SCTE-35

Last updated

SCTE-35 (ANSI/SCTE 35 2013) is a joint ANSI/Society of Cable and Telecommunications Engineers standard that describes the inline insertion of cue tones in mpeg-ts streams. The full standard name is "Digital Program Insertion Cueing Message for Cable."

Contents

History

SCTE-35 was originally used in the US to signal a local ad insertion opportunity in the transport streams, and in Europe to insert local TV programs (e.g. local news transmissions). It is now used to signal all kinds of program and ad events in linear transport streams and in newer ABR delivery formats such as HLS and DASH.

Work on splicing GOP compressed video streams was started by SMPTE ST 312M Television - Splice Points for MPEG-2 Transport Streams. This standard had some basic signaling and details on how to perform seamless and near seamless splicing of compressed streams. Although it mainly worked on constant bit rate streams, and in the cable industry the digital feeds were moving to a statistical multiplex format. A company called Imedia developed an MPEG splicer and along with a company called SkyConnect they demonstrated a splice of ad content in to a statistically multiplexed stream.

A few of the cable proponents for the SMPTE 312M standard then moved the standards process for signaling to SCTE and formed the DPI ad hoc group. Using SMPTE 312M as a base, they modified the standard to work better for signalling local ad insertion splice points and added a minimal additional amount of data to be able to start sending more information about the splice. This became the first version of SCTE 35. SCTE 35 was written without examples or much explanatory text as that was relegated to the SCTE 67 guide document.

A few years later Time Warner formed a company called MystroTV to develop a network DVR solution. This required accurate signaling of program and ad boundaries for proper recording, and more importantly, not recording programs that the programmer or operator did not have rights to. They were also interested in signaling both programmer and distributor advertising avails. This was accomplished by adding the time_signal command which was basically a splice_insert, but had all of the extraneous data removed. They then added a segmentation_descriptor to be able to signal an extensible number of events and associate that with the time_signal command for accurate splice points.

Some programmers decided to overload the original splice_insert command rather than add standardized elements for what they wanted to do and this created some diverse interpretations on how to handle certain events. Quite a bit of time was taken in SCTE 35 2019r1 to add some examples and more explanatory text on how to use the standard.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital video</span> Digital electronic representation of moving visual images

Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data. This is in contrast to analog video, which represents moving visual images in the form of analog signals. Digital video comprises a series of digital images displayed in rapid succession, usually at 24 frames per second. Digital video has many advantages such as easy copying, multicasting, sharing and storage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video</span> Electronic moving image

Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) systems which, in turn, were replaced by flat panel displays of several types.

DigiCipher 2, or simply DCII, is a proprietary standard format of digital signal transmission and it doubles as an encryption standard with MPEG-2/MPEG-4 signal video compression used on many communications satellite television and audio signals. The DCII standard was originally developed in 1997 by General Instrument, which then became the Home and Network Mobility division of Motorola, then bought by Google in Aug 2011, and lastly became the Home portion of the division to Arris.

Digital Video Broadcasting - Cable (DVB-C) is the DVB European consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital television over cable. This system transmits an MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 family digital audio/digital video stream, using a QAM modulation with channel coding. The standard was first published by the ETSI in 1994, and subsequently became the most widely used transmission system for digital cable television in Europe, Asia and South America. It is deployed worldwide in systems ranging from the larger cable television networks (CATV) down to smaller satellite master antenna TV (SMATV) systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ATSC standards</span> Standards for digital television in the US

Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like that standard, is used mostly in the United States, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea. Several former NTSC users, such as Japan, have not used ATSC during their digital television transition, because they adopted other systems such as ISDB developed by Japan, and DVB developed in Europe, for example.

Digital cable is the distribution of cable television using digital data and video compression. The technology was first developed by General Instrument. By 2000, most cable companies offered digital features, eventually replacing their previous analog-based cable by the mid 2010s. During the late 2000s, broadcast television converted to the digital HDTV standard, which was incompatible with existing analog cable systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cable television headend</span> Facility for cable television system

A cable television headend is a master facility for receiving television signals for processing and distribution over a cable television system. A headend facility may be staffed or unstaffed and is typically surrounded by some type of security fencing. The building is typically sturdy and purpose-built to provide security, cooling, and easy access for the electronic equipment used to receive and re-transmit video over the local cable infrastructure. One can also find head ends in power-line communication (PLC) substations and Internet communications networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serial digital interface</span> Family of digital video interfaces

Serial digital interface (SDI) is a family of digital video interfaces first standardized by SMPTE in 1989. For example, ITU-R BT.656 and SMPTE 259M define digital video interfaces used for broadcast-grade video. A related standard, known as high-definition serial digital interface (HD-SDI), is standardized in SMPTE 292M; this provides a nominal data rate of 1.485 Gbit/s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CableCARD</span> Digital cable smart card

CableCARD is a special-use PC Card device that allows consumers in the United States to view and record digital cable television channels on digital video recorders, personal computers and television sets on equipment such as a set-top box not provided by a cable television company. The card is usually provided by the local cable operator, typically for a nominal monthly fee.

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers or SCTE a subsidiary of CableLabs® is a non-profit professional association for accelerating the deployment of technology, technical standards and workforce development education related to cable telecommunications engineering and operations. Founded in 1969 as The Society of Cable Television Engineers, SCTE, has a current membership of more than 17,000 individuals.

Dolby Digital Plus, also known as Enhanced AC-3, is a digital audio compression scheme developed by Dolby Labs for transport and storage of multi-channel digital audio. It is a successor to Dolby Digital (AC-3), also developed by Dolby, and has a number of improvements including support for a wider range of data rates, increased channel count and multi-program support, and additional tools (algorithms) for representing compressed data and counteracting artifacts. While Dolby Digital (AC-3) supports up to five full-bandwidth audio channels at a maximum bitrate of 640 kbit/s, E-AC-3 supports up to 15 full-bandwidth audio channels at a maximum bitrate of 6.144 Mbit/s.

The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), while the separate Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards are given by its sister organization the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asynchronous serial interface</span>

Asynchronous Serial Interface, or ASI, is a method of carrying an MPEG Transport Stream (MPEG-TS) over 75-ohm copper coaxial cable or optical fiber. It is popular in the television industry as a means of transporting broadcast programs from the studio to the final transmission equipment before it reaches viewers sitting at home.

In television technology, Active Format Description (AFD) is a standard set of codes that can be sent in the MPEG video stream or in the baseband SDI video signal that carries information about their aspect ratio and other active picture characteristics. It has been used by television broadcasters to enable both 4:3 and 16:9 television sets to optimally present pictures transmitted in either format. It has also been used by broadcasters to dynamically control how down-conversion equipment formats widescreen 16:9 pictures for 4:3 displays.

Digital program insertion (DPI) allows cable headends and broadcast affiliates to insert locally generated commercials and short programs into remotely distributed regional programs before they are delivered to home viewers.

HTTP Live Streaming is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate streaming communications protocol developed by Apple Inc. and released in 2009. Support for the protocol is widespread in media players, web browsers, mobile devices, and streaming media servers. As of 2019, an annual video industry survey has consistently found it to be the most popular streaming format.

Unified Speech and Audio Coding (USAC) is an audio compression format and codec for both music and speech or any mix of speech and audio using very low bit rates between 12 and 64 kbit/s. It was developed by Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and was published as an international standard ISO/IEC 23003-3 and also as an MPEG-4 Audio Object Type in ISO/IEC 14496-3:2009/Amd 3 in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomson Video Networks</span>

Thomson Video Networks (TVN) was a technology broadcast company that used to provide video compression, transcoding and processing solutions for media companies, video service providers, and TV broadcasters. The firm has offices in 16 countries and headquarters in Rennes, France. TVN has been acquired by Harmonic Inc. in 2016.

SMPTE 2022 is a standard from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) that describes how to send digital video over an IP network. Video formats supported include MPEG-2 and serial digital interface The standard was introduced in 2007 and has been expanded in the years since.

References

    This page is based on this Wikipedia article
    Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
    Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.