IP Works, Until it Doesn’t. Maintaining SMPTE ST 2110/NMOS Installations in Practice 

SMPTE ST 2110 and NMOS installations are becoming more common these days and seem to work well. However, due to the complexity of setting up such systems, they largely become static installations, losing some of the greatest advantages of IP networks, like being inherently flexible. However, practical experience shows that detailed, stream-based monitoring is often lacking. If the system is to be flexible, a good option would be that end devices actively report back if one of their configured streams has errors. Based on experience, this presentation highlights some typical problems in operating an IP-based audio/video-over-IP system and suggests a number of parameters that should be monitored in real-world situations. It also illustrates that a possible standalone monitoring solution must be closely synchronized with the control system, since the streams naturally change constantly. The authors searched for a minimal set of alarms that are helpful to make the majority of practical problems obvious. They come up with a short list of specific alarms that should ideally be implemented in every audio/video-over-IP device - and possibly find their way into standards such as NMOS.