Over the past four years, says Dave Ward, the company’s CTO of engineering and chief architect, Cisco has been at IBC articulating its vision of a broadcast industry leveraging the many and substantial benefits of an IP-based network infrastructure using COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) products.
“This year, we sense a real change, with many organisations anxious to find out how they can transition their workflows to take advantage of the opportunities IP brings,” he said. “They’re looking to buy real solutions.”
Inevitably, there are still concerns about interoperability – in response to which, Ward notes, Cisco has set up labs featuring equipment from many of the industry’s highest profile vendors to prove that it can be done.
“There are ways in which broadcast is no different from other types of networking – and ways in which, for now, it’s different,” continued Ward. “We have, for example, learned a ton about video, and we’ve had to respond to the need for accuracy and precision in media operations.”
Sensing the industry’s growing desire to become fully IP-proficient, Cisco is also establishing the Cisco Certified Broadcast Engineer programme with the aim of equipping engineers and technicians with the skills needed to migrate video production to IP.
Cisco will introduce two-day foundational training and five-day technical deep-dive training in spring 2018.
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