SMPTE 2019: How we Tested the Media over IP Devices to Build our New Facility

The shift towards IP promise to bring enormous flexibility on the one hand and enormous configuration complexity on the other hand. Apart from a new skill set, new tools are needed in order to test, validate and monitor the new devices based on SMPTE ST 2110 and JT-NM TR-1001-1 so that they interoperate. Moreover, in a large system, the necessity for thorough testing is huge and repetitive and can waste a lot of precious time. Beside creating consistent tests and results, automation will be needed to speed up the work.

This paper will tell the story of how CBC/Radio-Canada did face the challenges in evaluating compliance and performance of many new devices from different manufacturers for its new headquarters production house in Montreal. It will cover the test plan that was developed by its lab team and the tools used in order to achieve the titanic task. And in order to cover its testing needs, CBC/Radio-Canada collaborated with the EBU Live IP Toolkit project team by contributing additional functionalities not found on other available tools and to automate the verification of the streams. The involvement in the development of this open source solution has the benefits of building a deep understanding of the standards within the engineering teams and to provide an openly documented recipe for measurement as a benchmark for the industry.

To conclude the authors would like to present a gap analysis between what is possible and what needs to be built to cover the full test plan in a most efficient way.

Aimed at engineering and technical audience, the attendees will get a concrete test methodology using available tools from two years of practical experience. It assumes the attendees understand the fundamentals concepts and understanding of the SMPTE ST 2110 standard, AMWA NMOS specifications and JT-NM TR-1001-1 Technical Recommendation.

Speaker:
Willem Vermost (EBU)