Why Singapore Broadcasters Are Moving to IP-Based Infrastructure

For decades, broadcast facilities were built on coaxial cable and SDI (Serial Digital Interface). Every signal — video, audio, metadata — had its own dedicated cable. The wiring behind a master control room looked like a rat's nest of black coax, each run carrying exactly one thing between exactly two points.

That model is changing. SMPTE ST 2110 — the standard that defines how uncompressed audio and video travel over IP networks — has made it technically and economically viable to move broadcast signal transport onto standard IP infrastructure. The implications for how facilities are designed and built are significant.

What Changes with IP Broadcast

In an SDI facility, every signal path requires a physical cable. A 64-input routing switcher with 64 outputs requires 128 SDI connections — 128 cables, 128 connectors, 128 potential failure points. Reconfiguring the routing matrix means running new cable.

In an ST 2110 facility, all of those signals travel over a shared IP network. The physical infrastructure is standard 10GbE or 25GbE Ethernet — the same technology used in data centres. Routing is software-defined. Adding an input or output means provisioning a network port and updating configuration, not running cable.

The operational flexibility this creates is substantial. The infrastructure cost to build a new IP broadcast facility — in terms of physical cabling — is lower than a comparable SDI facility. The technology investment is in IP network hardware and software control systems rather than proprietary broadcast routing equipment.

What Does Not Change

IP broadcast infrastructure still requires deep specialist knowledge to design and implement correctly. The IP network supporting a live broadcast operation has deterministic timing requirements (PTP — IEEE 1588v2) that a standard enterprise network does not. Latency, jitter, and packet loss tolerances are measured in microseconds, not milliseconds.

Getting this wrong means dropped frames, audio glitches, or — in a live broadcast — dead air. The engineering discipline required to design an IP broadcast network correctly is not the same as designing an enterprise IT network, even though the physical hardware looks similar.

This is where specialist integrators like IPAS Intermedia provide value. We design the IP broadcast infrastructure with the timing, redundancy, and failover architecture that live broadcast demands — then commission and test it against real broadcast workflows before handover.

What This Means for Singapore Operators

Singapore's broadcast market — led by StarHub and MediaCorp — is well into the transition to IP-based infrastructure. Organisations planning new facilities or major refurbishments should be designing for IP from the outset. Retrofitting SDI infrastructure to IP after the fact is costly and disruptive.

For operators still running SDI facilities, the question is not whether to transition but when and how. The capital case for IP becomes stronger each year as IP hardware costs fall and the pool of engineers experienced in SDI systems shrinks.

IPAS Intermedia has worked on broadcast system projects across Singapore's major operators. If you are planning a facility project — new build, refurbishment, or technology refresh — contact us to discuss the architecture before the design phase locks in decisions that are expensive to reverse.