January 2014
www.tvbeurope.com
TVBEurope 39 Forum Channel in a Box
It has been suggested that the systems could be dubbed Channels in a Box. Just how many channels could be run from one box?
Calverley: That all depends on your definition of a channel. Some incorrectly assume CiaB systems are simply a combination of video server and graphics keyer, when in reality most channels require a whole lot more features - such as subtitle and ancillary data processing and support for a variety of input and output triggers and protocols. For simple SD requirements, channel counts can be comfortably pushed up to eight, with potential for more. Lugasi: The amount of
playable channels from a single box depends on the box’s performance, CPU, memory, graphics performance, and PCI lane speed. Technically, a few channels can run from a single box. The question is, does the broadcaster want to risk having channels come from a single box or would it prefer a dedicated box for the channels? Mehring: How many channels can run from one box depends on the box, or even if there is a box. For a box solution, that depends on how much and what type of signals are being output. For a completely software, virtualised or cloud based solution there is no box so the number of channels comes down to how much flexible computing power you have access to which in the cloud theoretically is just about limitless. Rose: How many channels could — or should — be run is a key question. Some believe that running as many as possible from a single device is a good idea, based solely on cost considerations. However, you need to ask if committing that
Karl Mehring, Snell
playout? Not a problem - you’re just going to need a big box. The beauty of it is, that with our distributed software module you can control as many of these channels as you want from an unlimited number of clients. Ten Dam: There is no simple
many channels to one device is really what you want to do. Sure, you can back up that device, but managing multiple channels to fall over in an emergency or planned maintenance is a headache most large broadcasters could do without. Plus, there is a trade-off between pure channel count and functionality. Most broadcasters demand the full channel chain inside a box, including key requirements such as Dolby E/D, Nielsen watermarking, captions and advanced graphics, not just lots of simple playback in one device. Shell: With the continued and
rapid improvements in CPU and GPU technology the amount of functionality available on CiaB increases all the time and with that the possibility of running more than one channel in a box. The move towards software-only solutions and IP I/O will allow
CiaB systems to be virtualised, running on blade chassis located in private or public clouds. In this way it is going to be possible to run many channels on a single server.
answer here. It is up to the vendor to define a clear offering of what a CiaB really is. Obviously, this can only be done after understanding customer needs and expectations. In a software-based solution, the question is actually how much performance is available on your playout node — then you decide how to use that in a particular situation. This means you can have a flexible, non-standard platform, which must have defined boundaries to offset scalability challenges. So a single CiaB playout node can technically house, for instance, several SD channels with minimal graphical performance or a single HD channel with a lot of graphics and PIPs, and anything in between. Since the platforms are more and more based on standard IT hardware this technical challenge will be less and less of an issue as performance capacity continues to grow.
ChannelPort channels and four simulcast channels for a total of eight channels per rack unit. Each playout channel and the associated simulcast channel are controlled by a single playlist. An added advantage is that every one of the eight channels can have unique graphic branding. The playlist controlling the channel + simulcast pair doesn’t have to take care of driving two sets of graphic template — this task is handled internally to keep operations simple. Weigner: Sixteen SD channels or up to eight HD channels using the currently fastest dual Xeon server (which fits in 1RU). Or when using blades we can deliver 32 HD channels from a 3RU box or 448 HD channels from a 42RU rack. If SDI is not required and we can run the CiaBs as virtual machines, then the density can massively increase. Wright: It depends on what
you mean by a channel! Again, it’s certainly as much down to the overall broadcast architecture as it is in-box technical capabilities. A single physical enclosure sooner or later has single points of failure and how much this is pushed is
“The move towards software-only solutions and IP I/O will allow CiaB systems to be virtualised, running on blade chassis located in private or public clouds”
Mat Shell, Harris Straight: It all depends on
your definition of a box. If you look at our Broadcast Suite, we can run two channels ingest SD on one MacMini and a single channel playout on one MacMini. So there you have two boxes. The MacMini box can be installed in a Sonnet RackMount and you can put as many of these as you want in your rack. Need eight channels ingest and four channels
Warman: The ChannelPort system can run in either one of two ways: integrated into a 1RU MediaDeck 7000 chassis to function as a stand-alone solution server including storage, or integrated in a MediaPort chassis to add channels to Spectrum’s shared storage system. Both offer channel in a box playout capabilities. Both approaches to storage support four
down to the user’s appetite for risk. If a customer wants eight channels from one box and a catastrophic failure happens to that box — the unthinkable happens and the dual-redundant power supply completely fails — then you are going to put all those channels off-air. So you want a reasonable density, but you want to manage single points of failure from a business resiliency point of view. As the
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