LTN connectors — democratizing connectivity to the LTN Network
Connectivity is in our DNA
LTN has historically embraced an open and agnostic strategy when bringing content onto the LTN Network. From the beginning, we realized that providing easy access to the benefits of LTN’s multicast-enabled, low latency, managed backbone network provides significant benefits to full-time and occasional use (event) based workflows. From day one, we embraced industry standards like MPEG Transport Stream, SDI, ASI, and others. Customers have always had an option to use third-party encoders and decoder or LTN-invented encoding/decoding technology depending on specific requirements. The number of platforms, devices, and protocols for real-time video transmission has increased over the last several years. The next logical evolution for LTN was to support those most common first- and last-mile transport protocols and methodologies giving more media companies unfettered access to the LTN Network by leveraging already deployed hardware and software. This is the fundamental strategy behind the implementation of LTN Connectors.
The next logical evolution for LTN was to support those most common first- and last-mile transport protocols and methodologies giving more media companies unfettered access to the LTN Network by leveraging already deployed hardware and software.
![LTN Connector Diagram](https://ltn-global-website.s3.amazonaws.com/press/LTN-Connector-Diagram.png)
Evolving connectivity
What became clear was the need to showcase the incredible power of LTN’s connectivity capabilities. By packaging up popular standards and protocols that allow access to the LTN Network, LTN Connectors are a forward-looking, open, and agnostic mechanism to allow anyone, anywhere, access to the one of a kind benefits of the LTN Network.
LTN Connectors integrate with the LTN Ecosystem of solutions for managing your content, improving performance, and increasing visibility. It’s easy for customers to utilize more complex broadcast workflows through a single platform. Content can be acquired in a single format and then delivered in a number of different formats, platforms and protocols as needed. SRT, Zixi, LiveU and AWS MediaConnect are all supported via LTN Connectors into and out of the LTN Network. Additional popular protocols will continue to be added to the list
By packaging up popular the standards and protocols and providing access to the LTN Network, LTN Connectors are a forward-looking, open, and agnostic mechanism to allow anyone anywhere to access the LTN Network.
![LTN Connector](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ltn-global-website/content/LTN-connector-2.png)
Supporting connectivity in a changing media landscape
Many major media companies are looking to operate more efficiently and embrace modern digital workflows and infrastructures, but providing better interconnectivity is about more than just supporting a myriad of standards. Every customer's workflow is different and understanding individual requirements and 24/7 managed services are central to the LTN value proposition. Decades of experience enable LTN to see how other organizations in the market are working holistically and can help you make content management and distribution seamless.
The LTN Network plays a fundamental role in connecting and standardizing connectivity across multiple disparate protocols. LTN's deep knowledge of the media industry enables it to identify where different protocols don't always work well together. LTN has the engineering capabilities to make these protocols compatible. LTN is also obsessed with quality and constantly tests, identifies, and verifies smarter working methods for you and your organization.
LTN recognizes that the challenging nature of global supply chains means that shipping brand new hardware is expensive and could also delay your ability to deploy new services quickly. LTN’s technology and network access can easily be enabled without the requirement to ship hardware thanks to our ability to deploy LTN’s edge appliance software virtually, as a software-only package. In addition, and in line with the theme of this blog post, LTN has made it easier for media companies to connect to the LTN Network without the need for additional hardware by leveraging existing infrastructure that is already enabled with open source protocols like SRT, for example.
Frequently, IP acquisition and distribution workflows require multicast delivery of feeds to large numbers of locations. While protocols like SRT are well versed to handle point to point connectivity, the LTN Network can take a single unique channel and leverage our network’s inherent multicast capabilities to deliver a single channel to tens or thousands of locations simultaneously. No other IP transport technology has perfected the ability to bring true multicast to the public Internet.
LTN constantly adds more features and accessibility based on market feedback and guidance from our customers. Please let LTN know where you would like to grow next. We would love to help you get there. If you want to learn more about how LTN Connectors can help you improve the visibility of your content, please get in touch.