First Published in BroadcastPRO Middle East August 10, 2020

BroadcastPro ME reached out to Artel’s Rafael Fonseca, VP Product Management, to ask what he thought were some of the key drivers behind IP adoption in the market.

Broadcasters are adopting IP to take advantage of four key benefits, namely, cost-effective scaling in terms of space, power, cooling, and equipment; flexibility in managing all media flows; the potential for creating new and improved live broadcasting; and the ability to use one network for all media flows.

Controllable software-centric solutions will be at the forefront of the IP transformation. Our mantra is “deploy one and change functions as needed,” and the software-defined Artel SMART Media Delivery Platform allows broadcasters and service providers to do just that.

The IP migration gives us the opportunity to “refresh” our customers’ workflows by merging two worlds: audiovisual/media and IT. While this convergence offers endless opportunity to create new workflows and provide better audience experiences, it also introduces complexities across the media workflow. The main challenge for us and other solution providers is to increase support and services while supplying tools that simplify operations.

The IABM estimates that 36% of companies have migrated less than 40% of their technology infrastructure to IP, so vendors still have plenty of opportunity in this space. The industry is north of $50bn a year with single-digit growth numbers, and we’ll see a modest increase as novel content (e.g., gaming, second-tier markets, customised viewing, betting with real-time content viewing) continues to become mainstream. New entrants will create their own niches and markets, but eventually become elements of a consolidated market.

We’ve had success in the Middle East market with our FiberLink product line and expect to see increased interest in our Quarra and DigiLink/InfinityLink product lines by service providers that support broadcast applications. IP use cases for the region include remote production applications, media flow consolidation via IP for all cases and audio-over-IP transformations of studios, TV and radio stations, and performing arts theatres.