Automated Deployment of CBC/Radio-Canada’s Media-Over-IP Data Center

Sunday Nyamweno is a lead architect with CBC/Radio-Canada, Montreal, QC, Canada, where for the past ten years he has solved problems related to video encoding, satellite transmission, color science, and systems integration. He received a PhD degree from McGill University, Montreal, in 2012, where he specialized in video compression. Additionally, he holds an MSc degree in radio frequency wireless communications from Leeds University, Leeds, U.K.

Félix Poulin is with the national public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada, Montreal, QC, Canada, where he is the director of Media-over-IP Architecture & Lab. The Lab is currently testing IP-based equipment for the new Montréal headquarters being progressively put on air. Before that mandate, he was lead expert on Live IP at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in Switzerland, co-chairing the Joint AMWA/EBU/SMPTE/Video Services Forum (VSF) Task Force on Networked Media (JT-NM), organizing the yearly Network Technology Seminar (NTS) and leading expert groups. He was part of the Flemish national broadcaster (VRT) Sandbox LiveIP project—an early proof-of-concept of an all-IP studio, which won multiple awards including the prestigious International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) Innovation Award in 2016. He completed his diploma in electrical engineering at Montréal’s Polytechnique with his final thesis done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA. He began working as an audio engineer at Solotech, Canada, on Cirque du Soleil and international productions. He is an active contributor to the SMPTE, EBU, and VSF and is a SMPTE Fellow. He co-chairs the AMWA NMOS Steering Committee.

François Legrand has been with CBC/Radio-Canada, Montreal, QC, Canada, since 2004. He joined the Corporation as a designer of broadcast systems and became an electronic engineer in 2005. In this role, he has been involved in a wide range of projects and has had a variety of responsibilities, such as the design of digital, television, and radio systems, the preparation of plans and specifications as well as the financial management and supervision of large-scale projects. From 2011 to 2016, he held several management positions such as operations manager, regions of Quebec, where he coordinated the technological development of Quebec’s regional stations and senior project manager within the Transformation Unit of CBC/Radio-Canada’s French Services where he played a major role in the transition of all national news shows to automated production. Since 2015, he has been the senior director of core systems engineering, where he manages a team responsible for all capital projects related to CBC/Radio-Canada core infrastructure, including the implementation of the new media over IP infrastructure. He is frequently invited to present the initiatives and the technological vision of CBC/Radio-Canada for conferences like IBC, the NABSHOW, and various SMPTE and EBU activities.