New Era of ST 2110 Compliance Testing With PICS and RP 2110-25

Abstract

The overall adoption of SMPTE ST 2110 standards and the Advanced Media Workflow Association Networked Media Open Specifications (AMWA NMOS) grows. To serve the industry with a better understanding of these standards and specifications, the Joint Task Force on Networked Media (JT-NM) introduced the JT-NM Tested program. After running the “Tested Program” several times, a number of pain points became clear. These underpinned feedback on the documents and other questions, such as how to improve and scale up this kind of event. To assist with this, SMPTE is creating Protocol Implementation Conformance Statements (PICS) for the ST 2110 standard suite, recommended practice (RP) 2110–25 (Professional Media Over Managed Internet Protocol (IP) Networks: Measurement Practices), and the JT-NM has the JT-NM Tested program. The article outlines the work and the achieved results in the form of PICS documents for the SMPTE ST 2110 standard suite and the RP 2110–25 document to provide for better testing and measurement of SMPTE ST 2110 implementations. We discuss the ways to ensure compliance and interoperability of implementations, including the experience gained during several JT-NM Tested events. We explain how these interop events are operated, the value they bring, and how the PICS will enhance such future events. Another important aspect is monitoring and measuring the implementations’ operation parameters, such as packet pacing. A specific problem discussed is the uniformity and consistency of such measurements among the different SMPTE ST 2110 equipment vendors.