By technical editor Matt Allard:
Stream box is used by a lot of broadcasters including CNN and Fox to stream live and file-based video from news crews out in the field. This has commonly been done in both SD and HD using a wi-fi connection, a hard wired internet connection or a Bgan (portable satellite uplink), but now Stream Box has a system that allows 4K real time transmissions at up to 60 fps. The 4K solution captures 4K video from a Blackmagic 4K Production Camera via single thunderbolt using a Macbook Pro laptop and a Streambox ACT-L3 4K Software Encoder. The Streambox ACT-L3 4K encoder is an adaptive bitrate encoder capable of encoding full resolution 3840 x 2160 UHD or 4096×2160 4K Cinema DCI 23.98, 24, 29.97 and 30 fps 4K videos from 4 Mbps up to 40 Mbps in realtime. At the end of the chain you have a 4K Rackmount Encoder that is capable of delivering live, 4K content at a reduced bandwidth. By using the 4K 60P/50P Rackmount Encoder with the Streambox Cloud broadcasters can transport live 4K video over the internet across the globe. From the Rackmount Encoder you can go to a Mac Mini that has a Streambox 4K Media player. You can then play out to a 4K monitor via a display port.
This from Stream Box:
The Streambox 4K 60P Encoder is equipped with single and dual link 12G-SDI, backward compatible with 6G-SDI and 3G SDI. The Encoder also features HDMI and Fiber optic links, AES XLR or Analog Audio. Streambox 4K 60P Encoder can be used as high performance Decoder with 12G/6G/3G-SDI, HDMI or Fiber optic output. Previous generation 4K Encoders and Decoders will receive free firmware update for 4K 60p/50p play out. Streambox 4K software Encoders for Apple OSX, receive updates for DCI 4K 24 and 4K 60p/50p video encoding. Streambox 4K Media Player 4K 60p beta release for Apple OSX is available upon request for qualified customers.
All Streambox products come equipped with Streambox exclusive Low Delay Multi-Path technology (LDMP). Streambox LDMP protocol allows for low latency adaptive bit-rate streaming over public and private networks. Streambox Encoders will automatically select the best possible bandwidth, latency, and resolution over multiple IP networks, thus allowing Streambox products to gracefully handle network bandwidth fluctuations and dropouts, which are often seen over public or shared network environments.
All Streambox products are powered by our proprietary codec: Advanced Compression Technology – Level 3 (ACT-L3). Streambox ACT-L3 compression allows for faster encoding with lower latency and is optimized for video transmission over any low-bandwidth IP connection. Our proprietary codec is capable of compressing higher motion, complex video at lower data rates using the new advanced motion search feature.
It is interesting to see Stream Box pushing a 4K streaming solution for broadcasters. Several news organazations including Aljazeera are still broadcasting in SD and using similar systems such as Quicklink to transmit a SD image for live reports from the field. I still think it will be quite a long time before we see mainstream news organisations making the move to 4K. The extra bandwidth and internet speeds required to transmit 4K/UHD are just not currently available in many parts of the world. Stream Box will be demonstrating the technology at NAB next week.
