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Exhibit Hall Open

Grand Ballroom Salons 3-6

Tuesday 1:00 pm- 7:00 pm
Wednesday 10:00 am- 5:00 pm
Thursday 10:00 am- 2:00 pm

Balancing New and Old: Multi-channel Encoders Delivering MPEG-2 and AVC Workflow Efficiencies

Ian Trow (Harmonic, United Kingdom)

Compression encoding is in a state of transition, MPEG-2 is the dominant incumbent for standard definition whereas AVC is the promising upstart, catering for both handheld and high definition applications. MPEG-2 has been written off by many as being a standard that has been fully developed leaving no room for improvement. However, broadcasters have forced the issue of further MPEG-2 improvements to protect the significant infrastructure investment and seek more revenue from existing platforms. Technology advances have allowed new theoretical algorithms to be applied to MPEG-2 and AVC encoders resulting in a range of new and unfamiliar techniques being deployed. Look-ahead, adaptive pre-processing, rate-distortion optimisation, hierarchical B frames, sub pixel motion estimation, variable block size and high profile support are all terms used to justify the improvements implemented on the latest generation of encoders. But what do these terms mean? Which compression standard do they apply to? What efficiencies can these techniques deliver? The first part of the paper will explain these techniques and outline the potential benefits. Streaming is now becoming a serious issue for broadcasters seeing their audiences fragment in terms of viewing preferences and play-out platforms. Catering for live and offline content consumption on a range of devices use to imply further workflow steps. Cost conscious broadcasters are now looking to source encoders to produce multiple streams to improve workflow and reduce overheads. The second part of this paper will compare and contrast the multi-stream encoder, software based transcoder and the prospects for multiplex based hardware transcoding. To conclude, the presentation will outline how broadcasters can automate the maintenance and monitoring of video quality. Processing power and encoder feedback methods can now address an area that has previously been poorly addressed within head-end systems.

Thursday, Oct 29
2:00 PM- 6:00 PM

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