As the move to IP infrastructure for video begins in earnest, different factions disagree on how best to arrive at standards for use by IP-based facilities. Two industry groups have been formed with very similar goals and somewhat different ideas about how best to achieve them. Evertz Director of Product Marketing Mo Goyal responded via email to our questions about the ASPEN Community and its proposals. For another perspective, read responses to a similar set of questions from Grass Valley SVP of Strategic Marketing Mike Cronk, Chairman of AIMS. And for a little more background on the formation of both groups, read our short introduction to the topic.

Q: Why is it important to adopt an open framework for IP facilities and products in the media industry?

A: It is very important for interoperability that we adopt an open framework for IP facilities. That’s the biggest concern amongst the companies in the industry: equipment needs to interoperate together like they do with SDI. Any kind of proprietary format limits this. The ASPEN Community mandate is to promote open formats that are standards-based. ASPEN (Adaptive Sample Picture Encapsulation) is an open format that has been published by SMPTE (as RDD37:2016). At NAB you will see a number of ASPEN Community members demonstrating interoperability using ASPEN.

Q: Can you describe briefly the ASPEN protocol, and how and why it was developed?

A: ASPEN  is a standards-based, open format that moves uncompressed Ultra HD, 3G, HD, and SD signals over MPEG-2 transport streams (ISO/IEC 13818-1). Audio and metadata over MPEG-2 TS are already defined in SMTPE ST 302 and ST 2038, respectively. SMPTE 2022-2 is used to map the TS packets to IP.

ASPEN provides a framework for transporting separated video, audio, and metadata as independent IP multicast streams. The two components of the framework (support for uncompressed video and independent flows) are crucial for IP to be deployed in the live production environment. It leverages the benefits of IP and provides the flexibility of selecting particular video and audio flows required for live production.

By adding uncompressed UHD/3G/HD/SD over industry-standard and proven MPEG-2 transport-stream architectures, ASPEN enables facilities to transition to IP today. MPEG-2 TS is a well-known standard that the broadcast industry has used for many years. This existing knowledge and familiarity helps mitigate the transition to IP.   

Q: How will the ASPEN Community act as an advocate for this protocol?

A: The ASPEN Community was founded at IBC 2015 on the basis to promote the benefits of an open-format within IP-based broadcast. The ASPEN Community enables interoperability as the members adopt the open format ASPEN (SMPTE RDD37:2016) framework across their IP products. This effort will be demonstrated at NAB 2016 on the ASPEN Community booth (#N1000MR) in the North Hall.

Q: Another industry group, the Alliance for IP Media Solutions, is doing its own promotion of "open standards" for media over IP, including standards and technical recommendations developed through VSF, SMPTE and AES. Are the goals of AIMS incompatible with the ASPEN protocol?

A: The goals of the ASPEN Community and AIMS are very similar, as both groups want to leverage the benefits of IP by using open-formats to provide interoperability. Both ASPEN and VSF TR-03 define individual flows for video, audio, and metadata. The difference between the two choices occur on how each defines the individual flows. ASPEN is based on industry standards: MPEG-2 transport streams (ISO/IEC 13818-1) and SMPTE 2022-2. VSF TR-03 uses IEEE RFC4175 for video (3G/HD/SD only at this time) and AES67 for audio.   

Q: How do you expect this to play out at NAB 2016? What should our readers be looking for at the show, and how can they participate if they're interested in helping influence the IP transition?

A: This will be a big topic at NAB 2016 as customers begin their transition to IP. There will be a number of sessions discussing the topic throughout the show. The key message the ASPEN Community will have is that customers can deploy IP in their facilities today. There are a number of global installations with ASPEN.  The open format is being supported by a growing number of companies in the industry (membership in the ASPEN Community has tripled since IBC 2015, to over 40 members). The ASPEN Community will be demonstrating interoperability across many products on booth #N1000MR.