Media Links, manufacturer and pioneer in Media over IP transport technology, announced that Timeline TV chose its MDP 3020 MAX™ Series of IP Media Gateways to facilitate the transport and delivery of media and data services over IP networks for the recent UEFA Europe 2024 football tournament.
Timeline TV is one of the UK’s leading providers of broadcast technologies and services and supplied the broadcast infrastructure along with a full range of services for this highly viewed sporting event in Germany.
As sports production is becoming much more data intensive with demanding requirements for up to the minute statistics, analytics and historical references, having the ability to cost-effectively support the quick deployment of both media and data transport services is vital for today’s live sports workflows.
IP Delivery with Hitless Protection
Media Links’ MDP3020 MAX is a compact, half-1RU advanced IP media gateway designed especially for portable video, audio and data transport applications.
MAX is focused on delivering the widest range of re-configurable application workflows, supporting up to two 10G data ports over dual 10G trunks while also accommodating 4K, 3G, and HD/SD video along with 16 channel 8 pair AES audio. The device is available with either optical or electrical interfaces, JPEG-XS compression for high quality, low latency and bandwidth conservation, and provides a range of additional capabilities that facilitate quick and efficient install, turn-up and tear down.
Live sports broadcasts also pose significant challenges for signal transport over lossy, error-prone networks, and demand high-bandwidth, glitch free transmission without any interruption of video/audio as well as data content.
A main consideration for Timeline’s selection of the Media Links’ MDP 3020 was its SMPTE 2022-7 seamless protection “hitless” switching support for both media and data across dual transmission paths. Perfect signal reconstruction at the receiving end is all but guaranteed as long as both paths do not simultaneously fail. With millions of viewers that watched the UEFA event, this was a “must-have” requirement.
