RIST protocol explained at RIST Unfiltered webinar
What exactly is the RIST protocol? Why do we need it? These are some of the questions that the Directors of The RIST Forum answered recently at a webinar aimed to help broadcast tech manufacturers, vendors and broadcasters better understand the RIST protocol.
The RIST Forum is a not-for-profit association of leading vendors and global broadcast operators that have established an interoperable standard for transporting live video over unmanaged networks on the public internet. Contemporary video transport is subject to loss of quality due to the inconsistency of internet performance over time and across the world – the RIST protocol means you can deliver high quality video even when bandwidth is limited.
As part of The RIST Forum’s mission to promote the RIST protocol, the forum wants to answer your questions about RIST and why it is the best protocol for contribution of live broadcast-grade video. RIST Forum’s recent webinar called RIST Unfiltered saw the Directors respond to a variety of questions about the protocol.
What is RIST?
Webinar co-moderator Suzana Brady, RIST Forum Co-Chair (Vice President of Americas Sales, Cobalt Digital) began the webinar by explaining what the RIST protocol is:
· Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) is an open specification protocol for low-latency, reliable, secure contribution over the internet.
· RIST is being developed by a panel of industry experts in the context of the Video Services Forum (VSF).
· The primary objective is to provide interoperability between products from different vendors whilst using best-in-class technologies so there are no compromises.
· RIST gives you a choice to pick the best product for your needs without being locked into a single vendor-proprietary solution.
RIST library IP status
Arielle Slama, RIST Forum Co-Chair (Head of Product Marketing, Net Insight), asked Wes Simpson, RIST AG Co-Chair (President & Founder LearnIPVideo.com) about the IP status of the RIST library. According to a statement Simpson had prepared:
“The RIST specifications can be downloaded for free by anyone from the Video Services Forum (VSF) website (https://vsf.tv/). The specifications are copyrighted by the VSF and distributed under the creative comments, attribution, no derivatives 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit the link that is included in the document. Under the terms of this license you may share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, under the terms given.”
Simpson then goes onto say: “Each of the RIST specifications contains a detailed IP rights statement. Anyone seeking to implement RIST technology should thoroughly read and fully understand this statement before proceeding with the development activities.”
NO RIST license fees
A member of the webinar audience asked if users of RIST will need to pay any license fees to any participants in RIST. If so, how much will the license fees be? Adi Rozenberg, RIST Forum Director (Co-Founder & CTO, VideoFlow), explained: “There is no license fee attached to RIST. No fees at all. The open source code is just that, open source. So, it’s easy and free to use.”
Wes Simpson added: “Anyone who is interested in writing their own software based on the specification, or in using the liberate library, please take a look at the documents on the VSF website. They have very specific terms.”
You can find out more about RIST from the experts and developers and watch the full RIST Unfilteredwebinar. If you’ve got a question you would like answered at a future RIST Forum webinar please send it to info@rist.tv For more information about future RIST Forum events visit: https://www.rist.tv/events