• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Video Compression

M

Matt

Folks,

I have a question that goes beyond my level of understanding about this subject, and I'm hopeful that someone who reads this can advise me on the proper direction to go. We are looking at installing a high-speed (T2 quality) data connection between our studio operations in cities approximately 40 miles apart. We have been told that the connection will give us a speed (both upstream and downstream) of about 3 megabits per second.

My questions concern the possibility of using this connection to transmit and receive live video streams both to and from both studios....

1) Is there a compression scheme commercially available that will render a broadcast-acceptable video quality at such a speed?
2) If so, what manufacturers make the hardware capable of doing this?
3) What amount of time delay (latency) should we expect from such a system?

We don't have a large budget for doing this sort of thing, but the owners asked me to look into it and I figure someone here likely has some expertise/knowledge they can share.

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
 
I'm not into video hardware, so I can only answer your first question. Yes, with AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10) you need about 2-3 Mbps for SD (standard definition) quality digital video.

Regards,
Goran Tomas
 
It would be interesting to see if there is any system that uses Divx/Xvid or some other MPEG4 variant as you can get high definition 720p through 2mbps.
 
I had an interesting conversation with a young lady from Tandberg today. I knew of their company because they make the Aletia Digital Satellite receiver we use to pull in some of our syndicated programs. Running the phrase "Divx/Xvid " through Google led me to their website, and they do "....Video Conferencing Solutions...." using MPEG4 Part 10, or H264 as some call it.

I explained what I am trying to do, and her response was, "Wow, I didn't know you could do stuff like that!" She was unaware that her company even made broadcast products, much less had any idea what latency, H264 or any such term actually was. She quickly referred me to the company's tech support people and told me that she doesn't think Tandberg has a solution for me.

I know I definitely won't be doing business with this company. When the little I know about what I'm trying to do exceeds the knowledge of the support rep that calls to sell me some gear, it's time to find a new company to deal with.

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
 
DIVX will work in this application, but you will not get HD quality. It is possible to get NTSC quality however.
Latency will be a second or two at most.

By the way, DirectTv and Dish put an entire market's TV stations on a 150Mb OC3. This is how they get the local statons from each TV market. In the case of a top 10 market this can be upwards of 40-50 channels
If you do the math, your scenario is similar. They use MPEG-2, but DIVX (MPEG4) would be even better quality.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom