Sony and Telefónica carry out Europe’s largest IP SMPTE 2110 production center for SIC
On Sunday 27th January, the first large European Production Centre IP SMPTE2110 was aired in Portugal thanks to Sony and Telefónica Servicios Audiovisuales at SIC.
The Portuguese broadcaster SIC (Sociedade Independente de Comunicação), has positioned itself as one of the main audience leaders, almost since its inception in 1992, thanks to its variety of contents offering, with multiple thematic channels and its bet on the information, which it is captured on its SIC News Channel, with nearly 20 hours a day of live broadcast.
Taking advantage of its change of headquarters (from Carnaxide to Paço de Arcos), the Portuguese broadcaster has opted for new technologies taking a major step not only towards High Definition, but also carrying out an historical and technological change from SD-SDI to IP video in SMPTE2110 format.
The project entrusted to Sony, as a technology supplier, and to Telefónica Servicios Audiovisuales, as a system integrator, began profiling years ago with the first one, when the standard was not yet ready to be installed in a production center of these features.
Two important keys for the broadcaster to trust in Sony as a supplier of the equipment and as a global project manager, being the prime contractor for the creation of the new IP production center, were Sony’s commitment to SMPTE 2110 standard and the high degree of knowledge of it.
Telefónica Servicios Audiovisuales, on its part, has been in charge of providing the control system and orchestrator, the video IP “Core”, and carrying out, together with Sony, its integration with third party systems. Acting Sony as a general project coordinator with SIC, TSA has also carried through the management of integration services from beginning to end, ensuring high quality standards in its implementation, executing detail planimetry, engineering, monitoring the integration with third parties, the installation of the entire project and the support. A key point to be mentioned is the coaching task developed by TSA, accompanying the project users trhoughout the entire project, since the experience shows us it is a fundamental step in any digital transformation process, allowing the staff to get a better adaptation to changes, to reduce learning time and to gain confidence in the new system.
Refering to the network architecture, SIC has relied on Cisco, using products suited to the needs of the new SMPTE 2110 IP protocol, in a resulting configuration that gives the system a large fault tolerance.
The new IP video production system allows the broadcaster a unique flexibility in sharing production resources. The 2 installation production control rooms can be reconfigured inmediatly in order to work with any of the 3 available studios. Likewise, with the new infrastructure, pre-recording set up times for productions are drastically reduced. All this locates SIC technologically where the rest of broadcasters, worldwide, should be in 2 or 3 years.
The project has been executed in a record time, just over 4 months from the end of the civil work to the airing of the channel, a limited time in a project of such magnitude and even more taking into account the complexity that involves a new technology like IP SMPTE 2110 world.