Plazamedia blazes IP trail

The importance of IP to all aspects of media can hardly be understated. The transition is not new when looked at in broad terms: ‘Black Box,’ dedicated machines started to be replaced in earnest a generation or more ago and file-based production has become the norm for many.

That being said, there have been and continue to be ‘islands,’ of IP within SDI facilities, and vice-versa, in corners of the industry.

At IBC2018, it could be argued that IP and AoIP had made a big leap from concept or trial applications, to being very real for many end users. Many are now going beyond just ‘dipping a toe in’ via a partial facility conversion, with facilities and OB vehicle designs really starting to push beyond proofs-of-concept or partial measures.

One of the higher profile recent examples of this is a comprehensive IP production infrastructure at Plazamedia’s new broadcasting centre in Ismaning, near Munich. Here, the German media production company has blazed a trail straight through infrastructure virtualisation to true workspace virtualisation.

Jürgen Konrad, the Senior Project Engineer and IP Solution Architect for Plazamedia, said this was all in keeping with the overall goal of designing flexible, fast and very efficient production and distribution of content. Flexibility and scalability are key, with the facility design allowing the company to offer a significantly higher number of concurrent projects, even with minimal notice.

“We definitely decided we wanted to make a big change from the old infrastructure and also the old way of production,” said Konrad. “We wanted to…