In this series of five articles, prominent members of the EBU/SMPTE Task Force describe the work carried out by the Task Force in pursuit of “Harmonized Standards for the Exchange of Programme Material as Bitstreams”.

The articles have been derived from presentations given by the Authors at IBC ‘98 in September. Many thanks must go to Roger Miles and Myrianne Jansen of the EBU Technical Department for converting the audio tapes recorded at Amsterdam into word-processor text files.

Future television production systems are going to be far more complex than anything we've dealt with in the past. Thus, in order to pull together all the various dimensions of what the EBU/SMPTE Task Force had set out to do, it created the Systems subgroup specifically to concentrate on matters relating to system integration.

This article describes a system model for television production operations, based on the transfer of bitstreams within a distributed studio object environment. It puts forward a migration strategy and also describes a different economic model for equipping television production facilities in the future.

The Compression subgroup of the Task Force was set up to provide guidance for the longterm integration of compression into programme production. Its work led to the conclusion that there is no single member of a compression family that satisfies the requirements of a fully-networked digital production facility.

The two compression families ultimately selected by the subgroup were MPEG and DV, each of which offers individual trade-offs in terms of coding flexibility, product implementation and system complexity. This article gives an overview of the factors which led to this choice.

The Networks and Transfer Protocols subgroup of the Task Force had the responsibility of finding the best technologies to enable different data types to be moved around a networked production environment. It had the task of identifying the best methods for (i) audio/video streaming in real-time (and faster than real-time), (ii) file transfer (also at different speeds) and (iii) file access.

The chosen methods should guarantee the interoperable transfer of programme content between devices, and these transfers should meet the high-end requirements of the TV broadcast world. An additional part of the subgroup’s work was to identify and define the further work that needs to be carried out by standardization organizations.

This is a written summary of a presentation given by Jonathan Marks at the recent Multimedia Meets Radio conference hosted by the EBU in Geneva. The author has held several production and management posts within Dutch, UK and Austrian public broadcasting organizations over the last 25 years. Now in private practice as a trainer, independent producer and strategic “insultant”, he provides these personal thoughts on areas that broadcasters should be concerned with.

As more and more broadcasters use the Internet to webcast their programmes, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is becoming an interesting transport mechanism to convey these programmes to the general public, more efficiently than any traditional internet methods.

This article reports on the Seminar "From P2P to broadcasting" which was held at EBU headquarters in Geneva on 14 and 15 February 2006. It was jointly organized by the Technical and Training departments of the EBU, with the involvement of the Radio, Eurovision and Legal Departments.

The EBU held a Workshop in Geneva on High Definition Television in December 2004. About 100 delegates from across Europe came to hear about, and discuss, the new thinking in technology, economics, and programme-making that will be called for in the age of "HD".

Here, David Wood outlines what happened at the Workshop.

Since we last reported here on the work of EBU Project Group P/Meta, the Metadata Exchange Scheme has been published in version 0.9 (to encourage user feedback).

This follow-up article describes what is expected to appear in version 1.0 of the Scheme, to be published in Spring 2002 – what it will represent and how it will relate to other metadata schemes, particularly those of the SMPTE and TV-Anytime. The article identifies what should happen next to support implementation and use of the Scheme, and describes some example transactions used in the P/Meta demonstration at IBC 2001.

George T. Waters oversaw many developments during his period as Director of the EBU’s Technical Department. Not least was the relocation of the Technical Department, Technical Publications and other support services from Brussels to Geneva in 1989. Then in 1993, it was the turn of Eurovision operations to relocate from Brussels to Geneva.

Here, Dr Waters describes just some of the important technical developments in broadcasting that took place in the EBU during this period.

EBU project group, P/META, is defining and representing the information requirements for the exchange of programme content between the high-level business functions of EBU members: Production, Delivery / Broadcast and Archive. The product under development – the P/META Scheme – provides defined metadata to support the identification, description, discovery and use of essence in Business-to-Business (“B2B”) transactions. The metadata may either accompany the essence in streams or files, using a variety of standardized transports; or it may be transported independently of the essence, as metadata alone. The P/META Scheme itself is independent of the technology used and may be supported by any coding protocol / transport that assures its information integrity.

This article outlines the approach taken by the P/META project and identifies the deliverables.

This article examines the principles underlying the technical activities of the EBU as it moves forward into the 21st century. In particular, it stresses the need to continue providing high-quality technical information for the benefit of EBU members, including advice on equipment purchasing. The work of the EBU Project Groups should be made available not only to the technical areas of EBU members but also to inter-disciplinary groups, where appropriate.

Further, the EBU must pay great attention to the development of specifications and/or standards that enable interoperability of products from different manufacturers. EBU members, at the national level, have the responsibility of ensuring that spectrum regulators and/or administrations are well aware of the needs of broadcasters. The article concludes with an overview of the benefits of holding virtual conferences, in a drive to keep down the travel costs of members.

Those whose daily work brings them into close contact with the EBU Technical Committee and its five Working Parties no doubt have a clear understanding of their rôle in European broadcasting. Others may have a less clear idea of the problems that are being studied within the Technical Committee, or the new systems that are being developed.

The EBU Technical Review has invited the Chairman and Secretary of each Working Party to present its current activities, highlight a few of their recent achievements and explain the significance of their work in the wider broadcasting context.

The first presentation in the series, for Working Party R (Broadcasting technology) is given here. The Working Party's agenda is defined largely as a function of the Radio Conferences of the ITU, although many studies are in hand in other fields, including RDS, propagation, planning methods, and new services (HDTV, DAB, ...).

EBU Working Party F has officially been active for just over ten years, although its roots go back a further decade to the early 1970s.

The Working Party is facing many new challenges: the radical evolution in broadcasting methods in the 1990s which require new approaches to broadcast system management, the specialized requirements of the EBU's new Member-organizations in Eastern and Central Europe, the rational exploitation of new computer-aided training tools and distance-learning techniques, and many more.

The experience gained by the Working Party in its formative years will serve as a solid foundation for its work in the years ahead, ensuring that the EBU can continue to contribute effectively to international and national training initiatives in all areas of sound and television broadcasting.

This article provides some background information on the HDTV format comparisons conducted by EBU Technical Department at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam during September 2006. The objective of the demonstration was to provide neutral and educative information for the HDTV format debate.

The demonstration not only showed the two current HDTV formats, 720p/50 and 1080i/25, but also introduced the next-generation HDTV format – 1080p/50. All three formats were presented with identical content and simultaneously on three Full-HD displays, in uncompressed and compressed form. Thus, viewers of the demonstration were able to judge the HDTV image quality for themselves.

Exhibition space at IBC 2006 was at a premium this year, as the organizers tried to squeeze in everyone who wanted to take a booth. Restaurant and bar premises were re-deployed as stand space – that’s how IBC added virtually an extra hall, devoted to the “Mobile Zone” which was a clear example of the growing interest in TV for Mobiles. IBC 2006 had the most booths ever, and the most visitors too – 45,000 was the final count.

Here, Nick Radlo looks back at the the most important and best things that caught his eye.

NAB 2005 showed once more the onward march of high-definition television, and programme production with "commodity products". But there were also important new production hardware products, and the event probably saw the birth of the "broadcasting-to-handhelds" excitement, which has already occurred in Europe.

IBC 2004 was genuinely the year of high-definition television. Not just because HD and HD/SD-switchable equipment was everywhere on the show floor – but because the real possibility that Europe's mainstream broadcasters could soon adopt HD transmission shot to the top of IBC's conference agenda.

Here, Nick Radlo gives an overview of the HD debate at IBC this year, and also reports on an interview with the head of BBC Technology – shortly to be sold to Siemens Business Services.

While many digital TV production systems have been introduced in isolated “islands”, there is increasing user demand to incorporate these islands into larger networked infrastructures. As a consequence, television production is currently undergoing a second phase of digitalization – the move towards IT-based technologies.

By way of an introduction to the AAF, GXF and MXF articles published in this issue of EBU Technical Review, this article presents – in a broader context – the file formats and systems issues that are likely to be encountered when migrating to “file-oriented” TV production.

The Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) enables content creators to easily exchange digital media – essence – and metadata across platforms, and between applications. It simplifies project management, saves time and preserves valuable metadata that was often lost in the past when transferring essence between applications.

The Material eXchange Format is an open file format, aimed at the interchange of AV material along with associated data and metadata. It establishes interoperability of content between various applications used in the television production chain. This leads to operational efficiency and creative freedom through a unified networked environment.

The General eXchange Format was originally conceived by Grass Valley Group for the interchange of simple camera shots over data networks, and for archival storage on data tape. Over the years it has evolved to include additional compression types, and support for compositions with video cuts, audio fades and metadata. It is now an SMPTE standard.

This article defines the theoretical maximum electric and magnetic field strengths and induced leg currents that people could be exposed to at HF broadcasting frequencies, without the basic restrictions being exceeded. The article is based on a contract report, prepared for BBC World Service by the Radiation Protection Division of the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA). An overview of this HPA report is provided by Mike Hate of BBC World Service.

This article defines the theoretical maximum electric and magnetic field strengths and induced leg currents that people could be exposed to at MF broadcasting frequencies, without the basic restrictions being exceeded.

The article is based on a contract report, prepared for BBC World Service by the Radiation Protection Division of the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA). An overview of this HPA report is provided by Mike Hate of BBC World Service.

This article focuses on the risks associated with introducing new communication and computing technologies into the broadcasting world. It is mostly concerned with inter-broadcaster connections, rather than issues that are internal to a specific organization.

After putting out a call for audio watermarking systems, EBU Project Group N/WTM conducted extensive tests between June 2001 and July 2003 on the only two suitable systems that were received – one from Philips, the other from Fraunhofer-IIS. This article reports on the results of these tests.

EBU members – within the framework of the N/WTM project group – recently carried out tests on four watermarking systems, from a subjective, objective and robustness viewpoint. This article offers a brief summary of the results of these tests.

This article has been adapted from a report prepared within the European Union’s ACTS INTERACT Project . It concerns the choice of options for the introduction strategies for inter-active television services. Interactive television has been seen as an exciting addition or even an alternative to traditional “passive” participation by the viewing audience, since it offers the viewer more overt opportunities for responding and contributing to programmes.

Options are considered for the introduction of interactivity into the existing analogue television broadcasting environment, and also for the new digital domain where return-channel technology may be a prerequisite for Conditional Access security and to enable payment for the programmes. The success or otherwise of such new services is seen to depend vitally on the simultaneous co-existence of three factors: Technology, Infrastructure and Content.

The market for interactive services offers much potential in Europe, especially for attracting the younger generation of viewers. However, it is recognized that there is, as yet, no clear “killer application”. The particular market drivers and the possible future roll-out of interactive services are considered, against the background of very different national situations among the countries of Europe.

The forthcoming introduction of interactive video services such as video on-demand, which is facilitated by recent advances in source and channel coding as well as modulation, calls for a network platform via which the subscriber can access the appropriate source of information.

Two such approaches – the use of existing broadband CATV and the use of telephone networks – are detailed in this article. In the case of CATV networks, special emphasis needs to be placed on return channels.

This article offers essential advice to radio broadcasters on fine-tuning a PC-based “information-infrastructure” for the editing, storage and streaming of audio files. The chosen infrastructure is based on the use of four separate entities called “clouds” – Audio workstations, Network, Audio fileserver and Audio-data storage.

The advent of Internet multimedia has stimulated the development of several advanced audio and video compression technologies. Although most of these developments have taken place outside the EBU, many members are using these low bit-rate codecs extensively for their webcasting activities, either for downloading or live streaming. To this end, the EBU Project Group, B/AIM (Audio in Multimedia), was asked to carry out some tests on several low bit-rate audio codecs that are now available on the commercial Internet market.

This article gives the results of the subjective evaluations undertaken by B/AIM in late 1999 and early 2000. These EBU tests are the first international attempt at comparing the different audio compression schemes used on the Internet. In addition, prior to conducting these tests, no internationally-agreed subjective method was available for carrying out evaluations on very low bit-rate, intermediate-quality, codecs. In order to overcome this problem, the group was instrumental in devising a novel test method to evaluate specifically these low-quality audio codecs. The new method is now known as MUSHRA. Both the EBU and ITU-R have now adopted MUSHRA as a standard evaluation method.

This article offers essential advice to radio broadcasters on fine-tuning a PC-based “information-infrastructure” for the editing, storage and streaming of audio files. The chosen infrastructure is based on the use of four separate entities called “clouds” – Audio workstations, Network, Audio fileserver and Audio-data storage.