2110 & NMOS

2110 & NMOS in Concert

Study Plan

2110 Topo

SMPTE ST 2110 and NMOS (Networked Media Open Specifications) are complementary standards that together make professional IP-based media production practical, scalable, and interoperable. They solve different but related problems in the same ecosystem.

ST 2110 vs NMOS Overview

Standard	Full Name / Owner	Primary Purpose	Key Deliverable
ST 2110	SMPTE ST 2110 family	Transport & timing of media essences over IP	How to send video, audio, and ancillary data as separate RTP/UDP/IP multicast streams with precise PTP synchronization
NMOS	AMWA Networked Media Open Specifications	Discovery, registration, connection management, control	APIs and protocols enabling devices to automatically discover each other and establish connections without manual IP configuration

How They Relate – The Big Picture

Think of a 2110 facility as a large kitchen:

ST 2110 is the plumbing & timing system
→ It defines the pipes (RTP multicast streams), the ingredients (video 2110-20, audio 2110-30, ancillary 2110-40), the clock on the wall (PTP via ST 2059-2), and the recipe for packet pacing (2110-21) and hitless protection (2022-7).

NMOS is the kitchen staff coordinator & order system
→ It lets every appliance (encoder, decoder, switcher, multiviewer) automatically shout: “Hi, I’m Camera 1 – I can send 1080p60 video on multicast 239.1.2.3:5004” (IS-04 registration)
→ And the director (controller) says: “Switcher 3, connect to Camera 1’s video and Audio 5’s stereo pair” (IS-05 connection management)

Without NMOS, 2110 is technically possible but operationally painful — you’d have to manually enter IP addresses, ports, and SDP into every device. With NMOS, it becomes plug-and-play at scale.

How They Work Together in a Real Facility

Device boots up

Encoder registers itself with the NMOS Registry (IS-04)
Publishes: “I’m sending video essence on multicast group X, port Y, with these RTP parameters (SDP)”

Controller/orchestrator (e.g., Evertz MAGNUM, Grass Valley Orbit, custom NMOS controller)

Queries the registry (IS-04) → discovers all senders and receivers

Receiver

Joins the multicast group (via IGMPv3)
Receives RTP packets
Uses PTP (ST 2059-2) to align timestamps → renders video/audio in perfect sync

Timing glue

PTP (from ST 2059-2) keeps every device’s clock locked to the same Grandmaster
RTP timestamps in 2110 streams are generated from this PTP-synchronized clock → frame-accurate switching and lip-sync

Core NMOS Specs Used with 2110

NMOS Spec	Purpose	Relation to ST 2110
IS-04	Discovery & Registration	Devices automatically register senders and receivers, including SDP descriptions of 2110 flows
IS-05	Connection Management	Instructs receivers which multicast ST 2110 flows to join
IS-08	Audio Channel Mapping	Remaps channels within ST 2110-30 audio streams
IS-07	Events & Tally	Transports tally, status updates, and GPIO-style event messages
IS-09	System Parameters	Shares configuration data such as PTP domain, system settings, and logging parameters

Bottom Line Relationship

2110 = the media transport & timing pipes (how the video/audio/data actually flows and stays in sync)
NMOS = the control plane & orchestration (how devices find each other, connect, and manage flows)

You need 2110 for the actual media streams to work over IP with broadcast-grade timing.
You need NMOS (at minimum IS-04 + IS-05) to make the system usable at scale without manual configuration nightmares.

In practice:
A modern 2110 facility is almost always ST 2110 + NMOS IS-04/IS-05 (plus ST 2059-2 PTP and ST 2022-7 hitless).
The two are designed to be used together — NMOS is the “glue” that makes 2110 practical in real live production environments.

UPDATED

4/01/26

V260401-1.0