Industry Insights: Production control room strategy in the era of software-defined broadcast

As the broadcast industry moves beyond SDI, the shift to IP-based production workflows is transforming how control rooms are built and operated.

While SMPTE ST 2110 is widely regarded as the cornerstone of this transition, it coexists alongside other standards and approaches that are shaping next-generation infrastructure.

In this installment of Industry Insights, leading vendors and technologists explore the realities of IP adoption – from architecture and timing strategies to hybrid coexistence and interoperability.

This roundtable examines how control rooms are evolving with software-defined tools, network-centric signal flow and greater agility across remote and distributed environments. Participants also address the challenges of aligning IT and broadcast teams, building for future scalability and maintaining operational continuity in increasingly complex systems.

Key takeaways from this Industry Insights roundtable

• Multiple standards in play: While SMPTE ST 2110 is a leading framework, broadcasters are also exploring other IP-based protocols and hybrid strategies to meet specific operational and budgetary needs.
• Hybrid environments are the norm: Most control rooms are navigating a mix of SDI and IP, requiring adaptable infrastructure and tools that bridge legacy and next-gen workflows.
• Network design is foundational: IP workflows demand deep integration between broadcast and IT teams, with careful attention to timing, redundancy, and signal flow visibility.
• Software-defined flexibility grows: Broadcasters are increasingly adopting software-based tools to dynamically allocate resources, reduce hardware dependency, and support remote and cloud production models.
• Interoperability requires diligence: Ensuring seamless operation across multi-vendor systems continues to be a top concern, with proof-of-concept testing and open standards playing a critical role.

How is SMPTE ST 2110 adoption reshaping infrastructure and purchasing decisions?

David Isola, director of global product marketing, Black Box: The move to SMPTE ST 2110 is part of a broad shift away from fixed, monolithic infrastructure toward more flexible, interoperable IP-based environments. As this shift accelerated, we’ve seen growing demand for scalable IP based control solutions that can adapt as workflows and operational requirements evolve. Broadcasters are prioritizing tools that integrate smoothly with their existing networks, deploying quickly and without the need for extensive infrastructure investment.

John Mailhot, SVP, product management, Imagine Communications: While broadcasters traditionally planned refresh cycles for each major subsystem within the plant, ST 2110 breaks this planning cycle because the SDI router no longer exists. Instead, it’s a network connecting the other elements of the plant, with gateways to accommodate equipment that is not yet 2110-capable. This means the best time to transition to ST 2110 is when one of the other subsystems — perhaps playout, multiviewers, or the switcher — is due for a refresh.

Matteo De Martinis, head of product management, media productions, Dalet: SMPTE ST 2110 adoption is driving broadcasters to prioritize interoperability and future-proofing, especially in hardware, as they transition from SDI to IP-based workflows. Since most operations aren’t built from scratch, hybrid environments are common, making it essential to plan for seamless SDI/IP coexistence. This shift is also influencing purchasing decisions, with a strong focus on upgrade paths, open standards, and flexible infrastructure that can evolve with production needs.

Jan Weigner, CTO, Cinegy: The original promise of multiple signals per physical Ethernet cable and the ability to use multicast and IGMP3 in many scenarios has been replaced by point to point connections made by switch vendor specific VLAN or software defined network overlays to provide signal protection. When using 2110 like this, we have a one-to-one IP substitute for SDI with the possible benefit of higher density and scalability, but also for now with higher costs per port. Most 2110 migrations today still require loads of “glue” and converters to and from SDI. This will get better over time as 2110 based connectivity gets cheaper and more wide-spread.

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Dave Hoffman, business development manager, Americas, Blackmagic Design: There are emerging solutions that allow SDI gear to integrate into 2110 workflows quite affordably, but the technology is fairly new and people are still exploring what it really means for their operations. This group seems to be taking a cautious, “wait and see” approach, watching for proven ROI from peers before fully committing. Even so, ST 2110 is already reshaping how they plan future infrastructure, even if full adoption will still take some time. 

James Gilbert, SVP, Pixel Power: Our customers are increasingly looking at how any solutions they purchase will improve both efficiency and flexibility, and they are also looking for “deploy anywhere” solutions to support hybrid workflows. Legacy workflows are appropriate in some cases, IP-based workflows in others. Vendors really need to offer solutions that support both seamlessly.

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: Agile resource sharing, remote production and distributed production workflows are at the top of the list. Some of our customers report that their ST2110 IP infrastructure has allowed them to halve the number of identical processing units they purchased simply by assigning them to different areas (studios and control rooms) at different times, at the press of a button. With the advent of processing apps that run on COTS servers, this trend has begun to grow exponentially.

Peter Fitton, solutions architect, Ross Video: From an infrastructure standpoint — and actually from most standpoints — you can achieve a level of scalability with ST 2110 that can’t be accomplished with copper or traditional baseband systems. The jump into ST 2110 can initially be a pretty significant investment. But getting that future flexibility and scalability as a long-term benefit is a really important part of the ROI.

Chris Pulis, CTO, Globecast: The shift to SMPTE ST 2110 is accelerating the long-standing convergence of IT and broadcast engineering. It demands parallel investment in network infrastructure and broadcast-specific tools, with professionals on both sides needing a better understanding of each other’s domains. At the same time, early vendor biases are fading as confidence in IP-based workflows grows across the industry.

What specific efficiencies have broadcasters experienced after transitioning to ST 2110 environments?

Klaus Weber, director product marketing, Grass Valley: Broadcasters that transitioned to SMPTE ST 2110 have gained efficiencies such as flexible, independent routing of video, audio, and metadata—unlike SDI’s bundled signal approach. They have reduced cabling and infrastructure costs, with a single network cable replacing multiple SDI paths. Support for multi-format signal handling—including UHD and HDR—has enhanced scalability and adaptability without requiring changes to physical infrastructure.

Bill Lawler, technical product manager, Telestream: By migrating to the ST 2110 standard, broadcasters are able to streamline operations by transitioning from relying on SDI cabling to a more flexible IP infrastructure, reducing infrastructure complexity. With separate transport of video, audio, and metadata, workflows become more efficient and interoperable. The shift to ST 2110 supports remote production, simplifies monitoring, and prepares broadcast facilities for future needs like UHD, HDR, and cloud-based workflows — all contributing to lower long-term costs and improved operational agility.

James Gilbert, SVP, Pixel Power: The obvious efficiencies are around remote production and the ability to share content with remote teams quickly and easily. Everything from editing and approvals to live production and playout has been made easier thanks to the ability to bring together content professionals regardless of location. We’re now able to get access to the right people and talent without having to worry about time zones, we’re cutting down on travel and lowering carbon footprint.

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: The most significant efficiency is the absence of cable patching and multi-router tie-line strategies for complex workflows. Remote production workflows are increasingly popular everywhere. One spectacular example involves a “remote audio control room” (ACR) that produces live immersive audio mixes from a fixed location irrespective of where the event in question takes place.

Which aspects of SMPTE ST 2110 implementation have been the most challenging for broadcast engineers in the control room?

Adam Salkin, senior solutions architect, Diversified: Fault finding has been challenging because it is completely different, requiring extensive networking knowledge. Signal flow is completely defined in software so can only be understood using orchestration software.

Bill Lawler, technical product manager, Telestream: One of the biggest challenges in implementing ST 2110 in broadcast control rooms is designing and managing a robust IP network that can handle high-bandwidth uncompressed streams while maintaining precise timing using PTP (precision time protocol). Unlike SDI, IP-based systems require careful configuration of multicast routing, QoS, and synchronization, demanding a new level of networking expertise. Troubleshooting is also more complex — engineers must adopt new tools and methods to monitor stream health, diagnose latency or jitter issues, and track the separate video, audio, and metadata flows inherent to ST 2110.

Dave Hoffman, business development manager, Americas, Blackmagic Design: Managing network complexity seems to present the biggest challenge thus far. Broadcast engineers are working with IT teams to essentially learn a new language around network design. Compatibility between vendors can cause headaches as well.

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Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: One important consideration is that an IP-based infrastructure requires the availability of IT specialists, most of which have no broadcast experience whatsoever. Some of our customers have therefore taken a different approach: they encouraged team members with a broadcast background to learn the basics of IT rather than the other way around. CBC/Radio-Canada is a shining example of how to get everyone on board and work miracles.

Peter Fitton, solutions architect, Ross Video: From an engineering and maintenance standpoint, it takes a different skillset or an expanded skill set to manage an ST 2110 network. There’s much higher flexibility, but that comes with much more complexity. ST 2110 standards make it possible to separately route and break away ancillary data, as well as audio and video. That can often be a pretty big change from what customers are used to doing.

Scott McQuaid, senior sales support engineer and product manager, switchers, Sony Electronics: The testing and diagnosing of problems has been a challenge for broadcast engineers implementing SMPTE ST 2110. In the SDI world you have a patch bay, and it is easier to isolate any issues. With SMPTE ST 2110, the broadcast controller is harder to isolate and takes more steps and knowledge to find the issues.

What practical steps can broadcasters take to ensure interoperability when migrating to IP-based control rooms?

David Isola, director of global product marketing, Black Box: To ensure interoperability, we recommend starting with a solid understanding of signal flow, as well as technical and functional requirements, and then validating gear in real-world environments before full deployment. A modular approach can help to ensure immediate success while laying the foundation for future scaling.

Matteo De Martinis, head of product management, media productions, Dalet: Choosing modular hardware solutions enables a smoother transition to fully IP-based operations by allowing broadcasters to adapt their I/O as needed without overhauling workflows. During the inevitable hybrid phase — where SDI and IP coexist — preserving consistent operational practices is key to minimizing disruption. In many cases, adapting human workflows proves more challenging than updating infrastructure or connectors, so maintaining familiar processes is critical.

Bill Lawler, technical product manager, Telestream: To ensure interoperability in an IP-based control room, broadcasters should conduct thorough testing in a dedicated environment before going live, using proper tools to validate compatibility. Implementing NMOS is critical for enabling automated device discovery and connection management, and all devices should be verified for proper NMOS support. Equally important is validating PTP synchronization across all equipment — using monitoring tools and deploying boundary or transparent clocks as needed — to maintain precise timing.

Dave Hoffman, business development manager, Americas, Blackmagic Design: Strong collaboration between broadcast and IT teams is essential, especially for managing and mapping out network design, timing and redundancy. It’s always helpful to work with a systems integrator that has real world IP experience. Smaller broadcasters who are taking a piecemeal approach should engage vendors early in their planning to determine how well their existing gear works with others.

Roberto Musso, technical director, NDI: Broadcasters can ensure interoperability by first choosing standards and protocols that are open, widely supported, and designed for mixed environments. They should also audit their existing workflows to identify any areas where legacy systems need to interface with IP-based tools. By deploying a hybrid strategy, broadcasters can ensure a smooth transition while minimizing disruption in the control room.

Marc Wilson, managing director, Glensound: Choosing hardware with open control standards allows the most flexibility. Most dedicated control systems allow control at multiple levels, so if it can generate UDP commands, for example, then it can control hardware requiring UDP. Providing the control command list is important for this reason.

James Gilbert, SVP, Pixel Power: We’re seeing more and more customers asking for POC exercises in order to test interoperability in sandbox environments that ever before. We’re also seeing much more emphasis being given to the issue of interop in the earliest stages of pre-sales discussions. Customers understandably want to choose solutions that play well with other links and elements of the production workflow, but these POC exercises can be very costly from a vendor perspective and customers have traditionally shown a reluctance to pay for these. One option is single-vendor sourcing, but the M&A landscape and vendor volatility have made this much less attractive than it perhaps used to be, so the talk now is of APIs and plugins.

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Christopher McLendon, senior product manager, Vizrt: An issue we sometimes face is having a piece of technology that is not manufactured or created with higher standards. When you’re building an IP-based control room, making sure that the building blocks of that space adhere to the same standards is a practical and safe way to make the workflow truly interoperable. Working with the quality manufacturers that produce high quality products means that your set up will work well together.

Peter Fitton, solutions architect, Ross Video: One of the steps we take is putting a lot of time and effort into discovery early in the project to understand all the components. Once we’ve verified those as much as we can — whether it’s bringing equipment into a lab or drawing on experience from other projects — we make sure that those pieces work together to solve each part of the problem and each requirement of the workflow.

Chris Pulis, CTO, Globecast: It’s imperative that broadcasters avoid siloed systems by designing IP control rooms around interoperable infrastructure. The production control room, for instance, is a critical environment where journalists and creatives need flexible tools to deliver both live and pre-recorded content. Ensuring these teams are involved in workflow planning helps build systems that go beyond minimum requirements and support future needs.

What are the practical implications of software-defined workflows in production control rooms today?

Klaus Weber, director product marketing, Grass Valley: Software-defined workflows in production control rooms enable flexible, real-time reconfiguration of signals and processes without the need for hardware changes. This improves scalability and resource efficiency by virtualizing key functions and supporting remote, distributed operations. These systems also integrate easily with tools that simplify user interfaces, reduce costs, and streamline complex productions.

Jan Weigner, CTO, Cinegy: Software-defined workflows eliminate the traditional hardware bottlenecks that have plagued control rooms since tube televisions were cutting-edge technology. Need more channels for election coverage? Deploy virtually instead of wheeling in racks of iron that cost a fortune and take up half your facility. The practical implication is simple: your control room becomes as flexible as your content demands, not as rigid as your procurement department’s risk tolerance.

Roberto Musso, technical director, NDI: Software-defined workflows empower broadcasters to build flexible and adaptable control rooms that don’t require physical hardware. With protocols such as NDI, control rooms can manage video routing, switching, and even monitoring software across IP networks. This flexibility allows teams to respond quickly to production needs while enabling remote and hybrid models.

James Gilbert, SVP, Pixel Power: Content security is a massive consideration here. Software-defined architectures are certainly beneficial when new features updates can be turned on via software licenses rather than any additional hardware investment, but automatic updates and autonomous rollouts make people nervous and content producers constantly have one eye on the cybersecurity angle. Other practical implications include fewer people in the control room as remote production has become more accessible and fewer products in racks as customers embrace “deploy anywhere” solutions that are based on a software-defined architecture.

Christopher McLendon, senior product manager, Vizrt: The brilliant part of software-defined workflows is the flexibility — that’s the most important thing. If you look back 10-15 years ago, the parts and pieces that were put together in a control room were very one-to-one, because everything was hardwired together. But today, if I walked into the control room and said, we need to do something completely different than we did yesterday, and for instance, route the signals a different way, a software-defined IP workflow makes room for that redirection. You could go from show to show and configure the workflow parts on the fly.

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: Software-defined workflows provide users with maximum agility: Audio engineers can spin up a processing app with only the required number of channels, and video operators can work with the right tools for every production. Such apps running on COTS servers can be started and configured automatically — and all processing flavors can run on the same server. In combination with a scheduling tool, users can even provision all required processing and compute capacity for future tasks — without changing a single patch connection.

How do production teams manage complexity when integrating automation across audio, video, and data signals?

David Isola, director of global product marketing, Black Box: Production teams increasingly rely on centralized control and intuitive operator interfaces to streamline signal management. Black Box Emerald control systems, for example, allow teams to access and manage multiple signal types from a single workstation, reducing operational friction between production layers.

John Mailhot, SVP, product management, Imagine Communications: With the deployment of ST 2110, routing has become inherently multi-level, supporting breakaway for audio streams and ANC data. In contrast, automation systems are typically built around simpler models, such as single-level (audio-follows-video) routing or basic mono-channel audio breakaway. To reconcile these differences, the routing control system must be able to present a simplified, SDI-like matrix view for devices such as automation systems, switchers, or shaders that rely on that model, while offering a mono-audio matrix view for users and devices that require fine-grained routing control — even when working with multichannel streams.

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: The trick is to hide the complexity from the production team by means of an overarching broadcast control system that puts everything in place automagically. Until further notice, there is no system that can control audio, video as well as ancillary data automation routines simultaneously. A broadcast control system can create the impression that device-specific automation is coming from the same overarching source, yet the automation routines still live inside a specific processor or processing app.

Peter Fitton, solutions architect, Ross Video: There are customers building ST 2110 architectures because it makes the most sense for their workflow, but they’re not going to make a lot of day-to-day changes. For the most part, except for a few sources and destinations, it’s probably going to be pretty static once they’ve set it up. Then, some environments are the complete opposite of that. They’re constantly rerouting signals, which requires a very different type of management.

Chris Pulis, CTO, Globecast: Automation increases individual productivity by enabling smaller teams to handle more tasks simultaneously, optimizing headcount while embracing greater content complexity. When integrated into production platforms, the technology can deliver output to multiple destinations, including linear, social, and mobile, without manual duplication of effort. To achieve this, however, broadcasters need end-to-end solutions rather than piecemeal systems that risk inefficiency and inconsistency.

What workflow advantages are broadcasters experiencing with increased automation in control room tasks?

Bill Lawler, technical product manager, Telestream: Increased automation in control room tasks allows broadcasters to operate faster and more reliably by reducing manual intervention in switching, routing, and playout — minimizing errors and ensuring consistent production quality. It also improves resource utilization, enabling fewer operators to manage more outputs and freeing staff for higher-level tasks. As production demands grow, automation provides the flexibility and scalability to expand operations without significantly increasing staffing or infrastructure, making it ideal for high-volume environments like news, sports, and live events.

Christopher McLendon, senior product manager, Vizrt: With automated repetitive tasks, members of the production team can focus on the creative aspect of the production, and productions with less capacity — for instance, those putting together shows early in the morning or in the middle of the night — can count on that support. Its benefit is simple: once you’ve built all the elements of the show, programmed it correctly, and the show begins, automation is going to ensure that everything happens as it’s supposed to happen.

Chris Pulis, CTO, Globecast: Automation enables broadcasters to operate with leaner teams while delivering more complex and dynamic on-air content. It also supports real-time updates, such as AI-generated highlights or tickers, that enhance viewer engagement, to help differentiate programming and attract audiences that competitors may struggle to reach.

How are smaller broadcasters implementing sophisticated control room capabilities with limited budgets?

Jan Weigner, CTO, Cinegy: Smaller broadcasters are discovering what we’ve been saying for years: Software-defined solutions actually level the playing field instead of locking them out of it. With virtualized infrastructure, a regional broadcaster can deploy the same sophisticated automation as major networks, just scaled appropriately. It’s about buying intelligence, not iron, and that’s where budget-conscious operators find their competitive edge in this race to zero. But, and that is my clear warning here, in many cases 2110 for 2110’s sake is an absolute overkill for what some workflows require or can justify.

Christopher McLendon, senior product manager, Vizrt: Usually, a large broadcaster’s control room counts on discrete components — such as a separate graphics system or video playout — because their budget allows for robust disaster recovery or alternative plans. An all-in-one live production switcher, like the TriCaster, is a reliable system for those seeking broadcast-grade productions with a less flexible budget.

Chris Pulis, CTO, Globecast: Smaller broadcasters are turning to cost-effective, software-defined solutions that offer advanced functionality without the premium price of major vendors. By working with more agile technology partners, for example, they receive greater attention and support, often becoming key customers who help shape future features. This also gives them access to sophisticated capabilities that may previously have been out of their reach, while maintaining financial control over their infrastructure investments.