Visitors to IBC2015 may have gained the impression from several vendors and demonstrations that IP networking and software defined TV was not just inevitable but ready to go off the show floor.

A more sober appraisal could be found in a survey published just before IBC. It suggested that the market for conventional channel-in-a-box (CiaB) playout systems would continue for some time to come. The survey of 400 industry professionals by Quantel Snell (since rebranded as SAM) dampened down hyperbole about cloud playout.

More than half of respondents to the survey (57%) said they were planning to keep managing their linear channel playout in-house even if they add new services, and only 16% were looking to outsource any expansion. Of those planning to expand their services, 41% were looking to CiaB solutions, with just 20% going fully cloud-based.

"While many people are undoubtedly interested in the principle of cloud playout, the great majority see it becoming a reality only in a number of years' time," said SAM's Head of Product Marketing, Tim Felstead. "While this survey also demonstrates the mismatch between the general level of hyperbole around the cloud and the reality shown by solid testing, customers are nonetheless looking for a solid transition path to cloud playout as it grows up to become a cost-effective, capable alternative.”

Few concepts illustrate the advantage of moving to IP better than cloud playout. Instead of vast banks of machines requiring lots of manual attention and intervention, software applications linked to data centres can provide broadcasters with the ability to launch channels from anywhere. Cloud-based operation rewrites the financial model, allowing new channels for tightly specified subjects or regions to be introduced quickly without demanding up-front capital. Targeted advertising or localised content can be inserted or versioned by broadcasters as quickly as their internet-only rivals.

Yet broadcasters are cautious. “The industry at large is overstating the technology's state of readiness,” says Steve Plunkett, CTO of Broadcast and Media Services at Ericsson, which manages the playout for the BBC and ITV among other UK broadcasters.

“A software-only implementation is far from a simple install and deploy model,” he says. “Organisations are very keen to move to the cloud and to its many advantages but most of them are also cautious, and maybe somewhat skeptical, about where we are right now.”

Broadcasters are reticent in part because of the different versions of what it means to work in the cloud according to different vendors.

“Sadly, there is a lot of smoke and mirrors among the vendor community,” says Maurizio Cimelli, Managing Director, Deluxe MediaCloud. “Where there is talk of a product working in the cloud, often this proves to be no more than a powerpoint presentation.”

Many stalwarts of broadcast engineering have had to go back to the drawing board. Imagine Communications, for example, has reworked its entire product line over 18 months at a cost of $200m to operate over IP. SAM has done the same for its range of routers, production switchers and encoders. Significantly, both companies are intent on providing equipment that works over legacy cabled equipment as well as IP in order to smooth the transition for customers.

It's working too, since SAM claimed a contract to move Dutch media group Infostrada's entire facilities over to the cloud; Imagine has been working with Disney ABC in the US to do the same. Deluxe MediaCloud is working to transition the channels of Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) in Australia to the cloud.

However, these instances are few and far between reflecting a technology transition in its infant stage.

“Some channels are less operationally demanding, less complex and less reactive and those are almost certainly better suited to the relatively immature new technology,” said Plunkett. “The reality is, if you have a very complicated channel it will place a burden on the technology which it would find difficult to manage just now.

On a positive note the rate of advance of the technology should see even complex channels switched to cloud within two to three years.

“A year ago, just getting anything to run in any fashion on IP would have been a tall order,” says Plunkett. “Things are improving satisfactorily to the point that in six months the industry will have moved away from the question of does it work, to the more interesting and valuable questions of what can we do with the technology.”