Arista Networks > Case Studies > Timeline Television Selects Arista for Europe's First 4K/UHD OB Truck with IP Workflows

Timeline Television Selects Arista for Europe's First 4K/UHD OB Truck with IP Workflows

Customer Company Size

Mid-size Company

Region

Europe

Country

United Kingdom

Product

Arista 7504R Switches
Arista EOS®

Tech Stack

SMPTE 2110
SMPTE 2022

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Innovation Output
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Networks & Connectivity - Ethernet
Networks & Connectivity - Network Management & Analysis Software

Applicable Industries

Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Field Services
Business Operation

Use Cases

Remote Asset Management

Services

System Integration
Testing & Certification

About The Customer

Timeline Television is a UK-based company that is a pioneer in the field of outside broadcasting (OB). It is a highly regarded provider of technical and creative facilities for a wide range of programs, including live music and awards shows, political conferences, global and domestic sporting competitions, light entertainment, and current affairs. Uniquely in the industry, Timeline Television has the ability to provide facilities for production from concept to completion, including OB, post-production, and an exhaustive knowledge of tapeless solutions. With two large post-production facilities in London and a third in MediaCityUK, Timeline Television provides state-of-the-art facilities to major broadcasters including BBC, BskyB, ITV, and many others. The company is known for its innovative approach and commitment to delivering high-quality broadcasting solutions.

The Challenge

With the recognition that more OBs would require UHD capability along with a fully IP end-to-end workflow, in 2016, Timeline Television began examining the possibility of building a state-of-the-art, triple expanding OB truck to support fully uncompressed 4K/UHD, IP and High Dynamic Range workflows. The truck would be based around the SMPTE 2110 and SMPTE 2022 standards that define transport and timing protocols for audio, video and metadata over an IP network. The design would use a number of elements from broadcast technology supplier SAM but when it came to core IP switching, the choices were limited as Dan McDonnell, Managing Director and Founder of Timeline Television explains. “We needed a high density switch with 100G ports and support for 4 lanes of 25G with nonblocking architecture as unlike a data network, we can’t drop any packets. If you look at the market, that rules out the vast majority of vendors and in our test the Arista 7504R was able to handle everything we threw at it”

The Solution

The Arista 7500R Series modular systems are high-performance data center switches, available in a compact 7RU (4-slot) or 11RU (8-slot) that combine scalable L2 and L3 forwarding and traffic management with advanced features for network monitoring, precision timing, and network virtualization to deliver deterministic network performance for mission-critical data centers, cloud computing, enterprise, and HPC environments. The 7504R has 36 x 100G Interfaces per line card with a switching capacity of 15Tbps plus an industry-leading latency of sub 4 microseconds. With the Arista switch at the heart of the system, the OB truck has an effective maximum matrix size of 4608 x 4608 which allows it to run 32-cabled Sony 4300 cameras plus 14 UHD capable video servers along with full audio up to Dolby Atmos levels. The truck, which took 5 months to build, is widely regarded as the most advanced unit of its kind in Europe. As McDonnell says, “As an industry first, there was a bit of a learning curve, but we had no issues with the Arista switch. One of the things we were concerned about was unlike a data center where a switch is always on, we have to deploy on a new site for every job and switching equipment on and off needs to be predictable and have reasonably quick startup - in this respect, the Arista switch is up and running in under 8 minutes which is faster than some of the other elements within the truck.”

Operational Impact

The new UHD truck has already been put through its paces at a number of high-profile events including the recent IAAF World Championships and World Para Athletics Championships in London.
The truck is regarded as the most advanced unit of its kind in Europe, showcasing the state of the art in terms of outside broadcasting technology.
The Arista switch provides flawless reliability, ensuring real-time operation with its sub 4 microsecond latency.
The small form factor of the Arista switch allows for flexible deployment of 10, 25, and 100G interfaces to meet every deployment scenario and future evolution.

Quantitative Benefit