AJA Bridge Live Complete Turnkey System

BRIDGE LIVE represents an exciting partnership between AJA and Comprimato, both long standing industry innovators. The merging of AJA’s hardware development and video I/O expertise with Comprimato’s transcoding and internet transport know-how means customers can expect the versatility, speed, and quality needed for that competitive edge. The unique fusion of company talent between AJA and Comprimato ensures that BRIDGE LIVE delivers the performance, reliability, and ease of use needed for critical live encode, decode, or transcode needs.

BRIDGE LIVE supports simultaneous bidirectional encoding and decoding with UltraHD, HD, and SD sources.

For example, with a pair of BRIDGE LIVE systems, a broadcast facility can receive three incoming encoded HD camera sources from a remote location and decode them back into SDI for editing and production, while simultaneously providing an HD program return to the remote location.

BRIDGE LIVE can take independent SDI source inputs, and maintain their synchronous relationship while transporting the content to end-point destinations.

This functionality can take place between a pair of BRIDGE LIVE units for a synchronous end-to-end SDI workflow, often referred to as SDI backhaul, or site-to-site SDI workflows.

BRIDGE LIVE’s synchronous multi-channel capability is also supported for cloud contribution, whereby a BRIDGE LIVE system can send to a cloud instance of Comprimato Live transcoder software, for delivery to various platforms / cloud services as IP video.

Furthermore, Synchronous Multi-Channel Transport can be scaled up from a single BRIDGE LIVE pair to additional BRIDGE LIVE pairs, to enable workflows where multiple BRIDGE LIVE systems can be receiving SDI and sending to multiple BRIDGE LIVE systems outputting SDI, all in synchronicity.

For end-to-end SDI workflows, HDR is also supported.

Use BRIDGE LIVE in conjunction with multiple third party systems and software to achieve your workflow requirements as they evolve. And of course, AJA’s own HELO Plus can be used for contribution or aggregation with BRIDGE LIVE.

For more details around how BRIDGE LIVE facilitates REMI, Contribution, Collaboration, Streaming, and Delivery explore BRIDGE LIVE Workflows and Compatibilities further down this page.

BRIDGE LIVE fully supports both Closed Captioning and additional metadata which is often a neglected feature set with lower cost encoding devices.

BRIDGE LIVE supports:

• MPEG-2 ancillary packet support, SMPTE 2038
• SDR/HDR Transfer Characteristics, Colorimetry, Luminance via SDI
• SCTE-35/SCTE-104 Ad insertion markers
• CEA-608/CEA-708 Closed Captioning
• Timecode
• Embedding Closed Captioning/Subtitles into H.264 SEI messages
• Metadata pass-through
• Electronic Program Guide (EPG) on input

BRIDGE LIVE can be configured for low latency and/or high quality tasks. BRIDGE LIVE gives you the tools to move content and deliver according to your workflow needs.

BRIDGE LIVE supported Protocols:

• HLS
• RTP
• RTMP/S (output)
• SRT
• UDP
• MPTS (input)
• VSF-TR01
• ABR Ladder Profiles for delivery

BRIDGE LIVE supported Transports

• MPEG-TS
• NDI
• AVC-TS
• Fragmented MP4

BRIDGE LIVE supports the following configurations for encoding and decoding between SDI and streaming formats as standard. Multiple streams/formats/destinations can be derived from a single SDI input.

NDI:

• 8-bit or 16-bit
• 4:2:2
• Up to 4 simultaneous 60p HD encodes/decodes or 1x 30p UltraHD encode/decode to/from SDI
• NDI Inputs can be received, transcoded, and output as IP Video Streams

H.265 (HEVC):

• 8-bit or 10-bit
• 4:2:0
• Up to 4 simultaneous 60p HD encodes/decodes or 1x 60p / 2x 30p UltraHD encode/decode to/from SDI
• SRT, RTMP and MPEG-TS protocol support

H.264 (AVC):

• 8-bit or 10-bit
• 4:2:0 or 4:2:2
• Up to 2 simultaneous 60p 4:2:2, 10-bit HD encodes/decodes or 1x 30p UltraHD encode/decode to/from SDI
• Up to 4 simultaneous 60p HD encodes/decodes or 1x 60p / 2x 30p UltraHD encode/decode to/from SDI
• SRT, RTMP and MPEG-TS protocol support

H.262 (MPEG-2):

• 8-bit
• 4:2:0
• Up to 4 simultaneous 30p/60i HD encodes/decodes or up to 2 simultaneous 60p HD encodes/decodes to/from SDI with an HQ option
• SRT, RTMP and MPEG-TS protocol support

BRIDGE LIVE capabilities can be optionally expanded to include high quality JPEG 2000 encoding and decoding.

JPEG 2000 (TR-01)

• 10-bit
• 4:2:2
• Up to 4 simultaneous 60p HD encodes (80-220Mbps) or 1x 60p / 2x 30p UltraHD encode/decode (up to 800Mbs)
• SRT and MPEG-TS protocol support

BRIDGE LIVE supports up to 4x 3G-SDI simultaneously for multi-channel HD, or 2x 6G-SDI / 1x 12G-SDI for UltraHD I/O in 1RU. Dual 10GigE Ethernet ports provide network connectivity and dual power supplies provide peace of mind.

Administration, monitoring, and access to BRIDGE LIVE is supported via either network browser or local Display Port. Indirect agnostic monitoring and automation is supported via both REST API and SNMP.

For Broadcast, BRIDGE LIVE provides an efficient mechanism for backhauling remote live SDI video sources to the media production facility, in order to be converted back to SDI and made available on the internal facility SDI router for ongoing production/transmission.

Traditional secure lines for remote production can be very expensive, with additional fees being levied for time before and after a production starts and ends. BRIDGE LIVE allows source cameras and local program out to be transported using publicly available internet, with no penalty for early or extended use during a production. BRIDGE LIVE also offers lower latency than traditional secure lines for time critical productions.

Production and Post: Connecting remote artists and clients using reference quality video, or providing a high quality window into production for those who cannot be on-set.

BRIDGE LIVE means the flexibility to leave media and equipment at the secure, managed facility, and have creative talent work together remotely with reference quality video.

BRIDGE LIVE compliments existing GUI driving technologies (e.g. RDP, Teradici) by layering on the reference quality video needed for creative confidence and client/executive sign-off. Choices between H.265 (4:2:0, 10-bit), H.264 (4:2:2, 10-bit) with turnkey BRIDGE LIVE, or via optional license JPEG 2000 (4:2:2, 10-bit), mean there is choice and flexibility in how to approach your needs in terms of quality and latency.

BRIDGE LIVE also offers the flexibility to tap video from on-set recording devices and stream the output of cameras (over a secure private line with encryption) providing a high quality window into production for those who cannot be on-set.

BRIDGE LIVE can be used to connect two geographically separated NDI production teams via Public Internet.

For example, a studio or event location could be sending the feeds from 3x NDI cameras to an NDI production or post facility, which can distribute those sources as both NDI and SDI, while also returning a program feed back to the studio location.

For Studios and Broadcast applications BRIDGE LIVE facilitates primary distribution of finished and mastered content to partners for subsequent streaming to audiences.

BRIDGE LIVE can provide ABR ladder profiles or hand-off for OTT packaging. For example, encoding to H.264 or H.265 for hand-off with ABR ladder profiles, including pointing the ladder profile directly to a local packager or CDN.

BRIDGE LIVE can also provide multi-format/rate/bit rate material via HLS. The combined outputs within the HLS stream are presented as a “playlist”, meaning that devices (e.g. phones or tablet) or software (e.g. web browser) can pull a particular format, frame rate and bit rate based on the device characteristics and the current connectivity.

Note that this is not a Push model. If conditions change (e.g. available bit rate) then the receiving device can elect to consume a different format / frame rate / bit rate. However, multi variants are chunked, so if a player switches to a different resolution, it must start downloading a new chunk and this may result in a spinning wheel – since chunks are 10 seconds in length. The best way to deliver HLS with BRIDGE LIVE is to provide the pre-packed video to a CDN. This means many end-point-devices can utilize the content simultaneously. HLS could be sent to a local network in a studio or on set, to enable iPad and iPhone to receive and monitor (provided the devices have network access to BRIDGE LIVE). However, in this situation the number of simultaneous consumers will need to be kept low (under 10) to avoid over-taxing BRIDGE LIVE.

Telcos, IPTV and cable operators are often presented with an SDI source or a live event or live production, which is needed as a simple MPEG-Transport Stream with H.264/H.262 encode. The delivered stream may be required for further processing (storage, production), or else be streamed directly to an IPTV/Cable network.