Is video ready to join telecom networks?

MPEG technology is now a must also for broadcast professional applications and, more specifically, for contribution and primary distribution the 4:2:2 Profile is going to be extensively used. Furthermore, in the production environment video formats like Sony SX (4:2:2P at 18 Mbit/s) are becoming more and more popular and constant quality VBR video is a promising format for audiovisual archive systems. Referring to this scenario, the integration of digital video application into the telecom network is a key topic for the evolution of these services. More specifically we refer to some already standardised solutions based on ATM/SDH networks. The Internet Protocol and its derivatives may constitute an interesting alternative to allow service integration in a local network environment. There are many technical aspects to be solved in order to guarantee the requested quality of service (QoS). In particular the broadcasters are very sensitive to the performance of the clock recovery system that should guarantee at least the performance of the very well consolidated analog systems. The paper describes possible scenarios for some applications highlighting the key technologies necessary to match the professional requirements