ST 2110 replaces SDI with elementary flows on standard IP infrastructure. Because video, audio, and metadata travel independently, facilities route only what each workflow needs — and scale on commodity switching rather than dedicated baseband matrices. PTP timing keeps every flow in sync across the network.

In Appear products: native ST 2110 input and output across the X Platform, with PTP synchronisation and ST 2022-7 seamless protection for uninterrupted service.

Official specification →

ST 2022 defined how broadcast signals first moved onto IP, and remains central to contribution and primary distribution today. ST 2022-7 is the part operators rely on most: duplicate streams over diverse paths, merged at the receiver, so a network fault never reaches air.

In Appear products: ST 2022-7 hitless protection is available across X Platform IP interfaces, pairing path diversity with zero-frame-loss recovery.

NMOS IS-04 and IS-05 give ST 2110 facilities a common control language: devices announce themselves, register their capabilities, and accept connection requests from any compliant broadcast controller. It is what makes a multi-vendor IP facility operable as one system.

In Appear products: X Platform exposes NMOS discovery and connection management, so it drops into existing IS-04/IS-05 controlled facilities without custom integration.

AES67 lets audio equipment from different vendors and different AoIP ecosystems exchange streams on a common IP network. ST 2110-30 adopts it directly, so AES67 compliance is what carries professional audio through an IP video facility.

In Appear products: AES67-compliant audio handling within ST 2110-30 workflows on the X Platform.

JPEG XS makes remote production practical: it cuts bandwidth by a factor of ten or more while staying visually lossless and adding microseconds, not frames, of latency. Carried over ST 2110-22 and profiled in VSF TR-07/TR-08, it lets uncompressed-quality signals travel on WAN-scale connectivity.

In Appear products: high-density JPEG XS encoding and decoding on the X Platform, including the X5 — the backbone of REMI and interfacility workflows.

Official specification →

JPEG 2000 has been the workhorse of broadcast contribution for two decades. Every frame is coded independently, so the picture survives repeated encode cycles and downstream editing without accumulating artefacts — profiled for interoperable transport in VSF TR-01.

In Appear products: JPEG 2000 contribution encoding and decoding across the X Platform and XC Platform.

H.264/AVC remains the most widely deployed video codec in broadcast; H.265/HEVC roughly halves the bitrate at equivalent quality, making UHD contribution and satellite-efficient distribution economical. Both remain the default answer where bandwidth costs money.

In Appear products: broadcast-grade H.264 and HEVC encoding, transcoding, and decoding at high density across the X Platform and XC Platform.

Official specification →

Decades on, MPEG-2 transport streams still underpin satellite, cable, and IPTV distribution worldwide. Supporting it well matters for every operator running a mixed estate, where new IP workflows must keep feeding established MPEG-2 head-ends.

In Appear products: full MPEG-2 encode, decode, and transport stream processing across the XC Platform and X Platform.

Official specification →

SRT recovers packet loss with selective retransmission and protects content with AES encryption, turning unmanaged internet connectivity into a viable contribution path. As an open-source protocol with broad industry adoption, it interoperates across hundreds of vendors’ equipment.

In Appear products: SRT contribution and distribution across the X Platform and VX Platform. Appear is a member of the SRT Alliance.

Official specification →

Zixi combines forward error correction, retransmission, and adaptive bitrate behaviour to hold broadcast-quality streams stable across unpredictable networks. It is widely used where operators standardise on the Zixi Enabled Network for internet-based delivery.

In Appear products: Zixi transport support for contribution and distribution over unmanaged networks.

Defined by the EBU as Tech 3292-s1, BISS-CA replaces static scrambling keys with continuously rotating ones and per-receiver entitlement control. Rights holders can grant — and revoke — access to a live feed in real time, which is why it has become the reference for protecting premium sports contribution.

In Appear products: BISS-CA encryption and decryption on the X Platform, protecting contribution feeds end to end.

Official specification →

HLS segments media over HTTP and lets each player switch bitrate ladder rungs as network conditions change. Its universal device support makes it the baseline for any OTT or hospitality delivery chain.

In Appear products: HLS output from XC Platform stream processing for OTT and hospitality distribution.

MPEG-DASH is the vendor-neutral counterpart to HLS: codec-agnostic, internationally standardised as ISO/IEC 23009-1, and governed by DASH-IF interoperability guidelines. Together with CMAF it allows one set of media segments to serve both DASH and HLS clients.

In Appear products: MPEG-DASH delivery from XC Platform head-end workflows. Appear participates in DASH-IF.

CMAF gives HLS and DASH one shared segment format, halving packaging and storage costs, while chunked encoding and transfer bring live streaming latency down towards broadcast levels. It is the coordinated industry answer to the latency gap between OTT and traditional distribution.

In Appear products: CMAF-based packaging within XC Platform streaming workflows.

Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming pioneered fragmented-MP4 adaptive delivery over standard HTTP infrastructure. Because segments cache like any web object, delivery scales through existing CDNs — and it remains in service across established IPTV and OTT estates.

In Appear products: Smooth Streaming support within XC Platform stream processing for legacy OTT delivery.