Broadcasting Center Europe launches SAM end-to-end IP infrastructure in RTL City

SAM has been chosen at the new RTL headquarters for its ability to demonstrate a complete redundant flow based on SMPTE ST 2022-7 with the added commitment of a clear upgrade path to ST 2022-6 and VSF TR-04 to TR-03 / ST 2110 with AES67 support throughout the flow.

Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE) has deployed an end-to-end IP infrastructure from Snell Advanced Media (SAM) at the new RTL Group headquarters in Luxembourg. SAM was chosen for the new RTL City following rigorous testing carried out by Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE), the project's systems integrator, which was designed to consolidate all the broadcaster's operations in one place.

The new system supports 24/7 broadcasting of the channels RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg, TV de Cámara (Luxembourg), RTL TVI, Club RTL, Plug TV (Belgium), RTL4, RTL5, RTL7, RTL8, RTL Z (Netherlands), RTL9 and AB Groupe (France).

Jean Lampach, Director of Technology and Development at BCE, highlights that "having carried out extensive and highly competitive testing on market vendors, SAM's experience and product offering was truly unmatched. They quickly understood the needs and challenges of our business, and have technology that offers flexibility and scalability, making them the right partner to help undertake our IP implementation. They put the needs of our clients at the center and, as a result, ensured a smooth transition path that will allow us to continue offering exemplary services. as we evolve.”

BCE wanted the new infrastructure to be both future-proof and able to adapt to new workflow challenges as needed. When BCE began evaluating the replacement of its SDI fabric in 2014, the available IP technology was not suitable for real-world deployments or critical broadcast use, and most solutions were proprietary. The process resumed in 2015 with six months of intensive technical testing. It was essential that the IP solution had the same quality of service and reliability obtained in an SDI environment. BCE wanted to ensure the same level of scalability, stability, delays and synchronization.

At the end of this evaluation period, SAM technology was selected to provide an end-to-end IP routing system for RTL City. SAM was chosen for its ability to demonstrate a full redundant flow based on SMPTE ST 2022-7 with the added commitment of a clear upgrade path to ST 2022-6 and VSF TR-04 to TR-03/ST 2110 with AES67 support across the flow. Other factors in SAM's favor were the ability to deliver 40GbE network technology and fast, reliable SDI-level performance and clean switching (COTS IP), without the need for SDN. SAM systems have allowed the implementation of a final solution handling x960 2022-6 video streams, and x1103 AES67 audio streams (each x8 AES3) using more than 1104 ports.

SAM fue capaz de demostrar un control de la matriz intuitivo, transparente para el operador, tanto en la operación SDI, como IP o híbrida, tanto en los paneles tradicionales por software como en hardware, incluido el soporte de enrutamiento multi-nivel con VSF TR-04 para interrupciones de audio. La interoperabilidad con sistemas de control de terceros significa que es fácil para los usuarios controlar el enrutamiento en el sistema a través de los controladores de SAM.

El sistema implantado combina mezcladores de producción Kahuna IP de SAM, sistemas de procesamiento IP IQ-Edge, y varias soluciones de control de enrutamiento y multiviewers IP. El despliegue inicial se basa en torno a VSF TR-04 utilizando SMPTE ST 2022-6 / 7 y AES67 con un esquema redundante IP y una migración sin fisuras a VSF TR-03.

Los switches IP instalados son los Arista 7508R y Juniper QFX10008, compatibles con conectividad 10Gbe y 40GbE y la instalación ofrece redundancia completa, incluyendo una interfaz directa a la capa de control de Theirs VSM (Virtual Studio Manager).

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