Migration from legacy SDI to full SMPTE ST 2110 readies HHS broadcast facility for the next decade
Modernizing broadcast at one of the largest U.S. federal communications operations
Systems integrator CHESA designed, staged, and deployed a complete SMPTE ST 2110 broadcast infrastructure for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., with Imagine’s Selenio Network Processor (SNP) serving as a core building block of the transition to IP.
Full ST 2022-7 Redundancy
12G and HUD-Ready Infrastructure
Deterministic SDI/IP Edge
The broadcast facility at HHS serves a public affairs mission that does not tolerate downtime. HHSTV produces live and recorded programming across multiple production spaces in the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, supporting everything from press briefings and executive communications to internal agency programming.
When the facility’s aging infrastructure began limiting production team deliverables, HHS leadership decided to modernize. The existing environment was built on a conventional SDI architecture centered on a router at roughly 64×64. Signals traveled as home-run SDI paths terminating in the Central Equipment Room, with remote production areas connected via SDI-to-fiber extenders. The system operated in 1080i with limited 720p sources. No 3G-SDI. No UHD capability anywhere in the chain.
Audio routing was handled ad hoc. Standalone converters were inserted into signal paths for embedding and de-embedding as needed, creating fragmented signal chains with undocumented insertion points and increasing troubleshooting complexity during live production. Monitoring relied on a legacy SDI multiviewer and older waveform tools. Display infrastructure consisted of consumer-grade televisions mounted in grid arrangements.
The system had no redundancy of any kind. No alternate signal paths, no failover, no automated recovery. Any failure required manual intervention, often while a production was live.
CHESA was engaged as the sole systems integrator, responsible for architecture, design, procurement, staging, deployment, and commissioning. The mandate was clear: build it right, build it once.
The design had to meet four non-negotiable requirements: deterministic behavior under live production conditions, elimination of all single points of failure, consolidation of signal processing into core infrastructure platforms, and reduced dependency on engineering intervention for routine operations.
Those requirements drove the selection of SMPTE ST 2110 as the transport architecture, with ST 2022-7 seamless protection switching as a baseline across all signal flows. The entire media network was built on a Cisco Nexus 9000 spine-leaf topology implementing two fully independent fabrics that carry identical flows simultaneously. The SDI router was eliminated entirely and replaced with an orchestration layer, managing signal routing, device control, tally, and UMD coordination through NMOS discovery and connection management.
At the boundary between the legacy SDI toolchain and the new IP fabric, Imagine Communications’ Selenio Network Processor (SNP) handles all encapsulation and decapsulation. SNP is what makes the dual-fabric architecture work at the I/O layer: every SDI source is encapsulated into both 2022-7 legs simultaneously, and every SDI destination reconstructs its essence from whichever fabric path is healthy, with no operator action and no perceptible artifact during a path failure. SNP also provides the headroom that makes the rest of the system’s future-ready claims credible. The current operation is HD, but the edge processing layer is already capable of 12G-SDI and UHD, so format expansion will not require an edge hardware refresh.
A critical design decision was to stage approximately 60% of the system off-site before deployment. The full media fabric was constructed, configured, and tested in a controlled environment, covering network bring-up, switch configuration, PTP timing validation, NMOS registration, and initial endpoint commissioning. This approach substantially reduced on-site integration risk and compressed the deployment timeline.
HHS provided a temporary production capability during the transition period, enabling a hard cutover rather than a phased migration. On-site execution followed a structured sequence: rack deployment, network bring-up, system integration, and endpoint connection, followed by full production walkthroughs under live conditions.
Encapsulating SDI Into a Dual-Fabric IP Network
In a facility where cameras, monitors, and ancillary devices still speak SDI, the edge of the IP fabric is where dual-path redundancy either holds together or quietly collapses. Every SDI source has to be encapsulated into ST 2110 essence and injected into both fabrics at the same time. Every SDI destination has to reconstruct video, audio, and ANC data from whichever fabric is healthy, with seamless ST 2022-7 hitless switching when the other one is not.
The facility uses Imagine’s SNP as the edge gateway throughout. Each SNP performs SDI-to-IP encapsulation and decapsulation, frame synchronization, color and format conversion, and signal processing in a single device. From the network’s perspective, each SNP is a native ST 2110 endpoint, discovered and managed through NMOS IS-04 and IS-05.
Three architectural outcomes follow directly from this choice:
This is the layer that makes phrases like “software-defined routing” and “UHD-ready infrastructure” actually mean something operationally. Without a deterministic, redundant, NMOS-managed edge, those phrases
Infrastructure de production
Infrastructure de production
Selecting Imagine’s SNP at the SDI/IP boundary meant that simultaneous dual-fabric injection, NMOS-managed routing, and a clean path to 12G and UHD were architectural properties of the system, not retrofits. Edge gateway selection is one of the highest-leverage decisions on any 2110 facility build, because it determines what redundancy, scalability, and format expansion actually cost later.
HHS now operates a fully modernized broadcast facility built for the next decade. The infrastructure supports current HD production with a clear architectural path to UHD. Format expansion and workflow changes can be achieved through configuration rather than physical infrastructure modifications.
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