From Dish to Digital: How Standards and Smart Protocols Are Powering IP distribution
Broadcasters and media organizations are facing a strategic reset. Rising content costs, declining ARPU, platform fragmentation, and an accelerating shift towards cloud-based operations are straining traditional workflows, particularly those built around satellite infrastructure. While satellite has long served as the vehicle of both contribution and primary distribution, its economics, rigidity, and latency are increasingly incompatible with modern media delivery demands.
In response, IP-based infrastructure is becoming the backbone of next-generation media operations. It’s reshaping how broadcasters think about scale, flexibility, and cost, moving away from more constrained satellite models toward smarter, agile, software-defined workflows built on interoperable standards. Whether it's SMPTE ST 2110 for high-performance studio production, ST 2022-7 for deterministic reliability, or SRT/Zixi/RIST for cloud contribution and distribution, the shift is transforming what reliable, real-time delivery looks like. At the same time, CDN-based IP distribution has the potential to further reduce costs for lower-latency-sensitive workflows.
The problem with satellite for today’s workflows
Satellite distribution has long been valued for its reliability and reach, but its economics and inflexibility continue to constrain its set of attractive use cases. Broadcasters are locked into long-term transponder contracts that impose high fixed costs, which only make sense when managing more static workflows.
Scaling for regional variations, sports events, or pop-up channels is slow and infrastructure dependent. Satellite uplinks, dishes, and ground infrastructure demand significant space, power, and maintenance, and require more effort and equipment to integrate with cloud-native workflows. Furthermore, satellite latency (especially in GEO orbit models) limits interactivity and rapid-response applications, problems which are exacerbated in cloud-controlled live streaming.
Primary distribution over IP: Cloud-native, agile, and cost-effective
Replacing satellite with IP for primary distribution (the delivery of full linear channels to MVPDs, affiliates, or streaming endpoints) is becoming increasingly common. Broadcasters are leveraging IP networks and cloud infrastructure to route channels dynamically, simplify playout, and scale global distribution without satellite bandwidth constraints.
Protocols such as SRT (Secure Reliable Transport), Zixi, and RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport) enable secure, low-latency, error-resilient contribution and distribution over unmanaged or managed IP networks. These protocols are particularly effective for first-mile contribution into cloud-based playout systems or for distributing channels to headends or affiliates without relying on expensive satellite capacity. Their built-in ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest) and encryption capabilities make them suitable for high-quality, real-time media over the public internet.
For less latency-sensitive primary distribution applications, such as VOD libraries, regionalized FAST channels, or affiliate rebroadcast, CDN-based IP delivery offers a compelling alternative. By using HTTP-based formats like HLS or DASH and caching content at edge nodes, broadcasters can reduce cloud egress and bandwidth costs, avoid satellite downlink fees, and deliver high-quality streams to a diverse and distributed audience. This model aligns especially well with cloud-native encoding, playout, and packaging workflows, enabling geographic reach without replicating physical infrastructure in every market.
Delivering this level of flexibility, encryption and protocol support requires encoding and distribution solutions that are smart enough to be protocol-aware, cloud-integrated, and capable of adapting to both live and file-based content workflows. This ensures broadcasters can confidently replace satellite dependencies without compromising quality or control.
Cloud and Edge: Redefining the primary distribution chain
Cloud workflows demand agility. Satellite does not natively support dynamic rerouting and reconfiguration of playout chains. In contrast, IP-based distribution enables media workloads to move elastically between cloud regions, edge nodes, and affiliate endpoints. For example, a broadcaster using cloud-based playout (AWS, GCP, Azure) can use transport protocols such as SRT or Zixi to send mezzanine-quality outputs to regional headends or encode-once and distribute to CDN endpoints for affiliate rebroadcast or OTT services. CDN-originated IP distribution enables dynamic ad insertion and content replacement - capabilities that satellite can’t support without significant client-side infrastructure - helping to create new monetization pathways.
More broadly, this model reduces operational overhead, simplifies management, and accelerates market entry for pop-up channels, sports leagues, and regional content aggregators. Moreover, IP delivery can be encrypted end-to-end and dynamically monitored, offering potentially better security, compliance, and telemetry than legacy satellite downlink models.
Where SMPTE ST 2110 and ST 2022-7 still matter most
While SRT, Zixi, RIST, and CDN-based delivery dominate the IP landscape for contribution and primary distribution, there’s still a critical domain where uncompressed, real-time performance is non-negotiable: live production. In these environments, SMPTE ST 2110 provides the architecture for transporting video, audio, and metadata over IP with sub-frame latency and precise essence separation. It supports flexible routing, centralized switching, and software-defined processing which is ideal for control rooms, sports trucks, and master control.
To ensure resilience, SMPTE ST 2022-7 enables seamless, hitless failover between redundant IP links. This is especially important in 24/7 operations, where any signal drop is unacceptable. By duplicating traffic over two diverse paths, ST 2022-7 ensures glitch-free redundancy with deterministic latency and no packet loss.
Together, ST 2110 and ST 2022-7 form the broadcast-grade backbone of IP production, often working in concert with cloud-controlled orchestration and intelligent edge delivery.
Use cases: Tiered IP distribution and production
Across broadcast operations, different use cases highlight the layered benefits of IP distribution. From high-value live sports to regional FAST channels, a mix of smart protocols and standards deliver the required flexibility, reliability and scale:
- Live Sports Broadcasts: Live events use SRT/Zixi for remote contribution into cloud production, while ST 2110 enables ultra-low latency, uncompressed processing in OB trucks and control centers. ST 2022-7 provides hitless path protection over managed IP networks. Final output is encoded and distributed via CDN or affiliate IP delivery paths.
- Cloud Playout & FAST Channel Distribution: Cloud-native playout systems output SRT/Zixi streams to affiliate endpoints or regional CDNs. These streams support dynamic ad insertion, localization, and real-time updates, while reducing cost and improving agility.
- MVPD Feed Replacement: Broadcasters are replacing satellite feeds to MVPDs with IP delivery over managed fiber or public internet using SRT or Zixi. This approach lowers transponder costs and improves control over content delivery
- Disaster Recovery: IP-based workflows enable easier implementation of cloud-based disaster recovery systems. This significantly reduces infrastructure costs, as well as enabling flexibility in geographic redundancy.
IP workflows need the right tool for the job
Transitioning to IP is neither quick nor simple. It requires technical planning, staff reskilling and operational change. Deploying a resilient IP fabric with multicast support, PTP synchronization, and ST 2110/ST 2022-7 compliance is complex, and requires careful orchestration – including observability, stream health monitoring, and key management. CDN-based delivery requires coordination with packaging, edge caching, and ad-tech workflows. Broadcasters must also align capabilities, retrain engineers, and validate interoperability across hybrid workflows, especially when satellite and IP systems operate in parallel.
Leaving satellite behind enables broadcasters to gain agility, scale operations more efficiently, and build more resilient infrastructure – benefits that go far beyond cost-cutting measures. IP-based infrastructure allows media companies to dynamically route, process, and deliver content at broadcast quality with lower costs and greater control. SMPTE ST 2110 and ST 2022-7 remain essential for high-performance, low-latency production environments. SRT, Zixi, and RIST are ideal for secure, cloud-integrated distribution across hybrid or remote-first models, while CDN-based IP delivery extends reach and cuts cost for non-live and regionalized workflows.
The key is not one protocol or standard but a layered, modular approach that uses the right IP tools at each step of the chain. With this architecture, broadcasters are not just replacing satellite, they’re building a smarter, more scalable, cloud-connected future.
[Editor's note: This is a contributed article from MediaExcel. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]
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