Open Broadcast Systems intros 5G Assist to enhance remote production

Aeound a year ago, Open Broadcast Systems introduced its OBE 5G Flyaway mobile bonding solution system to allow sports broadcasters to reach fibre and satellite picture quality over cellular networks and deliver them as standard Constant Bitrate MPEG Transport Streams. To further its mobile video portfolio and enhance remote production over the public internet, it has now introduced 5G Assist.

London-based Open Broadcast Systems said that it is revolutionising the provision of advanced broadcast technology, moving the industry towards a flexible, cost efficient and software-driven future. Its solutions are designed to deliver services to mass audiences on a frequent basis including major sporting and breaking news events.

The company said that its products are designed to adapt to the pressures and challenges of the modern broadcast environment, and that in being intrinsically agile its solutions can be developed and installed in extremely short timeframes, without compromising on quality.

As it made the launch of the new 5G Assist product, the low-latency encoding and decoding firm said using the using the public internet for remote production has obvious benefits in terms of flexibility and cost-efficiency. The new technology is available immediately in Open Broadcast Systems software-based encoders and decoders, which see use in delivering premium video content over any network.

However, the company conceded that as a shared resource the public internet can lead to severe challenges when it comes to packet loss and picture quality.

In operation, 5G Assist uses a supplementary network, such as a telecoms operator’s mobile network or a satellite infrastructure, alongside the main internet connection to perform packet recoveries, in addition to recovery attempts performed over the main connection. Using 5G Assist, Open Broadcast Systems assured that broadcasters can reduce packet loss and lower overall latency in their remote productions when using the public internet.

“5G Assist is a game changer, enabling broadcasters to get the best of both worlds with the flexibility and cost-savings of public internet and the low-latency that remote production needs,” said Kieran Kunhya, founder and CEO of Open Broadcast Systems.

The launch of 5G Assist comes just weeks after the latest development in the UK government-backed Mobile O-RAN for Highly Dense Environments (5G MoDE) project, which saw its team successfully deliver a temporary Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) 5G Cell on Wheels outside the Twickenham rugby stadium at the recent England vs Italy Six Nations rugby fixture.

5G MoDE believes that its work is “not just about winning a competition”, but about redefining the future of mobile connectivity. The project aims to have a significant impact on the high-density mobile traffic landscape, driving the adoption of open mobile networks and creating a more connected and empowered world.

Open Broadcast Systems believes it can enhance spectrum efficiency, reduce energy consumption, optimise network capacity, minimise environmental impact and provide superior service, even in densely populated areas such as stadiums hosting sporting occasions where large amounts of video are streamed.

The 5G assist launch also comes just after leading UK BT announced the first successful trial of multicast-assisted unicast delivery (MAUD) live streaming platform. Developed in collaboration with Broadpeak, MAUD is designed to enhance live video streaming quality and reliability for viewers and increase content delivery efficiency for broadcasters and content delivery networks (CDNs) by flattening peaks of network traffic by switching to multicast delivery, which is a more efficient way of delivering content over the internet.