is then decoded to support the SD service while simultaneously playing in HD. If the next clip in line is a SD clip, then that clip is cued and up-converted to support HD output while the server simultaneously plays the clip on the SD output. All this activity is triggered from a single automation timeline.

The elegance of this approach is that the automation system has to do nothing--while the Omneon Spectrum media server does the work based on the type of clip.

An additional benefit is that Omneon has built its own internal up-converter and down-converter into the MultiPort 4100 as a standard feature.

By integrating up-conversion and down-conversion into the MultiPort 4100, Omneon provides broadcasters with the ultimate in flexibility as they upgrade to HDTV operation, allowing them to easily support the playback of both HD and SD files from the same server. This allows broadcasters to save money on downstream equipment as well, since the MultiPort 4100 integrated up-converter and down-converter represents at a minimum a $10,000 savings in format conversion technology.

Up and down conversion algorithms differ greatly from one manufacturer to another and the choice of algorithms is a subjective one. The MultiPort 4100 uses a simple up-converter that does horizontal scaling and vertical scaling. The up- converter does not use any kind of motion compensation, so customers that need to handle a great deal of high-speed motion in their programming may prefer to purchase an external up-converter with better motion handling capabilities.

For this reason, Omneon provides the ability to use an external up converter or down converter. The Omneon server has a setting that routes the signal through an external converter, and then back into the Omneon system. Omneon manages the timing ensuring that the switch happens in frame-accurately; it also compensates for the audio delay that occurs when an external converter is used. This functionality reduces the amount of downstream equipment that customers need to purchase, even for those customers who choose to buy external conversion equipment.

Omneon Makes HD Easy

The smart, modular architecture of the Omneon Spectrum HD enables configurations that fit the precise requirements of individual facilities today and offer easy expansion as they grow their HDTV business. Omneon server solutions support a range of HD formats and integrate with best-of-breed encoders to achieve the highest picture quality.

Omneon's philosophy is to provide broadcasters a wide range of choices as they leverage their existing infrastructure to maximize their return on investment through the transition to HD broadcasting. As such, HD MultiPort configurations can be included in initial configurations or added to existing Omneon Spectrum installations without any interruption of online operations. And while other manufacturers may require significant investment to configure a server for HD operation, Omneon's HD upgrade path is very simple: by connecting a MultiPort 4100 into an available high-speed serial connection, it becomes available immediately as part of the server system.

Multiple MultiPort 4100 units may be combined with multiple single-channel MediaPort components to enable high channel counts and accommodate the mixed format requirements of simultaneous SD and HD playout. These modular components are easy to integrate and allow broadcasters to add redundancy for added overall reliability. Industry-standard connectivity simplifies the creation of a highly configurable system that allows broadcasters to easily launch HD programming today while positioning them to quickly expand their HD ingest and playout operations in the future.

Omneon Contact Information www.omneon.com
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Omneon, Omneon Video Networks, and the Omneon logo are registered trademarks of Omneon Video Networks, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of the respective companies. Copyright ©2005 Omneon Video Networks, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in USA \| November 2005. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice or obligation. WPHD-051107