RIST: Enabling Innovation for video over Unmanaged Networks

By Alexander Sandström and Jacob Kinsey, the RIST Forum

 Live video is more in demand than ever before, with a large and growing consumer appetite for coverage as it happens, whether that is live sports, breaking news, key events, or even 24/7 linear channels. At the same time however consumers have very little patience for any drop in quality. Delivering live video while ensuring the quality levels required in professional media workflows and a great end-user experience can be challenging, especially as connectivity can often vary depending on a huge array of factors. The Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) protocol aims to combat that. 

What is RIST?

RIST is an interoperable protocol for low latency video contribution via unmanaged networks, including the internet. What that means is that it is a way of delivering lossless broadcast-grade video quality over any type of infrastructure. Most of the organisations using it today are doing so over the public internet, for professional media workflows such as contribution, remote production, affiliate interconnect, primary distribution and cloud ingest.

A dedicated working group within the Video Services Forum (VSF) put together a technical specification, outlining the RIST protocol for contribution using unmanaged networks. The aim of RIST is to create an industry wide, interoperable solution that can be implemented by any vendor into its equipment and we are already seeing the result of that, with a wide range of IP video delivery equipment supporting it, from cloud platforms to encoders, decoders and playout services.

As well as being based on the recommendations outlined in the VSF specification, RIST is the result of leading vendors and global broadcast operators working together. This is a key part of the strategy around RIST because it is only by genuine collaboration at this scale that you can develop something to be truly interoperable. With so many different ways to produce, package, and deliver video and a plethora of different tools available, ensuring interoperability between them is absolutely key.

To find out why RIST is needed and how it breeds innovation, read the full article in TVB Europe.