NRK’s media operations modernisation centralises production hardware at two data centres, using Nevion’s Virtuoso for media processing and transport between production locations.
NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) operates from several main production hubs, including its headquarters in Oslo, with district offices across Norway. The broadcaster is now launching a modernisation project to focus operations on content creation. It plans to centralise production equipment in two data centres but will maintain a strong regional presence.
As a part of this project, NRK evaluated several different options for media transport and processing, and chose Nevion Virtuoso – a component of the Sony Networked Live system of products and services for remote and distributed production. Nevion is a Sony company.
Broadcasters and telecom providers use Virtuoso in applications such as contribution, remote production, OB trucks, GCCG (ground-to-cloud/cloud-to-ground) and centralised media processing. Its software-defined functionality ranges from video and audio processing, signal adaptation, transport with video compression, to IP media trust boundaries and monitoring. Trust boundaries safeguard the integrity, confidentiality and authorised availability of media assets during transport across networks.
The decision to adopt Virtuoso follows NRK's selection of Nevion VideoIPath for broadcast control in early 2024. In NRK’s data centres, the production hubs will share Virtuoso’s media processing capabilities, including video up/down/cross conversion. Virtuoso will also be used to handle video and audio adaptation and the transport between the broadcaster's production locations.
In its evaluation report, NRK said that Nevion's Virtuoso stands out for its density, which is competitive against the other major brands and makes it versatile in diverse use cases. “One of Virtuoso's key strengths is the platform's highly configurable parameters, which are enhanced by its ability to run multiple firmwares on the same hardware,” the report also stated.
The configurability is partly due to the fact that Virtuoso’s functionality is virtualised, and delivered by software modules called Media Functions that users install and activate on demand, instead of switching equipment when a change of functionality is required.
Most of the Media Functions run on generic Media Accelerator cards, housed in a Media Appliance, that supply the required processing resources for actions ranging from IP adaption and compression to A/V processing. All are carried out with ultra-low latency.
Virtuoso is also built on open standards from industry bodies including AMWA, SMPTE, VSF, AIMS and others, and therefore can interact with products from other vendors, giving users more choices as they build their systems.
NRK especially wants to deploy an infrastructure consistent with its vision of an agile and cost-effective distributed live production. Thomas Heinzer, CEO at Nevion said, "After our other media orchestration platform VideoIPath won the NRK tender for broadcast control last year, we are delighted that NRK has chosen to extend our relationship by selecting Virtuoso for signal transport and processing. We believe that NRK's transformation project can be a blueprint for many others in the industry, and we are really excited about helping to make this happen." nevion.com
