NAB Show Globo is modernising its production facilities in Rio de Janeiro, deploying Grass Valley AMPP production services to migrate the infrastructure from traditional SDI to native-IP production.
Globo, the largest commercial TV network in Latin America, has modernised its production facilities in Rio de Janeiro. The upgrade is comprehensive, migrating the infrastructure from traditional SDI to native-IP production tools.
This Globo location is perhaps best known for its studio that hosts the famous Big Brother Brasil reality TV program, now entering its 24th season. The new installation features a Grass Valley IP video production set-up. It includes the Grass Valley AMPP SaaS, in this case supplied as a microservices-based production deployment on-premises, not from the cloud, hosted on AMPP Edge COTS computer hardware.
AMPP Edge is a turnkey Linux Ubuntu server used for scalable, on-premises I/O and processing compute resources for AMPP applications. It takes care of secure, low-latency signal contribution and transmission in and out of the AMPP SaaS platform across networks. Options for signal acquisition range from SDI to SMPTE ST 2110/ST 2022-6/7 IP I/O, and transmission up to UHD formats is supported. IP routing complies with NMOS IS-04 and IS-05.
Remote Production Control, Local Processing
AMPP Edge’s main function is hosting various AMPP applications – such as Clip Players, Multiviewers, Recorders, Master Control, Replay, Switchers and so on – which makes it possible for Globo’s team to control production and broadcast operations from anywhere.
GV Orbit configures, controls and monitors open standards based IP systems.
In particular it makes remote viewing possible, using the AMPP Flow Monitors application to stream any external sources to an internet browser on a PC. The team can use it to detect multiviewer signals from a truck or location, for instance, and then expose them over low latency video feeds over the internet and deliver them directly to screens on a computer or tablet via a web browser. It can be useful for displaying camera feeds to producers who are not on site.
The installation incorporates two Grass Valley switchers and three control panels, GV Orbit orchestration, and GV IP multiviewers for simultaneous video and audio program decodes. These include SMPTE ST 2110, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 H.263 and H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC among others. What made GV Orbit a good choice for this project is that it can be used to orchestrate broadcast networks dynamically – whether they are SDI, IP or hybrid – including configuration, control and monitoring.
UCP IP gateways, alongside third-party network switches, are a further part of the set-up. The UCP-3901 is a user-configurable, software-defined multichannel video/audio-over-IP transceiver, developed to use in low-latency, high-bandwidth Ethernet IP networks.
Spine and Leaf Topology
The system was installed across two technical centres using a spine and leaf network topology, which is made up of two switching layers. The access switches in the ‘leaf’ layer aggregate traffic from the system servers and connect directly into the network core, or ‘spine’. Spine switches interconnect all leaf switches, creating a full mesh topology. The advantage here is that, because every leaf switch connects directly to every spine switch, latency times between any two connected devices are equal regardless of their location.
An interesting feature of this deployment results from Globo’s integration of AI algorithms into AMPP control. It means the team can use automated tracking to follow the Big Brother house ‘leader’ to enhance the viewing experience, and to dynamically incorporate time-shift delay, audio mixing, video/audio production switching and other tasks directly into the workflow.
Non-Stop Production Cycle
Mauricio Felix, Globo’s Technology Executive Director of Media Solutions, emphasised the need for reliability, due to BBB’s significance as a major revenue source, and the show’s non-stop 100-day production cycle. “The exhaustive testing phase confirmed the Grass Valley setup’s versatility, agility and reliability,” he said.
Grass Valley and Globo initiated a strategic partnership in 2022 with the intention of transitioning Globo’s live TV and media operations to IP and software-based systems Globo wanted an upgrade that, for now, would prioritise on-premises systems, enhanced with AMPP. The platform’s hybrid on-premises and cloud architecture, combining hardware and software as a single system, gives Globo an advantage in terms of the flexibility and scalability they will need into the future.
Fernando David, Grass Valley’s Sales Director for Latin America, commented on the partnership. “We welcome the opportunity to support Globo’s effort to move from legacy systems to a future-ready infrastructure, embracing IP and migration to a software-centric architecture. This modernization positions Globo for live, VoD and streaming content distribution, maintaining its status as a media leader worldwide.” www.grassvalley.com
