INDUSTRY — Industry Vertical

Video & Broadcast

The broadcast industry is migrating from SDI to IP at scale. Equipment manufacturers need FPGA engineering, ST 2110 expertise, and platform unification — fast. Model T finds them before RFPs go public.

THE CHALLENGE

The SDI-to-IP Transition Is Exposing Engineering Gaps

The global broadcast infrastructure market reached $5.8 billion in 2024 and is projected to surpass $8.2 billion by 2030 at a 7.5% CAGR. The IP broadcast segment alone is growing at 9.2% CAGR, reaching an estimated $13 billion by 2033. Yet most mid-size broadcast equipment manufacturers lack the internal R&D bandwidth to ship ST 2110-compliant products on schedule.

FPGA migration is a recurring crisis. When silicon vendors deprecate chip families or supply chains fracture, companies with 30-60 engineers cannot absorb a full-stack porting effort — firmware, video pipeline, control plane — while maintaining production schedules for existing lines.

The result: delayed product launches, missed OEM deadlines, and a widening gap between legacy SDI product lines and the IP-native architectures that broadcasters now demand for remote production, OB trucks, and cloud workflows.

$5.8B
Broadcast Infrastructure Market (2024)
9.2%
IP Broadcast Segment CAGR
18-36 mo
Typical FPGA Porting Delay (Internal)
30-40%
R&D Cost Overhead from Multi-Platform Support
HOW MODEL T HELPS

How Model T Works for Video & Broadcast

Model T monitors the broadcast equipment landscape — product launches, trade show announcements, job postings, patent filings, and supply chain signals — to identify manufacturers who need external FPGA, video processing, or platform engineering support before they issue an RFP.

We map each prospect to Promwad's specific competencies: Lattice and AMD FPGA design, ST 2110 protocol stacks, JPEG-XS codec integration, 10G/25G Ethernet hardware, embedded Linux control planes with OTA, and full PM leadership for multi-phase hardware projects.

Detect FPGA migration needs from chip EOL notices, job listings for FPGA engineers, and product roadmap gaps
Identify ST 2110 / SMPTE compliance gaps through AIMS Alliance membership analysis and competitive benchmarking
Surface platform unification opportunities where manufacturers maintain multiple BOM variants across product lines
Map decision-makers (CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Product) and engagement timing to product development cycles
Deliver pre-qualified meeting briefs with technical alignment scores and tailored value propositions
ANONYMIZED ENGAGEMENT

Case: FPGA Platform Unification for a European Broadcast OEM

A German broadcast equipment manufacturer with 100+ SKU product lines faced chip fragmentation across three product families. Each used different SoCs, creating 30-40% higher R&D costs and supply chain vulnerability. Model T identified this company through their AIMS Alliance membership, analysis of their product portfolio gaps (no ST 2110 products despite 6+ years of alliance membership), and recent leadership changes signaling a mandate for platform consolidation. The engagement led to a unified silicon platform architecture, ST 2110 gateway development, and embedded PM services — a multi-year, multi-phase partnership.

30-40%
R&D Cost Reduction
2-3x
Time-to-Market Improvement
70-80%
BOM Component Reuse
$500K-1M
New IP Revenue Stream (Year 2)

Client identity changed. Methodology and outcomes are real.

PROMWAD ENGINEERING DEPTH

Promwad Competencies for Video & Broadcast

FPGA Video Processing
Official Lattice FAE Partner. AMD (Xilinx) Alliance Member. Intel (Altera) Solution Partner. 500+ completed projects with Vivado, Quartus, and CrossLink-NX toolchains.
Broadcast Protocol Stacks
ST 2110-20/30/40 implementation, NMOS IS-04/IS-05 discovery, PTP IEEE 1588 synchronization, JPEG-XS codec integration for sub-millisecond latency.
High-Speed PCB & Ethernet
10G/25G Ethernet interfaces, PCIe Gen5, DDR5. Signal integrity analysis with HyperLynx, Sigrity, and Ansys SIwave. Enterprise L2/L3 switch design experience.
Embedded Linux & OTA
Custom Yocto/Buildroot BSPs. SWUpdate and RAUC OTA frameworks with A/B partitions. Secure boot, TPM-based Root of Trust.
Project Management for Complex Hardware
ISO 9001:2015 certified. Stage-Gate governance for multi-phase platform programs. Proven PM leadership for parallel hardware projects with OEM stakeholders.
FREQUENTLY ASKED

We already have internal FPGA engineers. Why would we need Model T?

Model T is not an FPGA staffing service. It identifies broadcast equipment companies that need external engineering support — often companies whose internal teams are fully loaded with production maintenance and cannot absorb a new platform initiative. For Promwad, the value is a pre-qualified pipeline of prospects with verified technical alignment.

How do you find broadcast companies before they publish RFPs?

We analyze leading indicators: AIMS Alliance membership without corresponding ST 2110 products, chip vendor EOL timelines affecting existing product lines, job postings for FPGA or video processing roles that stay open 90+ days (indicating hiring difficulty), and trade show product announcements that reveal platform fragmentation.

What size broadcast companies does Model T target?

The sweet spot is $5M-100M revenue broadcast equipment manufacturers with 20-200 employees. Large enough to fund an external engineering partnership, small enough that internal R&D bandwidth is genuinely constrained. These companies typically have 5-15 active product SKUs and are facing either a platform transition or a competitive threat from IP-native newcomers.

Does this work for ProAV companies, not just broadcast?

Yes. The SDI-to-IP transition and FPGA engineering needs are identical in professional AV — LED wall controllers, matrix switchers, AV-over-IP endpoints. Model T covers the full ProAV and broadcast equipment landscape.

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