RIST’s Year in Review: 2023
It’s hard to believe that we’re coming to the end of 2023 already; the last twelve months have disappeared in the blink of an eye. As a membership organization created to drive adoption of the Reliable Internet Transport Stream (RIST) protocol, the RIST Forum has worked hard over the last year to promote RIST and bring more RIST-enabled solutions to the market. The RIST protocol is an open-specification, open-source, interoperable and technically robust solution for reliably transporting low-latency video over unmanaged networks. Reliability and multi-vendor interoperability have always been key driving forces behind the RIST protocol and work to further develop and improve it so that it is even easier to reliably transport broadcast grade video over IP, is ongoing.
With its standards-based approach that specifies a minimum set of functionality and behavior that needs to be common across all implementations, RIST is technically robust regardless of the application, use case or environment it is deployed in. Additionally, it also enables innovation because individual vendors retain the ability to innovate by adding advanced functionality on top of the specifications.
Now in its sixth year, the RIST Forum currently has over 270 members, an increase of around 25% from this time last year. And as membership grows, the number of RIST-enabled solutions on the market is also increasing. RIST is now implemented in many dozens of products covering each part of the contribution and distribution workflow.
Promoting and showcasing RIST
With so many vendors, service providers and broadcasters all in one place, trade shows and conferences are always a great opportunity for us to show the industry what a great initiative RIST is, and 2023 didn’t disappoint on that front. Several members of the RIST Forum exhibited, presented, and demonstrated different aspects of RIST at VidTrans, the annual technical conference and exposition from the Video Services Forum (VSF). Next came the NAB Show where several RIST Forum members showcased RIST-enabled products, and the IP Showcase also featured four RIST-focused presentations. BroadcastAsia too also provided yet another great opportunity for RIST Forum members to again showcase implementation of RIST in their products.
As one of the biggest trade shows in the broadcast and media industry’s calendar, IBC also deserves a mention. As well as the usual product showcasing of RIST-enabled products, there was an open meet-up and discussion with the lead developers of libRIST, the open source RIST library, of which a new version was released in time for IBC. RIST Forum members also featured in a special RIST Forum at IBC video, which was shown on the KitPlus YouTube channel.
Enhancements to RIST protocol
The RIST protocol features three specifications, with each one adding more functionality: RIST Simple Profile (TR-06-1), RIST Main Profile (TR-06-2), and lastly, the most comprehensive specification, RIST Advanced Profile (TR-06-3). RIST was launched to address compatibility issues in video transport and the updates and improvements made by the RIST Activity Group (RIST AG) over the last year have further enhanced its interoperability, functionality, and reliability.
Early on in the year, the second release in a series of ancillary features for RIST specification, TR-06-4 Part 2, was announced which included the use of Wireguard VPN in RIST devices. For some applications, an off-the-shelf VPN is more desirable than RIST’s novel way to provide a VPN, so including Wireguard VPN in RIST devices improves RIST’s usability. Wireguard sessions can also be used to carry non-RIST data for in-band control or other purposes, and if configured to do so, it can also support IP Multicast.
Another key improvement to the RIST protocol is the inclusion of a RIST Relay function. This feature, detailed in TR-06-4 Part 3, is the third release in a series of ancillary features for RIST specifications, and addresses the issue of firewall traversal for RIST devices. 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. The RIST Relay is also capable of supporting group operation for many-to-many communications.
Another ancillary feature released in 2023 was TR-06-4 Part 5, which addresses Multicast Discovery. It provides a simplified way to manage multicast traffic over RIST tunnels, in other to save bandwidth.
A new version of libRIST, the publicly available version of RIST Protocol, was released ahead of the IBC Show. Version 0.2.8 of libRIST incorporates a host of new features for the FOSS community to integrate and freely use. Highlights of this libRIST release included multi-connectivity senders, full support for EAP authentication and dynamic buffering handshakes and implementation of the new ether types.
The VSF (Video Services Forum) freely publishes all the RIST technical recommendations and guidelines for implementations so users and vendors can use the free material to implement and deploy RIST, safe in the knowledge that those products are then interoperable with all the other RIST-enabled solutions out there. if you’re interested in deploying RIST or working with RIST in any way, become a member and join the RIST Forum today.
For more information aboutRIST enabled productsor to find out about becoming a RIST member,get in touch.