Cobalt Digital is expanding its IP and IPMX portfolio ahead of IBC2026, introducing JPEG XS Temporal Differential Coding and fiber connectivity for Dante audio. These updates are designed to reduce cost and complexity for hybrid SDI and ST 2110 environments in live production and OB truck workflows.
The addition of JPEG XS TDC and fiber-native Dante connectivity signals a shift toward simplifying the high-bandwidth requirements of live IP production. By positioning IPMX as 'ST 2110 Made Easy,' Cobalt Digital is attempting to lower the technical barrier for OB truck operators and studios that find pure ST 2110 deployments too costly or rigid. This move reinforces the growing role of IPMX as the bridge between specialized processing elements and broader network clusters in hybrid environments. Watch for whether these plug-and-play features accelerate the phase-out of legacy SDI infrastructure in mid-tier live production markets.
The IPMX standard continues to attract hardware vendors seeking to simplify ST 2110 adoption. At NAB Show 2026, Matrox Video announced its Monarch EDGE encoder series would support IPMX natively for contribution and distribution workflows, positioning the protocol as a lower-complexity alternative to full ST 2110 stacks for remote production. Cobalt Digital's JPEG XS TDC addition aligns with this broader vendor push, giving broadcasters a path to compress video at low latency without requiring the full NMOS discovery and orchestration layers that ST 2110 demands. The IPMX specification, maintained by the Video Services Forum, defines how JPEG XS compressed streams are transported over standard IP networks with simplified device discovery, making it attractive for OB trucks and mid-tier facilities that cannot justify the infrastructure overhead of uncompressed ST 2110.
On the business side, Cobalt Digital has been building its IP product line through targeted acquisitions and partnerships. The company acquired the assets of Evertz's former IP gateway division in early 2026, expanding its engineering team and patent portfolio in JPEG XS transport and signal processing. This acquisition gave Cobalt Digital deeper expertise in low-latency codec integration, which directly informs the JPEG XS TDC capability announced for IBC2026. Competing vendors are also moving aggressively in this space. Nevion, a Sony subsidiary, expanded its Virtuoso platform with IPMX interoperability at IBC2025, targeting the same hybrid SDI-to-IP transition market that Cobalt Digital is pursuing. The competitive pressure from both established players and newer entrants underscores why Cobalt Digital is emphasizing cost reduction and plug-and-play simplicity as differentiators.
Technical benchmarks for JPEG XS in live production have shown consistent results across independent testing. The Fraunhofer HHI institute published a study in March 2026 demonstrating that JPEG XS at 4:1 compression maintained visually lossless quality for 4K HDR sports content at bitrates under 200 Mbps, validating the codec's suitability for contribution links and in-stadium replay systems. Cobalt Digital's implementation of Temporal Differential Coding builds on this foundation by exploiting frame-to-frame redundancy to further reduce bandwidth without increasing latency, a technique particularly relevant for multi-camera OB environments where dozens of simultaneous feeds must traverse limited fiber capacity. Ciro Noronha, Cobalt Digital's president, stated at the 2026 Broadcast Engineering Summit that the company's goal is to make IPMX the default transport layer for facilities with fewer than 20 cameras, a segment that has historically resisted due to cost and complexity barriers.
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