Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to my newly-formed blog. While I could immediately go ahead and start writing some posts, I figured I am first going to start with a bit of an introduction of myself and what I am planning to do here.
For starters, I am Mike Cassara (wow, who would have guessed!). I currently work (at least as of posting, I won’t be updating this post 20 years from now) as a Director of Broadcast Network Engineering where I build and maintain SMPTE ST 2110 based networks, as well as serve as an EIC or E2 on broadcasts. My previous experience varies a bit more, but it is mostly focused around system-design roles and broadcast engineering. I also majored in Computer Engineering, during which I did a fairly significant amount of hardware and software projects related to the industry, such as my own Whirlwind Q-Box inspired device, a 4-channel digital audio mixer, and an attempt at making a SDI -> USB-C UVC capture card.
My main reasoning behind creating this blog is to share some of my opinions and knowledge that I see much of the industry struggling with, along with sharing some of the projects that I have done. I’ve found that when it comes to newer technologies like SMPTE ST 2110, network design, etc. there is a lot of dry content online which attempts to explain them, however there is a large gap in material which covers the intersection of day-to-day operations and workflows, and the actual protocols themselves. I am hoping that some of my future blogs will help bridge these gaps.
What topics to expect in the future?
- A series of posts explaining networking as it pertains to broadcast, focusing more on how packets get from A to B, and focusing more on the operational side of how to build and manage networks, rather than explaining archaic protcols which are no longer used as many other guides tend to do.
- A series of posts going over many of what I consider to be painpoints in the current state of Media over IP workflows, such as bandwidth-aware multicast routing, mono-level audio routing / shuffling, and control system design flaws which are being repeated across the industry.
- A series of posts explaining how to build SMPTE ST 2110-centric facilities
- Some posts about how I designed and built my current facility, including network switch configuration templates and excel templates for replicating on your own.
- Whatever else I decide