Let’s talk for a minute about technology seeds. It’s the simple concept that you can take proven features and functionality from one product line (the seed) and transplant them to other products or form factors — thereby creating new solutions that closely match the needs or preferences of a given industry.

When Artel developed the almost infinitely flexible and programmable SMART Media Delivery Platform, we knew it would be the technology seed from which so many other amazing Artel solutions would grow. Since then, we’ve used the SMART platform as the base for media over IP in other Artel product lines that mirror how the broadcast industry likes to work.

The SMART platform is a software-defined, four-channel, auto-sensing SD-SDI/HD-SDI/3G/4K-over-IP multifunction gateway. Its architecture is unique in that it supports both SDI video inputs/outputs and general IP data I/O ports in the same module. Users have put this unique feature to work in several ways, some of them quite creative. For example:

1. They use the SDI video ports to onboard SDI video into an IP network while using the IP data ports to move/transport general data, such as files, audio over IP (e.g., Dante audio), control and status information from remote locations, and corporate network extensions.

2. They use the SDI video ports to onboard SDI video into an IP network while using the IP data ports to extend control and monitoring of remote DigiLink/InfinityLink chassis. Users do this by connecting the chassis’ local management port into the SMART data ports, hence creating a hybrid in-band/out-of-band management scheme for the remote chassis.

It used to be that the SMART platform was only available to media companies that use Artel’s DigiLink/InfinityLink frames. Yet many broadcasters have openGear frames or have a predilection for that type of open-standard-frame platform. So even though openGear frames are used extensively in the broadcast industry, that segment of the market couldn’t take advantage of SMART’s one-of-a-kind flexibility and programmability … until recently.

With the growing interest in high-resolution compression engines in broadcast, we saw the need to port the proven features, functions, and traits of our DigiLink SMART platform into openGear. And so, as the technology seed we intended, the SMART platform now takes on the openGear form factor to directly address the broadcast market.

SMART openGear (SMART OG) brings the mission-critical characteristics of the DigiLink product line into openGear frames by introducing high-resolution compression engines (J2K and JPEG-XS) for media-over-IP applications.

Because SMART OG is software-defined, users can deploy hardware once and easily change the gateway function from anywhere via software update. The platform can take on the following personalities without changes in hardware: JPEG2000, JPEG-XS, SMPTE ST 2022-7, SMPTE ST 2110 ingestion, SMPTE ST 2022-1/2/5/6, and HEVC.

SMART OG is just one of the latest solutions to grow from the SMART technology seed … and it most certainly won’t be the last. Using the SMART platform as the basis for creating and augmenting other product lines is at the heart of Artel’s evolution and expansion into new markets. And more importantly, it’s how we’ll help media companies stay ahead of the trends in broadcast workflows while keeping their operations simple and flexible.