Standards for interconnecting video servers-proliferation or unification?

The television production video signal chain was once unbroken in having a consistent scanning and interface standard from beginning to end, with few variations in the physical cable interconnection method. Today, the technical and economic advantages afforded by new technologies are irresistible; they are entering the chain but at the same time disrupting it. These technologies include compression and non-real-time information transfer and the packetization techniques necessary to convey compressed and non-real-time signals across interfaces and through channels. Such techniques inevitably bring with them some new complexities, such as the probability that there will not be a single consistent standard for all compression or all packetization. With a further technology entering the production chain-the video server-that may exacerbate the impact of this diversification, this paper examines how the effect on the overall system might nevertheless be successfully managed.