By Roland Axelsson, Founder and Senior Technical Account Manager, Intinor
Maintaining broadcast-grade reliability over unpredictable internet networks remains one of the biggest challenges in live contribution. In this article we explore how combining open standards such as SRT and SMPTE 2022-7 enables engineers to build resilient, interoperable workflows that meet professional broadcast requirements.
When we first started working with live video over the internet back in 2003, the industry looked very different. Contribution over IP was in its infancy, and most broadcasters still relied on dedicated fiber or satellite links to ensure quality. At Intinor, we believed that with the right protocols, redundancy, and error correction, the internet could deliver the same reliability at a fraction of the cost.
Two decades later, that belief has proven true. But achieving broadcast-grade performance over public internet still requires careful engineering, smart redundancy, and interoperability between systems. Here we give real-world examples on how open standards such as SRT and SMPTE 2022-7, when combined intelligently, can create truly resilient contribution workflows.
The Shift Toward Internet-Based Contribution
The appeal is clear: using the internet for live streaming is cost-efficient, flexible, and fast to deploy. You can spin up contribution links between studios, control rooms, or remote production sites in hours instead of days, without extensive planning or high setup costs.
This flexibility is particularly valuable for sports and event production, where teams often need to move quickly and adapt to different network environments. Beyond contribution, the same infrastructure can support live distribution, for instance, regional broadcasters sending channels to headends or using internet-based feeds as redundancy for satellite and fiber paths.
But, as anyone who has tried knows, the internet can be unpredictable. Congestion, packet loss, and interruptions can easily disrupt live video. That’s why redundancy is not just a nice-to-have, it’s essential.
SRT and the Push Toward Interoperability
At Intinor, we developed our own transport protocol years ago, Bifrost Reliable Transport, to handle bonding, error correction, and adaptive bitrate streaming. It allowed us to combine Ethernet, 4G, 5G, and even satellite links for robust performance. The only limitation was interoperability: our protocol worked beautifully within Intinor systems, but not beyond them.
That’s where open standards come in. The two major protocols today for reliable video transport over the internet are SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) and RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport). Both aim to make it possible to send and receive live streams between different vendors – something our customers increasingly need.
SRT, in particular, has become widely adopted. Originally developed by Haivision and now maintained as a free, open-source protocol, SRT enables secure, low-latency transport with built-in encryption and error correction. Intinor is a member of the SRT Alliance, working closely with other vendors to ensure interoperability and improve reliability across systems.
However, interoperability is not automatic. While SRT defines how data is sent, it doesn’t specify what’s inside the stream. Most implementations use MPEG Transport Stream (MPEG-TS), but decoders may still struggle depending on codec, color space, or DVB compliance. For example, not all decoders support 10-bit video, 4:2:2 chroma, or Dolby multichannel audio. That’s why at Intinor we ensure our encoders and decoders are DVB compliant and support multiple codecs, so that they can send and receive across a wide range of systems without issue.
Beyond SRT: Redundant SRT and the Eurovision Approach
Despite its strengths, SRT alone has limitations. It supports a single network path and no native bonding or redundancy. In other words, if that path goes down, so does your stream.
To overcome this, Eurovision Services developed an approach called redundant SRT, which combines several open technologies; RTP, SRT, and SMPTE 2022-7, to deliver true path redundancy. Here’s how it works:
- RTP (Real-Time Transport Protocol) provides sequencing and timestamps, allowing the receiver to identify and reorder packets.
- SMPTE 2022-7 allows two or more RTP streams to be received and merged seamlessly, automatically compensating if one path experiences loss or failure.
- By encapsulating RTP within SRT, it’s possible to create redundant SRT streams that maintain full interoperability while protecting against interruptions and congestion.
This means you can send two identical RTP-over-SRT streams across completely separate internet providers, or even mix mediums such as fiber, satellite, and mobile. On the receiving end, the decoder merges these in real time, ensuring uninterrupted delivery even if one connection falters.
Why It Matters
This open, multi-path approach offers something that used to require proprietary systems or expensive satellite backup: seamless failover with interoperability across vendors. And because it’s built on open standards, it can scale and evolve as the industry does.
For broadcasters and content owners, that translates directly into confidence. Whether you’re streaming a live match, a breaking news feed, or a distributed remote production – redundant SRT lets you achieve the same, or even higher, robustness as traditional methods, at a far lower cost.
For more on how Intinor’s solutions can support reliable contribution and distribution over public internet, contact our team at Intinor.
Read more: Building resilient workflows with SRT and open standards – part 2 six practical takeaways to have in mind when designing resilient live contribution links over the internet.