How the Paris Olympics were Made More Immersive and More Accessible with ST 2110

Broadcasters worldwide, driven by the fast expansion of live sports, are embracing the move to IP and enhancement of their service by HDR video and Immersive audio. Dolby Atmos provides great value to newly launched Live Linear services. Enabling these great consumer experiences has just become much easier with the publication of ST 2110–41 (Fast Metadata Framework) which completes a suite of standards that enable real-time IP based metadata guided workflows. Ateme, Dolby, and Junger Audio have partnered to take advantage of new ST 2110 based IP infrastructure to enable end-to-end metadata communication which drives NGA productions, such as Atmos and AC-4 distribution. Now that the industry has started the deployment of ST 2110 infrastructure, HDR video and Next Generation Audio (NGA) metadata in the form of S-ADM (A serial representation of the Audio Definition Model) can be transmitted through ST 2110–41 metadata streams from live and linearized sources to live encoders, enabling fully automated distribution workflows for both channel-based ATSC 1.0/DV8 and advanced ATSC 3.0/DV8-T2 use cases. This year, France Televisions has deployed this during Olympics 2024 terrestrial broadcast and later this year major European broadcaster will launch UHD Dolby Vision and Atmos services. In North America, A TSC 3.0 services can utilize this workflow as well. All Dolby Vision, Atmos, and AC-4 content distribution is precisely driven by ST 2110–41 metadata streams. Differences in production formats are easily handled, as are switches between sources by automation systems. At all times this tight coupling of essence and metadata accurately reflects the content. With such an NGA workflow, end users select different languages or other audio programming options such as accessibility directly on their devices. Ad-breaks, typically still in stereo, can be managed efficiently, and loudness control requirements can be consistently met across content and devices. The move to IP also significantly simplifies the signal flow, reducing overall complexity and notential failure points while improving scalability.

Published

2024-10-21

Content type

Original Research

Keywords

broadcast events, next-generation-audio nga, metadata-guided audio mga

DOI

10.5594/MOO/3021

ISBN

978-1-61482-965-2