#IBC2025
IBC2025 ACCELERATORS: MULTI-VENDOR SOFTWARE LIVE MEDIA
EXCHANGE; MASTER CONTROL CLOUD
The IBC Accelerator Programme continues today with two projects being presented on the Future Tech Stage in Hall 14. This morning, the fi ndings of ‘Multi-Vendor Software Live Media Exchange’ will be revealed. This project explores a new approach to live media exchange, leveraging high-speed interconnect technologies originally developed for high-performance computing and now widely used in cloud data centres. Through collaboration with IT and broadcast vendors, alongside the EBU Dynamic Media Facility team, this project will investigate, test and demonstrate new solutions that enhance performance, sustainability and automation. Champions behind this project are the BBC, EBU and VSF, alongside Participants Techex and Appear. Its aim is to help defi ne future specifi cations for live media exchange. It is also exploring potential testing environments, such as the CAPA test cluster, to validate real-world performance. The fi ndings will contribute to the broader industry shift towards software-defi ned, cloud-enabled production workfl ows, ensuring greater effi ciency and interoperability across media organisations. This afternoon sees the ‘Master Control Cloud’ project take to the Future Tech Stage. This aims to build a proof-of-concept system that reimagines the traditional broadcast master control room (MCR) as a scalable, cloud-native service. The project involves replicating critical MCR functions such as standards conversion, audio shuffl ing, metadata insertion, quality control and signal switching within a cloud-based environment. These capabilities, traditionally handled in tightly controlled on-premises facilities, are being re-engineered to support a future in which live content fl ows seamlessly from acquisition to distribution without ever leaving the cloud. The project also incorporates a novel experiment in communication: exploring the use of WebRTC and browser-based tools to replace traditional broadcast talkback systems. If successful, this could provide cost-effective, reliable communication for smaller outside broadcasts, decentralised teams and remote production scenarios. “Wherever you have WiFi, you can be a part of a production,” says Madelen Ottosson, Group Manager for Production Development at SVT.
The Accelerator is a testbed to demonstrate that a modern MCR capable of complex manipulation of live feeds can operate entirely in the cloud. “We’ve built the core routing and
orchestration capability, and we can get a signal from one place on the internet to somewhere else on the internet and keep an eye on it. But the missing bit is: how do we manipulate those signals?” says Tom Everest, Head of Architecture and Supply Chain for Broadcast and End-User Technology at the BBC.
“We should embrace innovation and see the possibilities instead of being afraid of it” Madelen Ottosson, SVT
This includes everyday but vital processes like frame rate conversion, audio shuffl ing and resilience switching. “All the things that our on-premises MCRs do hundreds of times a day: cleaning up and normalising our inbound and outgoing feeds,” he says. “Can we do that without bringing the signals back on-premises? I really want to be able to show two things: fi rst, that there’s a continuing need for the sorts of functions which master control has done for broadcasters for years in a cloud and internet- only world. And second, that it’s possible to do all of this in the cloud, and without tying into a single vendor.”
Ottosson highlights the broader signifi cance of this shift: “We should embrace innovation and see the possibilities instead of being afraid of it. The TV business isn’t unique in that way. This is our day-to-day, and we shouldn’t be the ones who don’t move forward.” The project’s strength lies in its modular
architecture and interoperability. Rather than building a monolithic solution, the Master Control Cloud team focused on orchestrating discrete tools, dynamically deployable and vendor-agnostic. “Master control has always been a place
where we use best-of-breed tools and where one vendor’s device hands off to another,” Everest says. “How do we carry that forward into the future?” In today’s live demonstration, the team will show the system in action: routing, monitoring, manipulating and distributing live feeds in real
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SVT’s Madelen Ottosson
time, without hardware dependencies. “We want to show that it works,” says
Everest. “Not just in theory, but in practice, using real-world tools and real-world signals.” This includes cloud-native processing tools for media quality analysis, audio channel mapping, timecode handling and more, along with the WebRTC-based communication solution. Visitors will see how MCR functions can be conducted remotely, collaboratively and without traditional infrastructure. This international collaboration includes Champions BBC, BT Media & Broadcast, ITV, RTE, SVT and VSF, with Participants Bitfocus, InSync, Norsk/id3as, Phrame, Techex and Zixi. “BBC and SVT together want this project to be successful,” concludes Ottosson. “We have the same goals.”
Multi-Vendor Software Live Media Exchange takes place from 10:30-11:30 on the Future Tech Stage in Hall 14. It is followed by Master Cloud Control from 15:30-16:30.
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