Articles and deep-dives

In this blog, we discuss how broadcasters and media companies can use the RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport) protocol to securely and reliably deliver live sports coverage over the Internet. Check it out!

In this guest blog, RIST member, SipRadius discusses how it used the RIST protocol to create a remote production and distribution platform for broadcasters. The technology enabled broadcasters to benefit from high-quality, flexible, and secure content delivery during the Covid-19 pandemic. Read on to see how it was implemented!

In the first blog in our ‘Meet our Members’ series we talk to Vice President, Advanced Product Development Eric Fankhauser from Evertz, one of the original members when the RIST Forum was founded in 2017. Eric also shares his observations on the latest challenges facing the broadcast industry and the importance of initiatives such as RIST to meet its evolution.

If you have a good, decent IP network (or Internet connection) with a lot of bandwidth, pretty much any video transport protocol will work for you (because it does not need to work very hard). There may be some occasional packet loss, which the protocol will promptly correct, but in general, life is good.

However, here in the real world, you will face the following realities:

Consumer demand for high-quality video content is at an all-time high. Whether it's live broadcasts of tier 1 sports events or delivering premium content, the stakes are higher than ever. Quality and reliability are paramount when transporting valuable video content and any interruptions to the stream are unacceptable. This is challenging when contributing and distributing video content over unmanaged IP networks such as the Internet primarily because of the inherent best-effort nature of IP. It’s critical that content is received and processed correctly by the receiver, and system redundancy is one measure that must be employed to achieve this aim.

The sustained growth in consumer demand for high quality video content has made it clear to the broadcast industry that, to cope with demand, it needs to adapt its methods of delivery. Workflows are being modified to reduce costs, with many shifting to hybrid networks to modernise and streamline processes. With IP becoming the norm for many broadcasters, reliable and broadcast-standard content transportation is imperative to ensure that there’s no dip in the quality being received by viewers.

In our last blog post, we discussed the new RIST protocol feature, RIST Relay. It allows video to be sent and received easily over the Internet without the usual problems associated with traversing firewalls. To recap, the RIST Relay provides a connection service to RIST devices using the RIST Advanced Profile. RIST devices connect to the RIST Relay as a rendezvous point, and the RIST Relay either facilitates a direct connection between the RIST devices, or relays the traffic between them.

Firewalls, while a necessity for maintaining security and control over network traffic, also act as a roadblock to simple sending and receiving of video over the Internet.

If firewalls didn’t monitor and filter incoming and outgoing network connections, then they wouldn’t be doing their job properly. But this is problematic for transporting video because a firewall will typically block or restrict incoming traffic on specific ports to protect the network from unauthorized access.

Both Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) and Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) have been developed to enable live low-latency video contribution over the public internet. However, there are some key differentiators between the two.

The huge increase in demand for content over the last 5 – 10 years has led to broadcasters having to significantly adapt their workflows. The need to produce large volumes of high-quality content, at the lowest cost, has naturally driven broadcasters to seek out ways to improve workflow efficiency.

An overview of the recently added features and new capabilities from SRT and RIST. This article is to highlight what is new and exciting in both protocols and what to expect on the roadmap for these products.

Here we are fast approaching the end of another year, and it has certainly been a busy 12 months for the Reliable Internet Transport Stream (RIST) Forum. Developed jointly by a group of experts using a standards-based approach, RIST provides an open-specification, open-source, interoperable and technically robust solution for low-latency live video over unmanaged networks.