A new technology called 'AMT' can help speed up video delivery over IP infrastructures. That is basically the message of a new EBU Technical Review article written by network experts Thomas Kernen and Steve Simlo (Cisco). The authors argue deployment of the technology would be good news for broadcasters, as it would enable access to distribution infrastructures with minimal bandwidth requirements and it could help offer better quality.
AMT introduces the concept of AMT gateways and AMT relays.
Multicast islands
AMT means: 'Automatic IP Multicast without explicit Tunnels'. But, as the authors explain, multicast, has not become very popular with IP service providers (yet?). Users of video services such as YouTube or the BBC iPlayer have become accustomed (if already aware of it at all) to mostly unicast delivery. Multicast is sometimes available, but certainly not everywhere. AMT is designed to provide a migration path to a fully multicast-enabled backbone. It can connect the 'islands' where multicast is already deployed. It allows unicast-only receivers to use multicast in a seamless way. A detailed technical introduction to AMT is provided in the article .
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