Pro AV Catalog

VidOvation Corporation

23 Spectrum Pointe Drive
Suite 206
Lake Forest, CA 92630-2272
United States
Project List
How Do News Agencies and Media Companies Use IPTV for the Internal Distribution of Live Television?
Posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2020
How Do News Agencies and Media Companies Use IPTV for the Internal Distribution of Live Television?

Nov. 25, 2020 - How do news outlets and media companies stay informed of events happening around the world particularly in these uncertain times? The answer, of course, is a special system developed specifically for these difficult circumstances.

Enter: Wireless Video with IPTV

IPTV Explained

To keep it short, IPTV, which stands for internet protocol television, is a system that tv services use to deliver their data and multimedia. This is done through using the internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as a LAN or the internet, instead of being delivered through satellite signal, traditional terrestrial, and cable television methods.

Why Switch to IPTV?

Deciding on the type of system to migrate to, never mind making the switch from one system to another, is a difficult one. This means that it’s important to know at least the top-line benefits to both parties involved.

User Benefits:

  • Drastically improved video communications
  • Works with TV/Display, PC, Smartphone, & Tablet Clients
  • Live wireless video broadcasting
  • Enhanced training methods
  • Better informed and more equipped employees
  • Personalized recording options
  • HD Quality
  • Familiar and user-friendly interface

Operator/Admin Benefits:

  • Lower Cost (long-term)
  • Easier to deploy and maintain
  • Elimination of Coax
  • Modular flexibility
  • Easy to scale

Three Types of IPTV

Live tv is only a segment of all the applications for wireless video and bonded cellular systems, which means that a system so closely engineered to cater to live tv needs to be supplemented by other types of IPTV to benefit other types of businesses.

  • Time-shifted IPTV
  • Live IPTV
  • IP Simulcasting

All three forms of IPTV for wireless video, though offer slightly different benefits depending on the application, can all work in tandem with a computer, digital tv and a typical web browser.

How IPTV Works

Traditionally, tv broadcasts were transmitted by turning the programs into radio waves, which connect to the satellite antenna on a home, which then converts the waves back into electrical signals that your tv can read and display.

IPTV: Storing programs

Live programs are streamed as the programs are being produced, but that isn’t the case for prerecorded programs and movies, which need to be stored in a way that is organized and easily accessible. This means that storage needs to ensure that assets can be selected and streamed on-demand.

IPTV: Preparing programs

Either prerecorded or live, a tv program has to be converted into a digital format that can be delivered as ‘packages’ using the Internet protocol. The original program format can be either in a digital format already or in the form of a standard, analog TV picture. If the program is already digital, great! If not, the analog will need to be converted into a digital format, which understandably takes a little more time.

Videos also need to be compressed at this stage so they can stream smoothly without buffering. Another interesting point is that live tv will often use bonded cellular, which combines multiple cellular and wireless networks — such as 2.5G, 3G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi and WiMAX — to offer a reliable, robust avenue that is capable of transmitting HD wireless video.

IPTV: Streaming programs

The user (the person watching the program) and the server that hosts the digital format of the tv program have a brief, intermittent conversation in which the client requests from the server all the files it needs to build the page you’re looking at. Servers are generally very fast and powerful, so many clients can download live tv and wireless video in this way simultaneously, with very little delay. This particular act of downloading between one client server and one server is known as IP unicasting (most web browsing falls into this category).

News Outlets and IPTV

News outlets are able to offer live tv broadcasting because of the highly reliable and seamless consumer end-product that is the result of IPTV. An IPTV solution accommodates multiple different live tv feeds or other content sources and multicasts them across an IP network. With the help of IPTV, distribution can be managed centrally and other services like wireless Video on Demand can be made available.

Offer the Most of Live TV with IPTV

IPTV allows broadcasters to offer a high-quality and reliable wireless video streaming experience, making it the goal of many businesses out there to obtain this particular setup.

Interested in learning more about whether IPTV for live tv is right for your business? For a quote, questions, or other inquiries, contact VidOvation today.

close