Several Members from the 5G-XCast consortium presented at the EBU Forecast 2017 seminar which took place at the EBU in Geneva (https://tech.ebu.ch/forecast17).

The seminar looks forward, asking how media content will be delivered in five, ten or 15 years’ time; looking at the evolution of consumption patterns, media genres and distribution technologies.

Steve Appleby (BT) – Unified service delivery on fixed and mobile networks

Increasing amounts of HTTP streamed video are being consumed.The rise of global media hosting and distribution platforms allow content producers to access global markets easily and helps fuel the growth of unicast video streams. Audiences for live and “appointment to view” content can be particularly dynamic, which poses some significant challenges for unicast delivery, whereas multicast and broadcast handle this easily. We argue that by combining multicast and broadcast at the edge of the network, with a global CDN we can achieve the best of both worlds.

Download

Steve Appleby currently leads the Video Delivery Research Team based at BT’s Research Centre in the UK. Research topics include video formats and compression, content streaming and quality control as well as middleware and content protection technology. The team’s research covers both fixed and mobile networks. Previously he has conducted research on a wide range of topics, including artificial intelligence (particularly machine translation), digital signal processing and sonic imaging techniques. He holds a Ph.D. from the Electronics department at the University of Kent and a BSc. in Physics from the University of Surrey.

David Gomez Barquero (UPV) – All you want to know about the 5G-XCAST Project

5G-Xcast is a new 5G-PPP project that will devise, assess and demonstrate a conceptually novel and forwardlooking 5G network architecture for large scale immersive media delivery. The objectives are to:

  • Develop broadcast and multicast point to multipoint capabilities for 5G, and evaluate 5G spectrum allocation options for 5G Broadcasting.
  • Design a dynamically adaptable 5G network architecture with layer independent network interfaces to dynamically and seamlessly switch between unicast, multicast and broadcast modes or use them in parallel and exploit built-in caching capabilities.

Download

David Gomez Barquero, Senior Researcher at the Technical University of Valencia. His recent research focuses in the development of broadcast technology components for 5G. He is the project manager of 5G-Xcast.

 

Members of the 5G-XCast Consortium also presenting:

Javier Morgade (IRT) – Next generation of DTT technologies, where are we going?

This presentation provides an insight into the fundamental technology developments in terms of capacity and system capabilities of current DTT broadcast operation. The role of the network deployment, linked to different factors are discussed. Moreover, the main ongoing research and standardization activities to enable Mobile Terrestrial TV Broadcasting are presented.

JAVIER MORGADE received his Ph.D. degree in telecommunications engineering from the University of Basque Country, Basque Country, Spain, in 2014. After finalizing his Ph.D., he has been involved in the ATSC 3.0 standardization with Samsung R&D UK, and into content delivery, signal processing and new concepts for Next-Generation Wireless Communication Systems with Fraunhofer IIS in Germany. He is currently with theInstitut für Rundfunktechnik GmbH (IRT) in Germany where he is engaged in 3GPP and LTE/5G Broadcast standardization.

 

Sean Grant (EE) – 5G For Media and Entertainment

What is 5G and why is it applicable to the M&E sector ?
Why do we need a specific M&E Vertical in the 5G ecosystem ?
How can we align requirements across the sector ?

Sean Grant (EE) has over 17 years’ experience in telecoms, media and entertainment. Within EE he is responsible for Video and Content Technologies, leading the development of cutting edge technologies to provide the optimal viewing experience for EE’s customers wherever they are. Sean is also currently working on the 5G-Xcast programme ensuring an aligned strategy across EE and BT In 2015 Sean was the project lead for the award winning LTE-Broadcast demo at the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium.

Darko Ratkaj (EBU) – PANEL – How should a broadcaster’s distribution strategy change in the coming years?

Darko Ratkaj is a Senior Project Manager at the EBU’s Technology &  innovation department. His interest is the intersection between content, technology, market, regulation, and policy issues. Amongst other things he is involved in technical research, spectrum related work, and strategic analyses with the purpose of making public service media universally available.

 

Business Arrangements for distribution of broadcast content

Roland Beutler, chair of the 5G-XCast Advisory Board also presented in the session on “Changing Distribution Models” on the topic “Business Arrangements for distribution of broadcast content”.