Overview:
- Because SMPTE ST 2110-22 leaves codec packetization open-ended, Macnica engineered the industry's first live implementation of ProRes encapsulated over ST 2110-22. Driven over a 100GbE network path, the pipeline carries uncompromised, production-quality 8K stereoscopic video (180-degree FOV) alongside uncompressed ST 2110-30 spatial audio for live sports broadcasting.
- Rendering stereoscopic immersive video on Apple Vision Pro requires lens geometry, barrel distortion maps, and spatial audio coordinates to arrive locked to the exact corresponding visual frame. The workflow routes this data via ST 2110-41 (Standard Dynamic Metadata) as an independent essence flow, synchronized down to the microsecond with video and audio using SMPTE ST 2059 Precision Time Protocol (PTP).
- To avoid bottlenecking host CPUs with heavy packetization and network pacing, the Macnica MEP100 SmartNIC handles ST 2022-7 seamless hitless redundancy, ST 2110-21 traffic shaping, and PTP timing directly inside an onboard Altera Agilex-7 FPGA.
Macnica Americas' MEP100 SmartNIC was in the production workflow for all four live Major League Baseball games presented in Apple Immersive on Apple Vision Pro this season, beginning with Red Sox at Yankees on August 28, the first live MLB game in Apple Immersive.
On four consecutive Fridays from Yankee Stadium, PNC Park, Oracle Park, and Dodger Stadium, viewers watched from camera positions beside the on-deck circle and inside the dugouts, in stereoscopic video with a 180-degree field of view and spatial audio. Producing that experience live places three requirements on the production at the same time. Each game was shot in 8K, stereoscopic, and an 8K stereo image at production quality needs a 100GbE network path. Every frame carries the lens geometry and spatial audio metadata the headset needs to render it, and that metadata must arrive with its frame. And ST 2110-22, the part of SMPTE ST 2110 that defines how to send compressed video, leaves each codec's packetization to be specified separately; the production codec, ProRes, had none published.
Apple built the production on ST 2110: ProRes video over ST 2110-22, audio over ST 2110-30, and per-frame metadata over ST 2110-41, synchronized with PTP. At WWDC26, Apple featured the Macnica MEP100 ST 2110 SmartNIC among the first products in its ecosystem for this workflow, and the September immersive baseball series is where that ecosystem began its work in live production. Macnica built the first implementation of ProRes over ST 2110-22 on the MEP100, which runs it at 100GbE with the ST 2110-41 metadata as its own PTP-aligned flow.
"A facility that runs ST 2110 today already has the network that live immersive production runs on," said Nestor Amaya, VP of engineering, Macnica Americas. "What immersive adds is a demanding payload: 8K stereo ProRes at 100GbE, with metadata that has to stay with its frame. The MEP100 presents those frames, the audio and the metadata to the production application in memory, with low latency and in real time. That is the work live immersive production asks of the ecosystem, and four live games have now put it to the test."
For facilities planning immersive production, the series sets out the practical requirements. The format runs as ST 2110 traffic, with the timing, redundancy and control that ST 2110 facilities already operate. The added requirement is I/O that presents 8K stereo ProRes frames and their per-frame metadata to the production software at 100GbE, with packetization and timing handled in hardware and the host's CPU cores left to the application.
The MEP100 is a 100GbE PCIe Gen4 SmartNIC for SMPTE ST 2110 and IPMX. It presents video frames, audio and metadata to the application in memory and returns them to the network as conformant ST 2110, with packetization, ST 2059 PTP timing, ST 2110-21 pacing and ST 2022-7 seamless protection running in the card's Altera Agilex-7 FPGA. It supports ST 2110-20, 22, 30, 40, and 41 essence flows on macOS and Linux, and on the Mac it installs in a Thunderbolt PCIe chassis with a Mac Studio.
