Meeting Topic: N/ACIP — Audio Contribution over IP
Moderator Name: Attila Karamustafaoglu
Speaker Name: Mathias Coinchon, Senior Engineer, EBU, Secretary of EBU N/ACIP and N/VCIP groups
Meeting Location: Hotel Ador in Bern, BE, Switzerland
The main points of his speech were the following:
1. ISDN is already now being switched off in many countries. This is a problem for broadcasters since they can't organize anymore reliable audio lines in short time over large distances.
2. N/ACIP focuses on setting a standard how devices of different manufacturers can exchange data.
3. RTP which builds upon IP is proposed as exchange format.
4. N/ACIP compatible devices must support at least the codecs G.711, G.722, MPEG1/2 Layer II and linear PCM. All other formats are voluntary some of them are recommended.
5. For signaling SIP is used. This allows that a device can be found world wide with one unchanging address.
6. IP traffic in contrast to synchronous traffic such as ISDN or ATM can be regarded as individual car traffic in contrast to public train transport. Usually the car is the faster medium but for arrival on time much reserve time for congestion has to be calculated in. A nice metaphor.
7. The public internet is not to be mixed up with managed IP networks. The latter mostly offer a service with guaranteed latencies and throughput rates.
8. In most countries it is not a problem to obtain a managed network connection between two arbitrary geographical locations within a short time (a few days).
9. The problem is that internationally almost no data transport services are available anymore. It has been there with ATM and ISDN but these are being switched off.
10. International data traffic becomes or stays despite the internet hype an expensive niche market.
Please find the presentation held also on our website: www.swissaes.org/downloads/material_080612.zip
After the meeting, a part of the group continued the discussions at the usual dinner after the meeting which was held at the Locanda Tre Fratelli nearby.
