Ateme and Austria’s ORS Group, analogue/digital broadcast service company, trialled an IP-based statmux system over 5G to increase 5G broadcast capacity for live streaming services.
Video compression and delivery developer Ateme, together with ORS Group, an Austrian analogue and digital broadcasting service company, have trialled an IP-based statmux system over 5G connectivity, aiming to increase 5G broadcast capacity for live streaming services.
This trial uses Ateme's NextGen StatMux technology, which is designed to work with the most recent broadcast standards from 3GPP, DVB and ATSC, transitioning from a traditional to an IP-based transport stream environment. ORS Group successfully integrated this streaming workflow into its 5G Broadcast Nakolos platform in Vienna, achieving the transmission and reception of a multiplex of five services.
Optimisation Challenge for Bandwidth
Statmux, or statistical multiplexing, is about optimising available bandwidth for digital television. The approach increases the overall efficiency of a multi-channel transmission multiplex by splitting a communication channel into a range of variable bit-rate data streams, or digital channels. The bit-rate of each of these channels is then varied to take only the share of the bit-rate it needs at any one time. The share allotted to each channel is predicted statistically, based on its current and recent demands.
As 5G broadcast becomes more practical for linear television on mobile devices, broadcasters face the challenge of efficiently utilising frequency bands of limited width, such as the UHF channels allocated for terrestrial television (6, 7 or 8 MHz). By focusing on small screens rather than home TVs, broadcasters can deliver multiple services within the same band while maintaining high video quality.
Statistical multiplexing remains crucial in this context, which Ateme says can improve efficiency by up to 20% over existing approaches, and can allow delivery of an additional service within the same 5G broadcast band. As a result, broadcast operators can operate a broader range of services with an optimal quality of experience.
NextGen StatMux and Nakolos
Ateme NextGen Statmux is designed to work with the NEXTGEN TV standard ATSC 3.0. Typically, statmux is applied in a transport stream environment and separated from the IP streaming delivery. By combining these two environments, Ateme is able to create an integrated statmux throughout the delivery chain, from encoding to multicast, with dynamic statmux allocation that also optimises the consumption of resources.
In the case of ORS’ 5G Broadcast Nakolos platform, the ‘5G Broadcast’ is a 3GPP transmission standard that transmits IP-based media content over large supply areas, directly to mobile devices – that is, smartphones or tablets can receive the stream without using SIM cards, Wi-Fi or an internet connection. This standard can be used to send signals once to an unlimited number of customers within a given supply area via a high-tower transmitter.
Alongside this facility, Nakolos was developed to use the 5G Broadcast technology to enable new use cases for content providers and broadcast network operators, giving them access to new business models and customers.
Further Collaboration
"The trial successfully showed the gains our StatMux system would bring to this emerging market, after an exceptionally smooth integration in ORS' 5G Broadcast environment. We are pleased to collaborate with ORS Group, pioneer of 5G-Broadcast, for the integration and maturation of our 5 -Broadcast solutions," said Julien Mandel, Sr. Solution Marketing Director at Ateme.
Dr Johann Mika, Chief Innovation Officer of ORS group, said, "The world's first test of statistical multiplexing in our operational 5G Broadcast environment in Vienna has shown that spectrum efficiency can be further increased when using 5G Broadcast. This will also contribute to strengthening the future business model of broadcast network operators operating 5G Broadcast. We are excited to continue working with Ateme to test and develop this innovative solution for 5G Broadcast." www.ateme.com
