PRO-NET

PROduction of Broadcast Content in an Object-Oriented IP-based NETwork

A LINK / EPSRC project

EPSRC Grant Reference: GR/M84169/01

LINK Grant Reference: 105224

Principal Investigator: Professor George Pavlou

Partners: Thales Research Ltd., University of Bristol, Sony Broadcast Europe

Project duration: 30 months (1 April 2000 - 30 September 2002)

Project Summary
Broadcast production networks require the transport of high-quality multimedia traffic between outside vans and the main studio. This is typically done through dedicated terrestrial or satellite links, with bandwidth purchased from third party network providers, which is expensive and lacks flexibility. Given the convergence of telecommunications, broadcasting and the Internet, it is plausible to consider Internet-based solutions for digital broadcast content production in order to maximise the relevant flexibility and efficiency. Distributing the production process and team over a wide-area network is expected to reduce costs and increase flexibility, leading to competitive advantages for the broadcaster. In this context, the PRO-NET project was set to investigate the use of Internet Protocol (IP) based networks as the basis for the distributed production of broadcast content and the management and control of broadcast content resources using distributed object technologies.
The PRO-NET LINK project brought together Sony Broadcast Europe (leading partner), Thales (ex-Racal) Research UK, Centre for Communication Systems Research, University of Surrey and Centre for Communications Research, University of Bristol. The project work was divided into two big areas that involved partner pairings:

Evaluation of the suitability of Internet IP with emerging Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for the transportation of production network traffic in terms of video, audio, control and management flows; partners undertaking this work were the University of Surrey and Thales Research.

Management and control of broadcast content resources through emerging distributed object technologies such as CORBA/Java and the use of the World Wide Web, including the synchronisation of composite objects; partners undertaking this work were the University of Bristol and Sony Broadcast Europe.
Objectives
The overall objectives of this research project are to investigate:

The rules and issues associated to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between network providers and broadcasters; and
To demonstrate that QoS requests derived from “upper layer” requirements can be achieved by appropriate SLAs for video, audio, control and management traffic in the lower layers through suitable network provisioning and dynamic resource management schemes.
Publications

Journal papers

[Trimin03a] P. Trimintzios, T. Bauge, G. Pavlou, P. Flegkas, R. Egan, Quality of Service Provisioning through Traffic Engineering with Applicability to IP-based Production Networks, Computer Communications, special issue on Performance Evaluation of IP Networks and Services, Vol. 26, No. 8, pp. 845-860, Elsevier Science Publishers, May 2003 (full paper in Acrobat pdf).

Conference and Workshop papers

[Trimin02c] P. Trimintzios, T. Bauge, G. Pavlou, L. Georgiadis, P. Flegkas, R. Egan, Quality of Service Provisioning for Supporting Premium Services in IP Networks, Proceedings of IEEE Globecom 2002, Taipei, Taiwan, Vol. 3, pp. 2473-2477, IEEE, November 2002 (full paper in Acrobat pdf) (acceptance rate 30.6%, 606 out of 1980 papers).

[Trimin02b] P. Trimintzios, P. Flegkas, G. Pavlou, L. Georgiadis, D. Griffin, Policy-based Network Dimensioning for IP Differentiated Services Networks, Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on IP Operations and Management (IPOM 2002), Dallas, Texas, USA, pp. 171-176, IEEE, October 2002 (full paper in Acrobat pdf) .

[Trimin02a] P. Trimintzios, P. Flegkas, G. Pavlou, Policy-driven Traffic Engineering for Intra-domain Quality of Service Provisioning, Proceedings of Quality of Service for future Internet Services (QofIS'02), Zurich, Switzerland, pp. 179-193, Springer, October 2002 (full paper in Acrobat pdf) (acceptance rate 38.4%, 20 out of 52 papers).

[Trimin00] P. Trimintzios, G. Pavlou, I. Andrikopoulos, Providing Traffic Engineering Capabilities in IP Networks Using Logical Paths,, Proceedings of the 8th IFIP Workshop on the Performance Modelling and Evaluation of ATM & IP Networks (ATM & IP 2000), Ilkley, UK, D.D. Kouvatsos, ed., Networks UK Publishers, ISBN 0-9540151-1-8, July 2000 (full paper in Acrobat pdf).

Book Chapter

[Bonav03] O. Bonaventure, P. Trimintzios, G. Pavlou, B. Quoitin, A. Azcorra, M. Bagnulo, P. Flegkas, A. Garcia-Martinez, P. Georgatsos, L. Georgiadis, C. Jacquenet, L. Swinnen, S. Tandel, S. Uhlig, Internet Traffic Engineering, Quality of Future Internet Services - COST Action 263 Final Report, M. Smirnov et al, eds., pp. 118-179, Springer-Verlag, 2003 (full chapter in Acrobat pdf).

Last updated November 2006
Journal papers
Conference and Workshop papers
Book Chapter

[Trimin02c]	P. Trimintzios, T. Bauge, G. Pavlou, L. Georgiadis, P. Flegkas, R. Egan, Quality of Service Provisioning for Supporting Premium Services in IP Networks, Proceedings of IEEE Globecom 2002, Taipei, Taiwan, Vol. 3, pp. 2473-2477, IEEE, November 2002 (full paper in Acrobat pdf) (acceptance rate 30.6%, 606 out of 1980 papers).
[Trimin02b]	P. Trimintzios, P. Flegkas, G. Pavlou, L. Georgiadis, D. Griffin, Policy-based Network Dimensioning for IP Differentiated Services Networks, Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on IP Operations and Management (IPOM 2002), Dallas, Texas, USA, pp. 171-176, IEEE, October 2002 (full paper in Acrobat pdf) .
[Trimin02a]	P. Trimintzios, P. Flegkas, G. Pavlou, Policy-driven Traffic Engineering for Intra-domain Quality of Service Provisioning, Proceedings of Quality of Service for future Internet Services (QofIS'02), Zurich, Switzerland, pp. 179-193, Springer, October 2002 (full paper in Acrobat pdf) (acceptance rate 38.4%, 20 out of 52 papers).
[Trimin00]	P. Trimintzios, G. Pavlou, I. Andrikopoulos, Providing Traffic Engineering Capabilities in IP Networks Using Logical Paths,, Proceedings of the 8th IFIP Workshop on the Performance Modelling and Evaluation of ATM & IP Networks (ATM & IP 2000), Ilkley, UK, D.D. Kouvatsos, ed., Networks UK Publishers, ISBN 0-9540151-1-8, July 2000 (full paper in Acrobat pdf).