The TICO Alliance has been launched through a coalition of broadcast equipment manufacturers, OEM providers, broadcasters, electronics brands and technology companies.
TICO is a new lightweight compression technology, which enables 4K/UHD to be transported over legacy SDI infrastructure and modern IP production and contribution networks. TICO has been developed by intoPIX and work is now ongoing at the SMPTE to publish TICO as Registered Disclosure Document (RDD) for the benefit of the entire broadcast and media industry.
The alliance is a coalition of companies united to set the bar for next generation infrastructure by establishing TICO in the new IP-based live production ecosystem that allows to update and upgrade the existing SDI-based workflows. The group is created to ease 4K/UHD adoption over the current SDI and the new IP-based infrastructures.
The group is formed by leading companies supporting intoPIX’s effort to promote TICO compression for UHD workflows: Altera Corporation, Artel Video Systems, Embrionix, Grass Valley – a Belden Brand, Image Matters, Imagine Communications, Keisoku Giken, Macnica Americas, Nevion, Ross Video, Xilinx and will be extended to all new supporters and adopters.
To support transportation of UHDTV streams across the IP network or the existing 3G-SDI infrastructure, a new smart, fast and light compression is needed. 10 GB Ethernet or 3G-SDI networks are widely deployed and operated cost effectively within the broadcast landscape.
TICO will help broadcasters to fully benefit from an integrated and high-quality Ultra-HD ecosystem from end-to-end. With a visually lossless compression up to 4:1, TICO enables the mapping of a single 4K/UHD 2160p60 stream over a single 3G-SDI link. Over 10Gbps Ethernet, it allows the simultaneous transmission of up to three streams of 4K/UHD 2160p60.
TICO provides an extremely low latency (limited to just a few pixel lines), preserves video quality across multiple generations of encoding/decoding, fits into the smallest cost effective FPGA devices and runs efficiently in software. This technology is designed to enhance live IP systems by increasing efficiency and reducing cost for both HD and 4K/UHD video.
In December 2014, intoPIX announced the creation of a Registered Disclosure Document (RDD) at SMPTE. This will ease the integration process of all new adopters and supporters of the TICO compression and shares recommendations to map 4K/UHD TICO streams over 3G-SDI or IP networked infrastructures. The members of the TICO alliance are closely collaborating with intoPIX on the SMPTE RDD draft document.
Richard Dellacanonica, president of Artel Video Systems, said:“TICO, with its low overhead, latency, and virtually losses quality, is the ideal compression format for that application and we are pleased to be involved with the consortium.”
Grass Valley’s Charles Meyer, CTO Production, added: “Our company sees the advantage of TICO for live production environments. The UHDTV roadmap calls for ever increasing data rates. TICO allows us to provide our customers infrastructure scalability for the next decade while simultaneously reducing latency to imperceptible levels.”
Jean-François Nivart, CTO of Image Matters, said: “TICO has a great future! With a typical compression ratio up to 4:1, TICO fills the gap between improved video quality expectations and actual data transport links. It perfectly completes the image compression technology range.”
