BTESA: state of 5G (contribution and broadcast), with Sumavision

The headquarters of BTESA Madrid hosted a conference organized by the Spanish company in collaboration con Sumavision in which the current state of 5G technologies applied to the media field has been debated: standardized solutions, but with challenges to overcome in the near future.

He 5G It is a reliable reality that keep moving forward in the media and broadcast industry. That could be the main conclusion drawn from a meeting that has brought together dozens of representatives from broadcast technology manufacturers, telecommunications operators and broadcast sector agents. This shared optimism does not prevent the existence different implementation states of these technologies, depending on their nature.

For example, as explained Tai Ruixuan, business development manager Sumavision Technologies in LatAm, Spain and Portugal, the entire world of contribution, encoding and decoding that the ecosystem of the backpacks It already takes advantage of many of the advantages of 5G. The firm's position in the Chinese market, with a 60% share in the field of remote contribution and international presence with clients of the caliber of Fox, Televisa, Telefónica, Comcast or Canal+, fills his vision of 5G technological solutions with arguments. As an example, various success stories such as remote broadcasts undertaken by CCTV; highly demanding broadcasts in congested environments like the election days of Bangladesh; functions of channel bonding y geolocation to cover the Beijing marathon; success story from chinese high speed, con bonding up to 8 channels at 350 kilometers per hour, or coverage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, with 5G networks transporting with minimal latency 4K content.

On the contrary, other areas such as 5G Broadcast, with great advances in standardization, are still awaiting the predisposition of device manufacturers and spectrum owners. Analyzing this field, John Lluch, director of engineering at BTESA, explained how this technology represents a great opportunity to bring convergence to two worlds that until now had followed parallel paths: the universe telco and the industry broadcast. Putting on the table relevance of IP video traffic and inviting the more than 60 profiles gathered at the company headquarters to reflect, Lluch addressed topics such as mobile architecture, the progress of proposals such as ATSC 3.0 in the USA, the lack of consolidation of the standard DVB-T2Lite and the benefits and drawbacks of eMBMS y FeMBMS, ways for direct retransmission to mobile devices with drawbacks that still need to be overcome. However, even with its limitations, FeMBMS is postulated as a possible avenue for the future since Qualcomm is in the process of implementing this part of the standard in its devices.

Private 5G networks

Another field in which there are still doubts is 5G private networks, a concept loaded with asterisks and footnotes that deserve to be analyzed in detail due to their conditions, costs or deployment capabilities. The issue was addressed twice: the consultant Raul Iglesias explained the growing importance of these models, although he made it clear that apart from several proofs of concept and a few projects, the permeabilization of these alternatives is occurring in the industrial world and IoT, and not so much in the broadcast and media. The second speaker who addressed this issue was Maria Puebla. As a member of the strategic engineering and network planning department of Vodafone, conveyed a message of optimism by stating that these private 5G networks “are now a reality for all of us.” For example, the proof of concept carried out together with the BTESA team in the Álava Technology Park. After his intervention, doubts were raised about the limitations and opportunities of this concept, showing the interest of the industry in these alternatives, but also the doubts regarding network management, access exclusivity, costs or availability.

Beyond these reflections on 5G, the conference began with an introduction by the team of BTESA, in which David Munoz he explained know-how of the company accompanied by data that confirms its international relevance and solvency: presence in more than 40 countries from Europe, America, Asia and Africa; capacity of manufacturing; financial health; non-dependence on any risk investment group; a division dedicated to broadcast, and 30% of the staff dedicated entirely to I+D+i, which demonstrates the company's commitment to innovation.

Zona Test and BTESA

The selection of presentations on 5G was followed by some demonstrations in which different use cases of video contribution through Sumavision technology. A 4K camera connected via 12G SDI to the backpacks SP03 y SP10 of the Asian brand were in charge of retransmitting the audiovisual content via 5G, received and decoded in an encoder connected to two monitors in which the minimum delay between the original signal and the transmitted one could be seen. In parallel, the signal from the 4K camera was encapsulated in a MDT to perform a multicast with a signal that was broadcast locally on the channel 33.

These demonstrations had four variants maintaining the video signal from the camera at 4K compressed in H.265 a 4:2:0 y 8 Bit. These modifications varied in nature with the use or not of SRT, or the use of technologies channel bonding of Sumavision's broadcast solutions, explained in detail minutes before by Linda Guo, director of product management a Suma vision.

After the demonstrations, attendees were able to enjoy a relaxed time of networking in which they shared impressions about the day and presented their vision of the 5G; a world that begins, step by step and several years after the announcement of its arrival, to show its true potential.