China Media Group (CMG) is the predominant state media company in the People’s Republic of China. It was founded on 21 March 2018 through the merger of China Central Television (CCTV), China National Radio (CNR), and China Radio International (CRI).

TICO has become a broadly adopted technology for lightweight, ultra-low latency video compression. But now suddenly, we start hearing about a new “TICO-XS” and several questions come up:

TICO was originally developed to replace uncompressed video in the audiovisual industry. An industry in great change due to 2 factors:

1. Everyone is moving from SDI to IP
2. Video data is reaching unprecedented amounts thanks to 4K, HDR, and higher frame rates

The JT-NM (Joint Task Force on Networked Media) set up a roadmap in 2014 which visualizes this transition from pure SDI to IP and eventually virtualization in a time-frame of roughly 6 years.

It started out with pure SDI being the widespread way of doing and moved to step number one, the mapping of SDI over IP. This is defined by the ST 2022-6 where the SDI signal, consisting of video, audio and ancillary data in one package, is simply mapped onto IP. Here the original TICO-RDD35 (standardized by the SMPTE) comes into play. By compressing at 4:1 it allows the transport of 4K - instead of just HD over a single 3G-SDI or even mapping multiple 4K streams onto 10Gb Ethernet. This allowed the industry to keep their existing infrastructures, while still upgrading to UHD resolutions.

From 2017 we started looking at step 2: Elementary flows. Thanks to SMPTE’s ST2110 there is no more packaged SDI stream. Video, audio, and ancillary data are sent separately over IP, leading to much greater flexibility. Hence, we have a separate video stream to be compressed. Even more now, we are also facing an addition to ST 2110. Namely part 22 – specifically defining IP transport for compressed essence. This created a new use case for which we were looking to deploy a more suitable codec. And that is why we came up with a new TICO product family member: “TICO XS”

As mentioned above, TICO-XS is a new family member. However, with increased compression efficiency. Depending on your content, we can compress down to 1 bit per pixel and you won’t witness any quality loss. In bitrate this means compressing a 4K60 stream down to somewhere between 1,6 Gbps or even 500 Mbps. On top, it still keeps the properties that we all love about TICO RDD35 - virtually no latency, a very low complexity, and an extremely low power consumption.

It does, and you are right, they are very much related. About the same time SMPTE ST2110 was coming up, the JPEG committee announced a call for proposals for a new lightweight compression standard, called JPEG XS. TICO was submitted and actually selected as the baseline for further development. After that, intoPIX’s engineers (working together with other JPEG committee members) used the original TICO-RDD35 as a basis to develop JPEG XS

So TICO-XS is in fact compliant with the upcoming ISO standard JPEG XS - a very important step for simple, industry-wide adoption

Summed up, you’re working with SDI or hybrid SDI/IP networks and want to upgrade to UHD?

TICO RDD35 is your solution! If you’re looking for higher compression efficiency, especially relevant for ST2110 systems? TICO-XS is your go-to option.

Therefore TICO XS is not replacing TICO, it’s merely an evolution that goes along with the technological development in the media industry. And best of all, it’s ISO standardized as JPEG XS!

NAB Show, Las Vegas, 8th April 2019: The TICO Alliance announced today that it will be displaying a multi-vendor interop demo for bandwidth-efficient live production on their booth at NAB 2019 (C8626). Additionally it will talk about the arrival of the new compression family member “TICO-XS”, as TICO is moving to JPEG-XS standardization.

Since the last big broadcast meetup IBC, several new members have joined the growing consortium. The TICO Alliance recently welcomed NCS, TheFine Co. Ltd., and IBEX Technology to their member list of nearly 50 industry-leading vendors and broadcasters.

Following the JT-NM roadmap of networked media open interoperability, the focus of technological advancement in broadcast networks has now preceded SDI-related workflows and step II “Elementary flows” is in full progress. Currently specified as SMPTE RDD35, TICO technology is under standardization as JPEG XS. An evolution that is in line with the industry’s move to IP and the new SMPTE ST2110 part 22 defining transport of compressed video essence over professional media networks. Already today, the alliance’s members serve lossless quality with microsecond-latency to their clients, in order to create bandwidth efficient workflows.

“The Alliance is of great help for the industry to make SDI and Hybrid-SDI workflows more efficient. On top of that, the move of TICO to JPEG XS standardization naturally follows the desire to create bandwidth-efficiency also in IP-based infrastructures for HD, 4K and 8K.” says the Alliance’s Chairman Jean-Baptiste Lorent.

Visitor’s to the TICO Alliance booth at NAB 2019 will get a look at equipment displays and product demonstrations emphasizing TICO’s benefits in SDI, SMPTE ST2022-6 and ST2110 workflows. Members will be on site to answer questions about the ongoing JPEG XS standardization and its additional benefits. For those interested in learning more about its impact on the SMPTE ST2110 standard, JPEG XS will be part of the IP showcase presentations Booth C12634.

About the TICO Alliance:

The Alliance is an open coalition of companies united to set the bar for next generation UHDTV infrastructures by establishing TICO compression in the new IP-based Live ecosystem. The group enables the industry to seamlessly update existing SDI-based workflows to increase bandwidth-efficiency in HD, 4k, and 8K. More on www.tico-alliance.org

Contact:

info@tico-alliance.org

Chinese video streaming website Tencent Video is preparing to expand beyond its original digital video business and into live production and distribution, requiring upgrades to handle new types of content creation for live and sports programming. Because mainland Chinese internet users are becoming more willing to pay for premium content, rivalry in the online video market has led some of the platforms to use exclusive content as a competitive strategy.
Tencent Video has over 457 million mobile monthly active users and 43 million subscribers, doubling in less than a year, and features video content on China's biggest television maker, TCL Corporation.

The extra bandwidth required by the move to Ultra HD will probably result in extra costs and complexity. One approach to mitigate this could be using compression. However, most compression systems require additional processing power and cause delay, making them unsuitable for live production. TICO, a lossless compression scheme created by intoPIX in 2013, may be the answer, and a wide variety of manufacturers have now joined the new TICO Alliance to support the codec’s use over SDI and IP-based infrastructures.

Why this matters : Your 3G-SDI still smells too new to consider replacing it. This is a way to use 4K signals in your existing infrastructure.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—Despite the fact that HD broadcasting is relatively recent, and most people in the U.S. bought their first HDTV only in the past seven years, there is growing pressure to shoot, produce and distribute programming in 4K resolution. There are already a couple episodic TV shows available for viewers in 4K, and more are on the way. Of course, big sporting events will also be shot in 4K, but there are a number of reasons why broadcasters can’t yet deliver 4K to viewers.

One reason has to do with the broadcast infrastructure inside every TV station and network control facility.

For all of last year’s talk about distributing 4K television to home viewers, there has been little real progress on making it a reality. The only place 4K technology is being used regularly is in some sports production and in the making of premium television programming.

Amsterdam, September 15, 2017 - This year again, DELTACAST will showcase its TICO products on the TICO ALLIANCE booth 10D31 at IBC 2017 in Amsterdam. 

This product will be connected to the GRASS VALLEY IPG-3901, from which it will receive 4K/UHD video over a 10GbE connection, to be visualized on a 4K screen.