Cobalt VidTrans 2021 Demo

A recording of the demo is playing below!

If you want the details, read on for a technical description. Click here to see on YouTube

Detailed Technical Description

The purpose of this demo is to show live, real-time audio/video transmission from a cell phone to a professional-grade receiver using RIST. The resulting SDI signal is broadcast-quality and ready to be ingested into your workflow.

We start with a standard cell phone. For this demo, we are using a low-end Motorola G4. The software used in the cell phone is the Larix Broadcaster. The signal is transmitted using RIST Main Profile. The origin of the signal is a residence in Northern California. Here is a picture of the setup:

The phone generates a variable frame rate signal that is received by a Cobalt BBG-1190-DEC-MPEG professional IRD, which terminates the RIST Main Profile Tunnel, decodes the stream, and puts out an SDI signal. The YouTube stream includes live, real-time statistics from the decoder, in the bottom right part of the screen:

These statistics make use of a DashBoard™ custom panel, running on a Cobalt OG-PC-x86 openGear Computer. The HDMI output of the OG-PC-x86 is converted to an SDI signal using a Cobalt BBG-H-TO-S throw-down converter.

The signal coming out of the Cobalt BBG-1190-DEC-MPEG runs through a Cobalt 9902-UDX-DSP card to demonstrate further processing in the SDI domain. This card is doing the following:

Inserting AFD.
The incoming audio is being upmixed to 5.1 surround, loudness processed, and placed in pairs 1-3.
The original audio is being loudness processed and placed into pair 4.
The 5.1 surround service from pairs 1-3 is being encoded into Dolby Digital, and inserted into pair 5.
The remaining pairs have 1 kHz test tones at different levels.
The LKFS meter is monitoring the 5.1 surround service.
Periodic SCTE-104 Splice Start Normal and Splice End Normal are being inserted into the signal

In order to demonstrate the characteristics of the final SDI signal, we run the signal into test equipment: the Cobalt BBG-1078-ANC-MON monitoring probe. The monitoring probe can be accessed over the network using DashBoard™ and also produces an SDI output. The picture below illustrates the features of the monitoring probe.

The SDI signals from the Cobalt BBG-1078-ANC-MON and the desktop from the Cobalt OG-PC-x86 openGear Computer are combined with a custom graphics overlay by the Cobalt 9970-QS Multiviewer, which produces a 1920x1080p59.94 3G-SDI signal, to be transmitted live.

Finally, for display purposes, the output of the multiviewer is connected to a Cobalt 9223 Encoder for live transmission to YouTube.

If you have any questions about the equipment used in this demo, feel free to contact sales@cobaltdigital.com.