A Deeper Look into a Changing Broadcast World – Haivision’s Broadcast IP Transformation Report 2021
We are thrilled to announce that we are ready to share the results from our second annual survey into the state of the cloud and IP transformation within the broadcast industry. You can now download your copy of the Haivision Broadcast IP Transformation Report 2021! We’ll be examining the findings in the blog over the next few months, so stay tuned for more posts!
For this report, we polled over 500 broadcast and video streaming professionals from around the world, representing a multitude of organization including national television networks, OTT and broadcast service providers, and production studios. Survey respondents fill a number of roles within the broadcast world, including engineers, producers, and post-production professionals.
In a fashion similar to last year’s survey, we wanted to gain a deeper understanding of that challenges facing broadcast professionals, the current technology they are adopting, and their plans for the future.
COVID-19 – The Topic of 2020
We will start with the obvious – COVID-19 was on everyone’s radar this year.
COVID-19, and ensuring compliance with government restrictions, certainly changed many things for broadcasters this year – although changed may not be the appropriate so much as accelerated. Many of the broadcasters that we surveyed, already had IP transformation as part of their future plans; 71% of them told us that the last year has accelerated the transition to IP in their organization.
And even more telling – nearly three quarters (74%) of those surveyed believed that the changes made to their workflows as a result of COVID-19 would be permanent.
Connecting Remotely and Key Highlights
Another popular trend that appeared in this year’s survey was the need for remote connections. Remote production is on the rise for broadcasters, and the two top challenges as reported by broadcasters are both related: transitioning to IP and enabling remote collaboration.
Q. What are the top broadcast challenges you currently face?
This is a multiple choice, multiple answer question; the results will not add up to 100%
Other key highlights include the growing popularity of the HEVC/H.265 video streaming codec, especially for 4K UHD content over IP and cloud. Over 50% of respondents are already using the HEVC codec, and more than 80% plan to use it over the next year.
The SRT video streaming protocol has also continued to grow over the last year. 53% of broadcasters surveyed reported using the open source SRT protocol as part of their workflows. This is not surprising, as SRT has steadily attracted the support of more organizations over the last year, including the industry big hitters like the NFL, who used SRT as a key component of their virtual draft, and Sony who recently joined the SRT Alliance.
