Industry Insights: How studio infrastructure is changing broadcast facility design

The modern studio is becoming less a fixed room and more a connected production environment, shaped by signal flow, software, control and operational flexibility.

As broadcasters rethink how studios support live production, streaming, remote contribution and distributed teams, architecture and infrastructure decisions are becoming inseparable from workflow strategy.

In this Industry Insights roundtable, part of NCS’ multi-part series on broadcast studios and systems, vendors and suppliers examine how studio design is adapting to IP, automation, orchestration, hybrid systems and software-defined production.

The discussion looks at where IP infrastructure creates flexibility, where it still adds complexity, how MXL may fit alongside SMPTE ST 2110 and what future-ready facilities need to support as production models continue to evolve.

Key takeaways from this Industry Insights roundtable

• Studios are distributed: The studio is increasingly defined by connected production resources, signal flows and workflow coherence rather than a single physical room.
• Flexibility is architectural: Vendors emphasized that long-term adaptability depends on modular, interoperable and software-defined systems that can evolve without major rebuilds.
• IP is foundational: IP infrastructure is now central to modern studio design, but it also introduces complexity around timing, observability, network design and operational expertise.
• MXL is complementary: Participants generally framed MXL as an emerging layer for software-based processing and shared compute, not a direct replacement for SMPTE ST 2110.
• Operators are shifting: Automation and orchestration are moving operators away from repetitive manual tasks and toward monitoring, workflow optimization and exception management.

How has the definition of a “studio” changed as production becomes more distributed?

Heather Mellish, VP of global sales, Zixi: The studio is no longer defined by a physical control room. Increasingly, it is a collection of connected production, processing, and distribution resources that can operate across venues, facilities, cloud environments, and remote teams. This shift allows organizations to scale coverage of live events and channels without being constrained by fixed infrastructure or facility capacity.

James Eddershaw, managing director, Shotoku: Gone are the days of the large TV studio purpose built for a 3-hour breakfast program and a 1-hour evening news show. Today’s studios are often converted spaces or re-purposed offices, frequently shared by multiple stakeholders that are targeting diverse audiences using different viewing devices. The cameras themselves may still be traditional broadcast specification, but improved CCD sensors and lower cost lenses now make PTZ-based devices well-suited to traditional broadcast production values. 

Narinder Ball, director, technology, Gravity Media: Today, production teams, talent, control rooms, and creative workflows can be distributed across multiple locations while operating as a single production environment. As a result, studios are increasingly being designed as flexible hubs that support a mix of in-person, remote and cloud-based workflows rather than serving as fixed production spaces. We are also seeing studios take on a broader role in the content lifecycle, supporting everything from format development and creative collaboration through to production and distribution.

Drew Martin, head of video product management, Riedel Communications: A studio is no longer defined by its physical, hardwired connection to the rest of the facility — it’s become much more distributed. In the past, that meant heavy copper runs, expanded data center I/O, and sometimes awkward tie-lines when capacity ran out. Today it’s all about fiber for long-haul connectivity, with edge devices handling signal aggregation, and once that fiber is in place, the complexity shifts to software, making everything faster and far more flexible.

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Ian Wagdin, VP, technology and innovation, Appear: What defines a studio now is the coherence of its signal flows, its latency budget, and its ability to maintain synchronization across distributed infrastructure. That requires a fundamentally different approach to workflow design. Software is now the brains of the system with hardware limited to interfaces and control surfaces rather than the constraining factor on scale.

Peder Boberg, product owner, Intinor: The “studio” is no longer a single physical room. It is a decentralized, IP-connected ecosystem. By leveraging the public internet and robust transport protocols, cameras on-site can seamlessly integrate with control rooms located countries away, effectively turning any location into an extension of the studio facility.

How are organizations designing systems for long-term flexibility?

James Eddershaw, managing director, Shotoku: As distributed workflows continue to gain traction, organizations are designing systems that enable studios to be controlled from multiple locations and support varying levels of automation/manual operation. This degree of flexibility allows facilities to adapt to the shifting requirements and budget of each production without major infrastructure changes and associated costs.

John Mailhot, SVP, product management, Imagine Communications: Organizations are increasingly achieving long-term flexibility through architectures that separate workflows from specific hardware. They are adopting software-defined, orchestrated environments that allow resources to be deployed where they make the most sense operationally and economically — whether that’s on-premises, in the cloud, or across both. This approach allows them to continue leveraging existing infrastructure, while gaining the ability to scale, add new services, improve resilience, and adapt to future requirements without disruptive rebuilds.

Adam Leah, creative director, Nxtedition: The ones getting this right are moving away from the appliance-per-function model, where every capability lives in a separate box from a separate vendor, because that architecture makes change expensive and slow by design. The next inflection point is agentic engineering, and it will expose a fault line that has been developing quietly for some time. Vendors who are essentially a thin UX layer sitting on top of hyperscaler infrastructure are in a genuinely precarious position, because once broadcasters can instruct agents to build their own software and interfaces, the middle layer becomes easy to bypass and the hyperscaler simply moves up the value chain.

Drew Martin, head of video product management, Riedel Communications: Organizations focused on long-term flexibility are moving away from building broadcast-specific data centers and instead designing facilities around standard compute infrastructure and IP networking. While certain broadcast requirements remain — such as SMPTE ST 2110 network interfaces and PTP timing — the goal is for the underlying environment to look, operate, and be maintained like any modern IT data center. This approach makes systems easier to scale, manage, and repair while allowing organizations to adapt to future workflows without being locked into specialized hardware.

Ian Wagdin, VP, technology and innovation, Appear: The organizations getting the designs right are decoupling key elements of the architecture: transport from processing, hardware from software, and operational workflows from physical topology. That means investing in open standards — SMPTE ST 2110 for media transport, NMOS for control and discovery — and resisting the pull of proprietary integration shortcuts that feel convenient today but constrain in the future. We’re also seeing more deliberate use of software-defined infrastructure, where capacity can be reallocated without physical reconfiguration. Flexibility isn’t a feature you add at the end; it has to be an architectural principle from the start.

Sam Peterson, COO, BitCentral: We’re seeing media companies move away from fixed, hardware-centric infrastructures and toward software-defined and hybrid cloud environments that can scale quickly as business needs change. The requirement is to build systems that are modular, scalable and interoperable, giving teams the freedom to evolve workflows, launch new services and support emerging distribution models without having to rebuild their entire infrastructure.

What role does IP infrastructure play in shaping modern studio architecture?

Heather Mellish, VP of global sales, Zixi: IP infrastructure has become the foundation for flexibility in modern production environments. It enables organizations to move video, metadata, and control signals between on-premises facilities, cloud platforms, and remote locations while supporting a broader range of workflows than traditional dedicated networks. The result is greater agility in launching new services, supporting more events, and adapting to changing business requirements.

James Eddershaw, managing director, Shotoku: IP infrastructure is the foundation of today’s studio designs and critical to broadcast applications. IP enables resources to be shared and content to be distributed from one location (the studio) to multiple geographic destinations without loss of quality or reliability. Without IP connectivity this is basically impossible.

Narinder Ball, director, technology, Gravity Media: IP infrastructure has become the foundation of modern studio design because it allows resources, signals and production teams to be connected more flexibly than traditional baseband environments. It allows organizations to scale operations, share infrastructure across multiple productions and adapt more quickly as requirements change. The real value is not simply moving to IP but creating an architecture that can evolve alongside new workflows and technologies.

Adam Leah, creative director, Nxtedition: IP infrastructure is the foundation everything else sits on, and the quality of that foundation determines what you can actually do with your production platform. The thing organizations often underestimate is that moving to IP doesn’t automatically mean moving to the public cloud, and for broadcasters who need 99.99% uptime, the on-premise private cloud model is still the most reliable option because you’re not exposed to internet latency, third-party availability or cloud economics. Platforms that run the same microservices architecture on-premise that the cloud uses deliver the elasticity and scalability without the bandwidth dependency or loss of sovereignty over your own content.

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Drew Martin, head of video product management, Riedel Communications: Everything. If a facility isn’t built around IP and fiber, it’s hard to call it a modern studio — regardless of how new the equipment may be. IP isn’t just another technology layer; it’s the foundation that enables the flexibility, scalability, and software-defined workflows that define modern production.

Peder Boberg, product owner, Intinor: IP infrastructure removes geographic and physical cabling limitations, allowing facilities to scale dynamically and route signals anywhere. It enables broadcasters to build hybrid environments where on-premise hardware and cloud-based systems communicate seamlessly using standardized protocols.

Olivier Suard, vice president, marketing, Nevion: Purely seen from the point of view of a studio, an IP infrastructure is not adding much per se, but viewed from the wider perspective live production workflows (including of course studios), it makes a huge difference. For the first time, production resources (places, processes and people – the 3Ps) can actually be located pretty much anywhere – not just in the studio or nearby. This has a hugely positive impact on the flexibility, scalability and costs of productions.

Dave MacKinnon, VP, product management, Clear-Com: IP infrastructure now sits at the center of modern studio design because it determines how flexible, scalable, and resilient the whole operation can be. As more value shifts toward IP switching, cloud workflows, and system intelligence, the studio is no longer just a room full of dedicated hardware — it is an interoperable platform that needs to support on-prem, hybrid, and distributed production without adding unnecessary friction.

Ivy Li, marketing director, Telycam: IP infrastructure has shifted studio design from fixed, point-to-point signal chains to more flexible, networked environments where sources and destinations can be reconfigured without major rewiring. For smaller studios in particular, AVoIP protocols like NDI make it possible to build broadcast-capable systems at a much lower cost than traditional infrastructure.

Where does IP still introduce friction or complexity?

Dave Hoffman, business development manager, Americas, Blackmagic Design: Success with IP-based production depends as much on IT knowledge and operational processes as it does on the production technology itself. Large broadcasters with dedicated engineering and IT resources are better positioned to address the complexity, while smaller organizations struggle to deploy and manage a sophisticated IP environment. With IP no longer being a question of “if” but a “how,” smaller organizations are finding the balance between integrating systems that deliver the benefits of IP without introducing additional operational complexity.

Ali Hodjat, senior director of marketing, Telestream: While the transition to IP infrastructure promises immense agility, it continues to introduce significant operational friction, particularly around managing complex PTP timing synchronization across networks and navigating a substantial observability gap where traditional engineering tools fail to monitor virtualized signals. Without physical, hardware-bound connection points to tap into, engineering teams frequently struggle to isolate root causes when streams drop or latency spikes across distributed architectures. Overcoming this complexity requires a shift from rigid, hardware-bound test equipment to software-defined signal analysis solutions that provide deep, role-based operational visibility across hybrid and pure IP infrastructures without limiting facility flexibility.

Ciro Noronha, Ph.D., CTO, Cobalt Digital: It is not easy to install, maintain, and troubleshoot an IP network, especially when running protocols such as ST 2110. This requires well-trained personnel. When the network is running smoothly, the final product is outstanding, but getting there can take a fair amount of time and effort. The IPMX effort is a step in the right direction, removing some of the complexity. The biggest improvement from IPMX is removing the need for PTP, which greatly simplifies the network and reduces the cost of the switches.

Ian Wagdin, VP, technology and innovation, Appear: Designs no longer consist of a single gallery or production control rooms linked to a single studio floor. Galleries are designed to operate with multiple studios and increasingly with remote production in mind. Cameras are no longer directly connected to vision mixers but are endpoints in a network. The choice of network topology, switch fabric, timing distribution, and bandwidth provisioning directly determine what production workflows are possible.

The conversation around MXL is growing. What are clients saying?

James Eddershaw, managing director, Shotoku: Most broadcasters believe MXL will be part of their future development, but it will take a few more years before it solves the many tricky edge case challenges of broadcast. In addition, many have moved to 2110 over the last few years, at great expense, so a rapid move to replace it with MXL is unlikely.

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Drew Martin, head of video product management, Riedel Communications: The reaction from Riedel’s clients around MXL has so far has been, “How soon can I get this?” Customers running COTS-based systems are always looking to get more out of their compute investments, and the promise of faster interconnects is getting their attention. Interest in MXL is already high, despite the technology still being in its early stages.

Charlie Dunn, executive vice president, products, Telestream: MXL allows customers to envision a system where they have a lot more flexibility in dynamic capacity for systems within their own facility. The IP signal infrastructure is still going to exist, but it will connect different pods of flexible capability that can be scaled or reconfigured for the job at hand; a good example of this is a gallery or control room situation where each production may require different elements.

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: Clients that embrace app-based processing necessarily have an IP backbone, because ST 2110 is the way into, and out of, the servers or cloud where the processing happens. Interoperability among devices from different vendors has been the main focus for IP workflows, and this is what customers now expect from best-of-breed processing apps. Users who subscribe to the dynamic media facility principle of button-press flexibility are therefore eager for MXL to provide at least the same degree of interoperability as an all-IP infrastructure.

Michael Demb, VP, product strategy, TAG Video Systems: What we hear most is that operators want to use the best application for each job, and they don’t want vendor lock-in to get in the way of that. MXL makes it possible to connect those applications seamlessly in a cloud environment with almost no latency, and that’s resonating with customers who are already running distributed productions and feeling the friction of 2110’s limitations in the cloud. When we showed a live MXL demo at NAB with Amazon and several other vendors, the reaction was that this is real, it works, and it’s simpler to deploy than people expected.

What will MXL ultimately look like in real world deployments?

John Mailhot, SVP, product management, Imagine Communications: MXL is one enabler of the overall dynamic media facilities (DMF) vision — the software-defined media environment. In real-world deployments, ST 2110 will continue to move media between physical systems, while MXL will enable efficient media exchange between software applications running on shared compute infrastructure. Long-term, the DMF vision is a layered architecture in which workflows can be dynamically deployed, scaled, and reconfigured across common resources, with both ST 2110 and MXL serving as foundational elements that makes that flexibility possible.

Drew Martin, head of video product management, Riedel Communications: In the long run, MXL should become part of the normal data center plumbing — something that’s just there, quietly moving huge amounts of data between compute resources. The vision is that broadcast facilities will increasingly look like high-performance IT data centers, where standard IT teams can build, manage, and maintain the infrastructure without needing a deep broadcast engineering background. ST 2110 will still handle getting media in to and out of the data center, but behind the scenes, the compute layer will be communicating over the same kinds of technologies used in today’s most advanced data centers.

Ian Wagdin, VP, technology and innovation, Appear: The more useful question is whether MXL will get the adoption it needs to drive broad interoperability. It emerged outside a formal standards body. The EBU/AMWA Joint Taskforce on Dynamic Media Facilities is working to address wider questions on how a software-based production facility will work and the industry is pulling together to accelerate the availability of these functions faster than ever before. What’s encouraging is that the industry increasingly agrees on the problem that needs solving. Whether MXL becomes the dominant answer remains to be seen, but the direction of travel towards open, interoperable software-based media exchange is becoming much clearer.

Ciro Noronha, Ph.D., CTO, Cobalt Digital: If the promise of MXL holds true, then it will disappear into the background.  It will be like the wiring you know is there, but you don’t see and you don’t think about it.  MXL is the “glue” that connects processing blocks from different vendors and will enable a vendor-heterogeneous environment to work properly.  People will stop talking about it because it won’t be an issue anymore.

Michael Demb, VP, product strategy, TAG Video Systems: In practice, MXL will look like a production environment where operators can bring in any best-of-breed application they need, connect it into a unified IT-managed infrastructure, cloud or on-prem, and share video frames without worrying about which vendor made each piece. The key is that it removes the friction at the integration layer: You’re not ripping out what works, you’re adding a layer of interoperability that makes the whole system more agile. That’s the deployment story we’re building toward, and the NAB interoperability demo was the first real proof point.

Ian Wagdin, VP, technology and innovation, Appear: MXL solves a specific problem: How do software applications running on shared compute exchange media efficiently, without the overhead of routing frames over a network? In practice, we expect to see it deployed as the internal fabric of software-defined production nodes — handling sharing between processing components within a cluster, while SMPTE ST 2110 continues to handle transport between facilities and across IP networks. Real deployments will likely be invisible to operators; MXL will be an implementation detail inside products and platforms rather than something engineers configure directly.

Is MXL the right “next step” beyond SMPTE ST 2110?

Michael Demb, VP, product strategy, TAG Video Systems: SMPTE 2110 is good at connecting distributed environments on-prem, but it’s not built for dynamic, event-based production and not for cloud workflows, and more and more productions are moving in that direction. MXL is the next phase: It takes what 2110 established about IP connectivity and extends it into SW-native, multi-vendor environments where real-time production actually needs to happen today. So yes, it’s not a replacement, it’s the evolution that the industry needs to keep pace with where production is actually going.

Drew Martin, head of video product management, Riedel Communications: Yes — but specifically for intra data center communication. ST 2110 will continue to be the standard for moving media signals to and from the data center, while MXL addresses a different challenge: how compute resources communicate with each other once they’re inside. Rather than replacing ST 2110, MXL complements it by bringing high-performance, IT-centric communication to the compute layer, where efficiency and bandwidth matter most.

John Mailhot, SVP, product management, Imagine Communications: I’m not sure that’s quite the right way to frame the relationship between MXL and ST 2110. ST 2110 remains the foundation for transporting media between physical systems within facilities. What MXL does is address a different part of the workflow by enabling efficient media exchange amongst composable software-based processing elements. So, the more accurate view is that the two technologies complement each other, with MXL building on the foundation ST 2110 provides to expand the overall media infrastructure stack enabling software-defined workflows.

Ciro Noronha, Ph.D., CTO, Cobalt Digital: MXL and ST 2110 are not in competition and have different purposes. The right answer is that they will work together, each one doing part of the job. ST 2110 will bring signals in and out of a processing cluster; MXL is the interconnect between processing elements in the cluster; such processing elements may be processes inside the same server, or processes across servers. 

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: If one accepts that bespoke processing hardware is a dead-end street, as it will necessarily be more expensive to develop and build than much more powerful generic servers and containerized apps, then software-based processing makes a lot of sense. Since users should be free to use a mix of apps from different vendors, MXL is a necessity to ensure that all apps talk to each other with negligible latency. In a way, MXL could be considered an ASIO-like protocol on steroids, specifically designed for professional audio, video and metadata exchange by likeminded broadcast professionals and vendors.

Olivier Suard, vice president, marketing, Nevion: The real underlying discussion to be had is to what extent software on COTS (on-prem or in the cloud), such as Sony and Nevion’s MOXELA, will replace dedicated hardware – MXL and SMPTE ST 2110 are just proxies for that discussion. This is anyone’s guess at this stage, but as we have seen with SDI and IP, it’s likely that more traditional hardware equipment and newer COTS software solutions will coexist for many years to come, and therefore so will SMPTE ST 2110 and MXL.

How are automation and orchestration tools changing operator roles?

Heather Mellish, VP of global sales, Zixi: Automation is reducing the amount of manual intervention required to manage increasingly complex workflows. Rather than performing repetitive operational tasks, teams are spending more time overseeing workflow performance, exception management, and service quality. Orchestration platforms help operators manage larger environments while maintaining consistency and operational control.

Adam Leah, creative director, Nxtedition: The real opportunity here is what happens when you give multi-skilled people a single pane of glass that covers roles which used to require separate specialists for each discipline. In Nxtedition, a producer working from a single rundown can drive gallery automation, graphics, playout, live feeds and prompter as a unified operation, meaning the same person who is crafting the editorial is also directing the technical execution without switching systems or handing off between departments. That changes the conversation from headcount reduction to capability expansion, because the same team can diversify their skills across the full production chain and become significantly more productive in the business of content creation.

Olivier Suard, vice president, marketing, Nevion: Though a lot more versatile than SDI, IP is also more complex. However, that complexity is easily overcome with the right type of media orchestration platform, such as Sony/Nevion’s VideoIPath. This simplifies workflow control to the extent that production staff can handle many of the connectivity tasks themselves, e.g. establishing live contribution links – without the need for operators, who can focus on more complex tasks such as monitoring and service assurance.

Sam Peterson, COO, BitCentral: Automation is shifting operators away from repetitive, manual tasks and toward higher-value responsibilities such as monitoring and workflow optimization. As channel counts and delivery endpoints increase, orchestration tools give teams a way to manage more complexity with greater consistency and reliability, while keeping operators focused on the decisions that require human judgement.

How are integration strategies connecting legacy and modern systems?

Chris Scheck, head of marketing content, Lawo: The first step is to get all required signals to an open-standards IP network using stageboxes and gateways that convert analog and/or digital signals to ST2110 essences — and usually also back. These essences can be sent to other IP devices, COTS servers and the cloud. A pleasant side effect of this approach is that there is no immediate need to replace your entire infrastructure, while still benefiting from the dynamic media facility approach. With an orchestration system like HOME and a broadcast controller such as VSM, the entire infrastructure will provide operators with a unified, familiar feel.

G Morgan, EVP, sales, Globecast Americas: The most effective integration strategies today are not about replacing everything at once, but about building a practical bridge between proven legacy infrastructure and new IP, cloud and software-defined workflows. For many media companies, satellite, fiber and established playout environments still deliver essential reliability, while cloud and IP add the flexibility needed for streaming, FAST, OTT and remote operations. The goal is to create a hybrid architecture that lets customers modernize in phases, reduce complexity and keep services running without unnecessary risk.

What does an efficient, future-ready facility actually look like in practice?

Narinder Ball and Steve Norris, director, production and content, Gravity Media: A future-ready facility is designed around flexibility rather than a single production model. Studios should be attuned to a multi-functional set configuration including fully virtual set deployment as well as a mixture of traditional “hard set” combined with XR and VR capabilities. It should support multiple content types, accommodate changing customer requirements and allow workflows to evolve without requiring significant infrastructure rebuilds. We are seeing more demand for spaces that can seamlessly support broadcast, streaming, social, and content development activities within the same environment. 

Drew Martin, head of video product management, Riedel Communications: Honestly, it looks pretty boring — and that’s a good thing. The ideal facility looks a lot like any other modern data center, built on standard IT infrastructure rather than specialized broadcast hardware. The real sign of success is that it can be built, managed, and maintained by people who don’t need to be broadcast experts because the technology is based on familiar IT tools, workflows, and standards.

G Morgan, EVP, sales, Globecast Americas: A future-ready facility is not just a building with newer equipment; it is an operating model designed for flexibility, resilience and continuous change. In practice, that means hybrid, IP-enabled and software-defined workflows that support satellite, fiber, cloud and managed services side by side. The facility becomes a control and orchestration hub, combining connectivity, monitoring, customer environments and 24/7 operational ownership to help customers scale without constant reinvestment or redesign.

Dave MacKinnon, VP, product management, Clear-Com: A future-ready facility is one that lowers infrastructure cost while giving users more operational freedom. That means standards-based IP transport, clean integration between hardware and virtual endpoints, built-in redundancy, and a workflow that lets teams scale up, reconfigure quickly, and support smaller crews without sacrificing reliability. We see success in this area where companies build “force multipliers” that enable content creators to create more without having to become technology experts.