28 TVBEurope ForumChannel in a Box


www.tvbeurope.com January 2013


Operators still see the same screens, control surfaces, playlists, and automation at work


control environment retains the feel of a traditional master control room, with the exception of a physical switcher desk. Despite the fact that much of the ‘work’ on content is performed in the cloud, user interfaces and video monitoring look and function the same way they do now in most facilities. Operators still see the same


Within the operation centre, the monitoring and control environment retains the feel of a traditional master control room, with the exception of a physical switcher desk


Cloud playout: Virtualising channel and content delivery


By Neil Maycock, chief architect, Snell


SENIOR EXECUTIVES at broadcast stations and media groups are increasingly looking at opportunities for moving from fixed dedicated infrastructure within their own operations to virtualised infrastructure located in private data centres. As they consider this alternative playout model, most are concerned with a common set of requirements. Faced with the challenge of


delivering content to consumers anytime and anywhere, broadcasters need flexible and scalable infrastructure that can be shared by multiple business units to deliver linear (TV and streaming) and nonlinear (VOD) services. Likewise, the speed with which they must be able to deploy new services in response to market dynamics demands a content-delivery model boasting both flexibility and scalability.


The primary benefits of shifting playout operations to the cloud are greater efficiency and lower costs, as well as improved agility in rolling out


Neil Maycock: The availability of software as a service (SaaS) changes the business model — a move from capex to opex


new services. The cloud-based model offers these benefits by taking core storage, processing, and delivery systems out of the broadcast facility and putting them into a data centre, where those resources can be shared by multiple operation centres within a broadcast group. The availability of software as a service (SaaS) changes the business model — a move from


capex to opex — by allowing the group to invest in functionality only when and as needed.


Software support In this approach, individual operations centres typically are responsible for the ingest and QC of new content and creation/management of associated metadata. Whether generated internally or routed from an external source, both live streams and files can be pushed to the data centre for shared access (and subsequent distribution by) operations centres. Infrastructure within the data centre supports software processes — such as standards conversion or transcoding — running on generic IT hardware. Both software processes and CPU bandwidth are dynamically assigned to ensure high performance at any given time. Once content is processed and incorporated into


broadcast programming, it is sent back to the appropriate operations centre for distribution. While the cloud-based model yields greater flexibility in allocating resources to content creation and processing, the approach maintains much of the functionality familiar from more conventional ground-based models. Within the operation centre, the monitoring and


At a time when


screens, control surfaces, playlists, and automation at work. Instead of being plugged into boxes into an adjacent rack room, local systems are connected to the data centre, where boxes are replaced by software applications running on a standard computing platform. Though the user experience is familiar, the cloud-based approach allows functionality and channels within a particular room to be assigned with greater freedom. The ultimate objective is that a channel can be created purely by allocated system bandwidth (software processes and associated CPUs) in the data centre.


Keeping secure Operationally, cloud-based playout requires both secure handling of data within the data centre and secure connectivity between operations centres and the data centre. Media management also is critical for the reliable and efficient movement of assets between the data centre and operations centres, as well as to support content repurposing and packaging workflows for multiplatform delivery. Any aspects of content preparation that are outsourced need to be negotiated, most likely through a combination of rights management and limited access to the data centre. At a time when some


some broadcasters


still consider Channel in a Box technology to be a radical step


forward, others are actively leveraging that technology and looking at what comes next


broadcasters still consider Channel in a Box technology to be a radical step forward, others are actively leveraging that technology and looking at what comes next. The most successful companies in the year ahead will be those that adopt resource and time-saving


broadcast solutions that are deployable


today and that, going forward, facilitate


the evolution toward cloud-based models


without rendering today’s investment obsolete.


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