HD Streams for TV Broadcast?

[ZachSchuster]

Hey gang, let me know if you think this would work or not:

We would like to get our university games broadcast on the local public access station. Comcast is the local cable compay, and we could tap into their secondary cable system for schools, etc... to modulate the NTSC feed to the public access station. However, that would require a physical hookup to that system, and we might not be able to afford that.

However, would an HD stream from the XD300 be of "reasonably high enough quality" for broadcast?

We would be using SD cameras and production gear, but using an HD profile in the XD300. The station would have a computer to decode the stream, run the output through a scan converter and audio hookup to their master control.

What kind of quality might we expect? Also, if feeding SD signals in, what kind of quality might we expect in a DVD archive if the sources are up-scaled for HD resolution? Or would it be better to keep it in an SD profile and stream at a higher bitrate?

Thoughts or feedback?

Thanks,

Zach

[ted]

We covered a local high school football season this year. It was broadcast by a local TV station. They simply took a Composite feed from our TriCaster Broadcast. I wish they would have taken component or SDI, but they couldn't for whatever reason. But they were thrilled with the quality.
The station took care of the feed to their studio.
It's a great PR move for them to cover the costs. Try and put that on them. :D

As for formats, if you are using SD cameras, I would simply record and feed in SD. But others might feel differently.

[PIZAZZ]

You could definitely do that.

I would suggest for better quality though to use a dedicated hardware decoder on the receiving side. A dedicated set top box decoder for H.264 would be well under 1k and would have up to SDI, YUV, or Composite outputs. You would then point the Decoder box at the IP address you are streaming from or a server receiving the pushed H.264 stream. I would suggest the Wowza server platform to use as a server. email me directly for details, I would be glad to consult you on this.

Having a dedicated IP connection on the Comcast network would be best without a doubt. Pushing HD at for instance 1.2-1.5megabits can sometimes be challenging over the public internet.

[bob anderson]

We would be using SD cameras and production gear, but using an HD profile in the XD300.

I don't know if this is the best Idea. I was talking with Tim and asked him, " If the TCXD can output HD and SD at the same time, why would anyone ever run the system in SD? That would only limit the availability of an HD output if you suddenly wanted one." and in usual Tim genius answer mode he said, " Running SD cameras into the box running in HD mode causes them to be unscaled to HD. Then downscaled back to SD for output, which will introduce artifacting."

So... You might want to test the signal quality running in SD mode as well, and see if the quality "cost/benefit" is any better streaming in HD.

I'd be interested in hearing your results.

Bob Anderson

[PIZAZZ]

Very true Bob. I glazed over that using sd cameras thing. With that in mind now, I would suggest that Zach use an SD profile of 720/480 at a higher bitrate. It might help going up to an HD profile sobit is worth testing. I still suggest an Enseo set top box for the receiving side though. SD or HD doesn't matter. Still use flash h.264 for the stream format.

If only we had 264 stream receiving capability as a virtual input for the TriCaster line. We could outfit the headends with tricasters to receive and switch additional streams. Kind of like a mini master control.

[ZachSchuster]

Well, it's all academic until I can get an XD300... still working on the funding.

Being able to have a flash stream as an input would be awesome. In fact, that would open up a lot of possibilities!

[David Curle]

If only we had 264 stream receiving capability as a virtual input for the TriCaster line. We could outfit the headends with tricasters to receive and switch additional streams. Kind of like a mini master control.

PlayBox does exactly that- you can put a live stream in the playlist and jump bacwards and forwards to streams from hardrive based playout - Not bad pricing too. I see they can record and delay and playou all inthe same box! [URL="http://www.playbox.tv"[/URL]