TICO Compression Supporters Announce the Launch of the TICO Alliance to Move to 4K/UHD in Live Broadcast Production

Las Vegas, NV – April 8, 2015 

The new TICO® compression technology will ease the challenge of moving 4K/UHD over current SDI infrastructure and IP Networks.

Leading Broadcast equipment manufacturers, OEM providers, broadcasters, electronics brands and technology companies announced today the launch of the TICO Alliance.  TICO is a new lightweight compression technology, which enables 4K UHD to be transported over legacy SDI infrastructure and modern IP production and contribution networks.  TICO has been developed by intoPIX and work is now ongoing at the SMPTE to publish TICO as Registered Disclosure Document (RDD) for the benefit of the entire broadcast and media industry.

The alliance is a coalition of companies united to set the bar for next-generation infrastructure by establishing TICO in the new IP-based Live production ecosystem that allows to seamless update and upgrade the existing SDI-based workflows. The group is created to ease 4KUHD adoption over the current SDI and the new IP-based infrastructures.

The group is formed by leading companies supporting intoPIX’s effort to promote TICO compression for UHD workflows: Altera Corporation, Artel Video Systems, Embrionix, Grass Valley – a Belden Brand, Image Matters, Imagine Communications, Keisoku Giken, Macnica Americas, Nevion, Ross Video, Xilinx and will be extended to all new supporters and adopters.

Benefits of TICO compression for UHD, SDI-based and IP-based Broadcast Production

To support transportation of UHDTV streams across the IP network or the existing 3G-SDI infrastructure, a new smart, fast and light compression is needed. 10 GB Ethernet or 3G-SDI networks are widely deployed and operated cost effectively within the Broadcast landscape.

TICO will help Broadcasters to fully benefit from a seamless, integrated and high-quality Ultra-HD ecosystem from end-to-end. With a visually lossless compression up to 4:1, TICO enables the mapping of a single 4K/UHD 2160p60 stream over a single 3G-SDI link. Over 10Gbps Ethernet, it allows the simultaneous transmission of up to 3 streams of 4K/UHD 2160p60.

TICO provides an extremely low latency (limited to just a few pixel lines), preserves video quality across multiple generations of encoding/decoding, fits into the smallest cost effective FPGA devices and runs also efficiently in software.  This technology is designed to enhance live IP systems by increasing efficiency and reducing the cost for both HD and 4K/UHD video.

First step toward standardization and adoption

In December 2014, intoPIX announced the creation of a Registered Disclosure Document (RDD) at SMPTE.  This will ease the integration process of all new adopters and supporters of the TICO compression and shares recommendations to map 4KUHD TICO streams over 3G-SDI or IP Networked infrastructures. The members of the TICO alliance are closely collaborating with intoPIX on the SMPTE RDD draft document.

Nevion comment

Johnny Dolvik, Chief Product and Development Officer says:  “The move to UHD for content production and distribution, with higher resolution, higher frame rates, and higher dynamic range, represents another large step change of increased bandwidth and processing requirements. At the same time, the industry is trying to do more with less; putting content on new distribution channels while reducing production cost. This is where TICO lightweight compression will come to the rescue, allowing broadcasters and content producers to take advantage of these new formats in live production, engaging audiences in a new way, while still keeping the data rates for UHD signals below 10G. This is important because it will mean we can take full advantage of the commoditization and cost-savings of 3G-SDI uncompressed video links, 10G Ethernet and IP networking.”