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Category: General Interest

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January 25, 2023

Artel in Action – Winter 2023

Welcome to 2023’s first Artel in Action, our quarterly newsletter keeping you up to date with what we’ve been doing lately.

In this edition we ask: What is in store for 2023?

In 2023 IP adoption will continue to become mainstream, implemented not only in greenfield applications, but also to augment or expand existing facilities. This will lead broadcasters and the industry to normalize and realize that it is a business after all, where pragmatism in implementation, fiscal prudency, and return on investment is key. This means that infrastructure and implementation choices will be done based on business levers where technology is just an enabler to accomplishing business imperatives. Sign up below to make sure you don’t miss the next installment of Artel in Action!

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January 25, 2023
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Egor-at-IBC
January 10, 2023

What’s in Store for EMEA in 2023

Artel has long had a presence in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), but in late 2021, we doubled down on serving this region when Egor Tyagunov joined our team. As Artel’s primary sales contact in EMEA, Egor is an expert in broadcast technology and has relationships throughout the region. (Some of you might already know him.)

In this conversation, Egor tells us about Artel’s plans for supporting EMEA broadcasters in 2023.

You’ve been with Artel for just over a year now. Tell us about your first year.

I spent a good part of my first year travelling the whole EMEA region — from Siberia to Spain and throughout the Middle East — meeting the resellers, getting to know the market, and figuring out how Artel could help soothe broadcasters’ pains.

My travel coincided with the end of lockdown in many places. Business was starting to get back on track, and people were anxious to get back to “normal” networking practices. Those in-person chats that take place at different trade shows and events and facilities from country to country — that’s how you see the trends and understand which projects are using which technologies in which places. And since I’m looking at all of this with fresh eyes, I can perhaps identify new strategies that will help move Artel and the industry forward.

Based on what you’ve learned from your extensive travels, what trends do you see?

Since Europe is made of a community of smaller countries, certain technologies take off in Europe first before they expand to other parts of the world. We’ve seen that a lot with media over IP.

Many European production facilities have already migrated to IP or are deep into it. They’ve taken their media transport infrastructures from old-school copper video cables to video over IP and uncompressed audio over IP. The SMPTE ST 2110 standard format is becoming more and more popular. Artel’s switching products serve as the core of an IP infrastructure.

Contrast Europe with Africa, Pan-Asia, and some parts of the Middle East, where some broadcasters haven’t even begun to think about IP because their budgets aren’t yet ready for ST 2110. Some very old studios will need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

What are your plans for the region in 2023?

Even though we’ve been around a long time, Artel is a small company, and we’re not well-known in every country in the region. So generally speaking, my goal is to build personal relationships and establish trust with regional channel partners and with integrators that promote our products as part of their solutions.

I mentioned earlier that Europe’s transition to IP infrastructure is already complete or well underway. Take audio. Artel is a Ravenna partner, so in areas where Artel’s Quarra PTP switch might be a fit, I will continue to strengthen relationships with audio console manufacturers that are also Ravenna partners.

In terms of video and data transport, Artel’s SMART Media Delivery Platform, with the latest tech compression implementations, is available in our DigiLink and InfinityLink frames. Now that it is also available in an openGear card, we’ll work with my friends within Ross (developer of openGear) to find strong channel partners in the various markets that might need our openGear technology for J2K and JPEG XS.

It’s all about building trust, and that starts with offering the right mix of Artel products in the right places to help solve whatever problems resellers and their customers face. Then we have to demonstrate how Artel technology is better than the competition at helping companies stay ahead of the industry. This involves sharing proven implementations. Not only do we have many examples of successful end-user implementations, but several of our manufacturing partners own our products and use them in their R&D labs and networks, so they can vouch for the performance and benefits.

Incidentally, none of this is easy to do exclusively over Zoom. That’s what makes travel and face-to-face interaction so important.

Will you focus on a particular region or market segment in the coming year?

Given the need for massive infrastructure changes in Africa and the Middle East, that’s where I’ll be focusing much of my effort in 2023.

January 10, 2023
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Artel - SMART Blog #3
December 6, 2022

With SMART Media Delivery Platform As the Technology Seed, Artel Takes on the Future

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.

December 6, 2022
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Life's a Stage Part 2
December 1, 2022

Case Study: Television City Studios

Television City Studios (TVCS) in Los Angeles is a television production and broadcasting complex that opened in 1952. Some legendary shows have taped at Television City over the years, including The Carol Burnett Show, The Price Is Right, and All in the Family. The Price Is Right still broadcasts from there today, as do many other shows — like The Young and the Restless, The Late Late Show with James Corden, and American Idol.

Among the many facilities at Television City are eight soundstages and a digital studio. Like so many others in the broadcast industry, Television City is migrating toward media over IP because of the technology’s scalability, flexibility in managing content, ability to lower costs, and necessity in an all-digital infrastructure, among other reasons.

Click here to download the full case study

December 1, 2022
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AeroGear Logo
August 25, 2022

Artel Video Systems Announces Partnership With AeroGear Telemetry

Artel Video Systems, a world-class provider of innovative real-time multimedia delivery solutions, today announced a new partnership with telemetry and instrumentation supplier AeroGear Telemetry. AeroGear will help sell Artel’s Quarra PTP Ethernet switches, FiberLink® IRIG devices, and all other fiber transport products to the aerospace, government, and military sectors in 27 states from Maine to Texas.

Known for its expertise in telemetry, surveillance, reconnaissance, and instrumentation products and systems, AeroGear has built deep and long-term relationships with military branches like the United States Air Force and with key defense contractors such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, and Raytheon. By adding Artel products to its portfolio, AeroGear can offer a broad new range of solutions that can meet demands in more than one area for its customers.

For example, many military facilities are quite large and require fiber-based media transport. Artel products are ideal for transporting and monitoring video, audio, and data over long distances across a large military base or when fiber transport is a necessity for security reasons, as is the case in many military/government installations. In another example, Quarra PTP-aware managed IP switches from Artel and grandmasters from Masterclock (another company AeroGear represents) make the perfect combined solution for nanosecond-accurate timing over an IP network for rocket launches. AeroGear also represents some IRIG telemetry products that could work together with an Artel FiberLink IRIG fiber transport product.

“With its established relationships and expertise in the military and government markets, AeroGear is the best company to represent Artel products and help us increase our presence in those markets,” said Rafael Fonseca, Vice President of Product Management at Artel. “This partnership will offer AeroGear customers another quality product line to address their facilities’ needs from a representative they know and trust.”

August 25, 2022
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Artel at IBC - 1
August 11, 2022

Artel Video Systems to Demo SMART Media Delivery Platform at IBC2022

Artel Video Systems, a world-class provider of innovative, real-time multimedia delivery solutions, today announced its product highlights for IBC2022 in Amsterdam. On Stand 1C99, the company will feature products that simplify broadcasters’ shift to hybrid IP/SDI and all-IP operations. Visitors can get hands-on demonstrations of the SMART Multimedia Delivery Platform in DigiLink/InfinityLink configurations and the award-winning SMART Multimedia Delivery Platform in openGear® (SMART OG).

“While IP networking opens up a world of possibility for innovative new broadcast workflows, it’s also inherently more complicated than traditional networking. Relying on purpose-built hardware that is not reprogrammable, means broadcasters have the expensive and time-consuming task of swapping out hardware every time they need to change functionality,” said Rafael Fonseca, Vice President of Product Management at Artel Video Systems. “Our modular, software-defined systems counteract that problem. At IBC2022, broadcasters will see how Artel products can greatly increase operational flexibility and reduce effort as they transition to IP and move to optimize their IP-based operations and workflows.”

Throughout the show, Artel will highlight the SMART (DigiLink/InfinityLink and openGear) platform’s JPEG-XS support and flexibility. Attendees will see how they can enable different functionality on the installed hardware system as needed just by selecting different software icons. Artel will show one SMART implementation running J2K compressed video and another (the SMART OG) running JPEG-XS compressed video so that attendees can appreciate SMART’s ability to support different personalities on the same hardware module. Artel’s SMART Media Delivery Platform is a software-defined, four-channel, auto-sensing 3G/HD/SD-SDI-over-IP multifunction gateway with integrated nonblocking Layer 2/3 switching and routing capabilities. The software-enabled solution features four video ports for transporting video, audio, and ancillary data and four GigE data ports bridged to one or two 10G interfaces. Designed to attach seamlessly to the IP network without the need for external network elements, the SMART platform supports SMPTE ST 2022-1, 2, 5, 6, and 7 (hitless switching); J2K compression; QoS; VLAN tagging; and traffic management.

A software-defined, four-channel, auto-sensing SD-SDI/HD-SDI/3G/4K-over-IP multifunction gateway, SMART OG is the first to bring the family of JPEG compression engines — including those specified in VSF TR-01, TR-07, and TR-08 — onto the openGear platform. With SMART OG, users can deploy hardware once and easily change the gateway function via a software update. The SMART OG is initially configured for a specific function, but it may be adapted thereafter for a growing array of functions, such as reformatting or encoding per JPEG2000, JPEG-XS, SMPTE ST 2110, SMPTE ST 2022-1/2/5/6/7, H.265, IEEE 1588, and more. The gateway provides four BNCs for SDI or ASI input/output and two 10GbE SFPs for trunking and aggregation.

Visitors to the stand will also be able to see Artel’s Quarra family of PTP-aware managed IP switches, which offer the industry’s most accurate IEEE 1588-compliant timing and synchronization. Quarra now features quieter fans and new software-based controls that vary fan speed based on temperature for less overall noise. Also on display will be Artel’s FiberLink® SMPTE ST 2110 gateway. Supporting nearly every type of video, audio, and data signal, Artel’s FiberLink media transport products bring much-needed flexibility to broadcast or corporate studios, OB vans, point-of-view cameras, rental and staging, auditoriums, stadiums and theaters, transportation hubs, distance learning, and other pro A/V environments. Devices in the family boast support for SMPTE standards to ensure interoperability and reliability.

August 11, 2022
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SMART OG
July 14, 2022

Bridging Video and Data on an IP Network

In a busy broadcast operation, video and data signals are flowing around the facility at a feverish pace. Accommodating those different types of signals can be cumbersome and pricy.

Most IP gateways in the market “onboard” either video or data into an IP network, but not both. Because of that, facilities are forced to use an additional transport link to accommodate both types of signals or they have to add an external aggregation switch in order to combine general-purpose data and video into a single transport link.

In many instances, there aren’t additional transport links available, or if they are available, engineers end up having to take over a link that would be better used for something else. Inserting an external aggregation switch costs more and adds complexity into the solution because it’s just another network element that has to be purchased and managed.

Problems like this call for a robust architecture, requiring much more flexibility from the IP gateways. That’s the impetus behind Artel’s SMART Media Delivery Platform, which is available for both the Artel DigiLink/InfinityLink and openGear chassis.

The SMART platform’s architecture is unique in that it integrates a video gateway and a six-port IP switch in the same module. Initially, these ports were intended to transport general data from one point to another. But as the module gets deployed in more facilities, we’ve discovered that broadcast network engineers are coming up with ever more creative ways to take advantage of this architecture in the context of a video-over-IP gateway application.

Bridging video-over-IP traffic and data is one tangible example.

In this scenario, engineers use the SDI video ports to onboard SDI video into an IP network while using four general-purpose IP data ports to support general network operations, such as:

• Monitoring and controlling equipment and applications in remote sites
• Extending an audio over IP network, like Dante audio, to remote locations
• Extending the corporate network to remote locations
• General file- and data-transfer applications

Some engineers also use the IP data ports to extend control and monitoring of remote DigiLink/Infinity chassis by connecting the chassis’ local management port into the SMART data ports — thereby creating a hybrid in-band/out-of-band management scheme for the remote chassis.

By providing general data ports into what is typically known as a video module and aggregating them together, SMART extends general data along with video over a single transport link. This translates to more cost-effective signal transport, fewer network elements to manage, and the flexibility to get creative when solving problems and supporting remote facilities. We can’t wait to see what our users do next!

July 14, 2022
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Artel-SMART-Media-Delivery-Platform
May 25, 2022

Operational Simplicity: A Business Imperative

IP networking has opened up possibilities for software and platforms not traditionally found in broadcast — such as switching and routing, asset management, and transcoding video for viewing on different mobile devices, editing platforms, and search engines. But while IP produces opportunities for creativity and innovation, it is also inherently more complicated than traditional networking … and thus potentially more costly from an operational perspective. Broadcast workflows and the inherent speeds/bandwidth of the content require real-time processing. In the past this could only be accomplished with specifically built hardware that is not reprogrammable — resulting in operational complexity for broadcasters that must change their environment’s functionality on a case-by-case basis.

This creates a dilemma for broadcasters that want to innovate but are always striving to save money, either by reducing waste, reducing effort, eliminating functions, or a combination of the three. Recent advances in the processing power of programmable components creates an opportunity for functional flexibility. To take advantage of IP, broadcasters need an easy way to leverage its power and flexibility while keeping operational costs down.

Say Hello to the Artel SMART Media Delivery Platform.

Artel’s solution sits at the confluence of three trends: the advent of software-defined functionality, the migration to IP workflows, and the ever-present need to reduce operational costs.

By addressing all three of those trends in one card, our SMART Media Delivery Platform counteracts the complexity while giving broadcasters a simple way to integrate IP into their operations. And simplicity can mean lower costs.

The SMART platform is essentially a media-over-IP gateway used mainly in contribution workflows or in video transport applications. It is a card that comes in either our DigiLink/InfinityLink form factor or in an openGear form factor. In both cases, the card(s) goes inside those chassis or frames as part of an overall solution. We call it a “platform” because the SMART technology inside any of those form factors is the same. It allows you to deploy features very easily across cards simply by programming the platform.

For example, broadcasters have used SMART to transport video from a main broadcast station to affiliates. Others have deployed SMART in contribution workflows in stadiums, transmitting live video from the venue to broadcast facilities. It is also being considered for deployments in OB trucks/vans for live sports.  On the service provider side, telecom providers have been testing it to transport video to local hubs for eventual programming distribution.

In those scenarios and many more, users can monitor, control, and provision the SMART platform using element management or network management systems via northbound interfaces. In fact, the ability to program functionality remotely using software is one of SMART’s most important characteristics.

Traditionally, functionality is attached to hardware. For example, if the solution was transporting uncompressed video, and you wanted to change to compressed video, technicians would have had to physically swap modules or cards to reflect this change, which can be time-consuming and costly. This also means you must keep an inventory of cards/modules and all the possible functions you envision using. All cards/modules must have a one-to-one correlation with all the different pieces of hardware they work with. Different functions require different pieces of hardware.

But because of SMART’s software-defined nature, you need only install hardware once and then use software updates to change the gateway’s functionality as needed. 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.

The Biggest Benefits — Simplicity Breeds Savings

SMART responds to the need for operational simplicity, flexibility, and ubiquity during the industry’s migration to IP. Because SMART is a software-defined platform, there is no need to replace cards to change functionality. Instead, you can use software to program a high degree of functionality and support a high density and capacity of video channels, which reduces power consumption, cabling, and space.

The SMART platform also allows for automation, reduces inventory (as you only need one module, which can take different personalities), eliminates the need to physically remove equipment, and provides for fast provisioning of new functionality.

For more information visit https://www.artel.com/media-transport-products/?swoof=1&product_cat=smart-media-delivery-platform.

May 25, 2022
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14_Leonardo_CH-Medien
April 14, 2022

Case Study: SLG Broadcast

Swiss systems integrator SLG Broadcast provides radio and TV broadcasters with consulting, installation, and integration services. With experts in networked radio and TV production workflows, the company supports customers in migrating from baseband to IP-based real-time production environments.

Click here to download the full case study.

April 14, 2022
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784-Roll-out
March 10, 2022

Case Study: General Dynamics Electric Boat

General Dynamics Electric Boat already uses fiber to enable audio and data transport for use in a large-scale 24/7 emergency system at its shipyard in Groton, Connecticut. The Casualty Control (CASCON) System is mandated by the U.S. Navy to be operational during a submarine’s construction. Unsatisfied with the performance of its existing fiber transport equipment, however, the company sought another solution that would accommodate the unique signal types involved in this project — audio and RS data over multimode fiber — while improving signal integrity and overall system reliability. 
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March 10, 2022
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