Despite the ups-and-downs of TV’s appeal over the years, the media landscape is growing increasingly competitive. Broadcasters are having to revisit strategies and workflows to ensure they can keep up with the growing demands and expectations of viewers. In such a fast-paced industry, having the flexibility to adapt quickly without the worry of delays and escalating costs is essential.

So how can content providers ensure they are delivering the highest-quality content to consumers, whilst simultaneously keeping operating costs low and channel management accessible? For many broadcasters, this has been achieved by transitioning their existing services to the cloud.

First, Let’s Just Get One Thing Clear
Before going on to discuss the huge benefits of using the cloud for playout, it is important to understand that true cloud working is not the same as virtualization. Both rely on similar models and principles, but the technology of virtualization is essentially only one step in the evolution which led to the development of modern cloud technologies. 

Put simply, virtualization is a technology that allows software to use hardware computing resources more efficiently, making a single resource act like many. Cloud embeds such technologies as virtualization at its core but modern cloud infrastructure offers a much greater range of services, allowing a sharing of resources beyond anything a standalone private data centre with virtualization can achieve. Typically deploying a cloud native application in a virtualized private datacenter is possible but essentially a downgrade in terms of the capabilities that can be achieved when running in the public cloud.

True Cloud Playout: Ticking the Right Boxes
Events of the last few years have led to an increased need for playout solutions that allow for remote operation. Working in the cloud helped operators to solve the immediate crisis that Covid created and now, cloud working is revolutionizing how broadcasting will be done long term. Switching playout to the cloud brings a number of benefits in terms of cost savings, flexibility, scalability and efficiency.

Significant cost savings are gained because cloud working removes the need for physical infrastructure and complex hardware, reducing capital expenditure. Cost savings don’t stop there. Transitioning to the cloud can be done with minimum upfront costs, and true cloud playout can also have lower ongoing operating costs than traditional systems. This is in part because, typically, you only pay for services that you use.

In terms of flexibility, cloud working allows operators to access and easily manage their channels, as well as carry out maintenance through a web application from any location. Flexible working means broadcasters can be responsive to user needs and quickly and easily launch new channels or close existing ones as required. In the past, linear TV channels were envisaged to run infinitely into the future, nowadays they enjoy much shorter lifespans.

By utilizing the scalability of the cloud for playout, providers can prepare media content and launch channels quickly, while remaining in control of their own content and channels. Cloud playout also makes it easier for operators to expand reach and target a wider audience by scaling up and launching services or channels in new regions. The beauty of cloud scalability is that it can be done quickly and easily as the business need arises, meaning there is no need to invest in costly infrastructure to scale up.

Operational efficiency improves with cloud playout because operators can easily optimize systems by streamlining workflows and integrating seamlessly with existing systems. Moving media operations to the cloud gives operators better tools for automation, data management and analytics. When it comes to integration with other cloud native solutions, integration is usually very fast as most new generation solutions use REST APIs which underpins data sharing.

Why Cloud-Native Solutions Offer the Biggest Advantages
Maximum reward comes from using cloud native solutions that are designed for, and built in the cloud, as opposed to cloud ready solutions that are not ‘born in the cloud’ but are instead adapted and made workable for cloud use. 

Cloud native solutions simply do not rely on virtualization, they involve the use of multiple microservices and utilize deployment tools such as kubernetes to allow for automatic scaling to meet demand and high availability across multiple geo-diverse locations.

It is through designing and implementing cloud native solutions that operators can achieve the lowest operating costs, the highest reliability and the greatest flexibility. The same level of benefits are not realized if existing on-premises processes and software are simply lifted and moved straight into the cloud.

A Gentle Transition
Given that cloud native solutions offer the biggest advantages, it is perhaps understandable that broadcasters are reluctant to make the full transition to cloud working, because of the perceived disruption and upheaval that comes with reimagining all workflows.

It doesn’t have to be like that. Broadcasters can choose to opt for a hybrid model where they first ‘cloudify’ the elements of their workflow that suit their business the most. This can pave the way for a more gentle transition to a fully cloud based operation. Regardless of whether your media business is embracing cloud working wholeheartedly or perhaps you’re just dipping your toe in the water (or should that be dipping your toe in the cloud?), cloud playout can work for you.

The Future is Cloud Playout
With the shift towards cloud-based operations having been accelerated by COVID, the broadcast industry is evolving at an incredible rate. As the advantages of operating from the cloud become more obvious and harder to ignore, there will come a time when operators will be faced with the decision of either transitioning to the cloud, or getting left behind.

This is certainly true of playout because, without a doubt, cloud playout optimizes operations and provides a future-proof, economical way of managing linear and live TV channels.

Once upon a time, you probably owned a physical alarm clock. Maybe you even traveled with it. And a Rolodex. And an answering machine, a desk telephone, a wall calendar. A stop watch, a calculator, a bookshelf. “Bespoke” things, to lift a term from haberdashery that seems to be making the rounds in tech-talk lately.

Now look at your phone. All of those things are in it, plus a travel agent, television, mirror, document scanner, cookbook, pager, and whatever other handy apps you carry with you, every day, that used to be standalone things.

The same thing is happening in broadcast video facilities, to single out one (of many) industrial instances of the “bespoke-to multi-purpose device” phenomenon. Banks of switchers, servers, broadcast-specific production/playout hardware —all of the individual components that make TV signals get from where they start to your screen— are ultimately tilting toward the same general destiny as your formerly physical stuff is to their smartphone doppelganger.

It’s one of the things broadcast-side technologists are talking about during the run-up to the NAB’s annual gathering in April. So far, I’ve spared you the very Dilbert-esque language of it, but I can spare you no further: Virtualization. Orchestration. Automation. Three words, fourteen syllables, lots of room for interpretation, in the overall language of “the cloud.”

VIRTUALIZATION, ORCHESTRATION, AUTOMATION, HUH?

Here’s the short translation: Virtualization is what happens when a big, standalone device becomes the “app” version of itself. Point to any traditional piece of equipment in a broadcast TV control room, and ask the nearest engineer what percentage of the time it’s actively used. Chances are high that it’s a low number.

Chances are also high that when it’s idle, a lot of compute, connectivity and storage resources are essentially twiddling their thumbs. That’s what makes virtualization attractive, especially to the efficiency-minded.

Orchestration is what makes those previously standalone broadcast “appliances” easily navigable, all in one place, with a deliberately “web-like” user experience/UX. Log in, pick a desired event (sporting event, newscast, comedy), drag-and-drop, voila! Good to go.

Automation in a broadcast video sense, is what makes it so that a TV show —and everything about it, behind the scenes— can be set up and torn down, in seconds. It’s the work that automates a series of processes, across a pile of gear, which used to take much longer.

Setting up and tearing down a TV show used to take much longer —hours, or days, depending on the material— because studios and production data centers are largely hard-wired. Control rooms are connected to studios by lots and lots of SDI (Serial Digital Interface) cables, some still managed by physical patch panels. It’s not unusual for dozens of devices to be physically patched to multiple distribution channels via a patch panel.

Plus, today’s “bespoke” broadcast appliances each come with their own management interfaces. Usually, they’re ganged together in some fashion of back office management tool, but even so, a typical day in the life of a broadcast engineer still involves a lot of manual configuration, especially when a broadcast endeavor spans multiple facilities.

“For lots of us, the transition to IP starts with location independence,” said a European broadcast engineer. “When you have a handful of locations separated by hundreds of miles, unifying acquisition is very desirable —but to get on the ‘IP train,’ it has to be cost-effective.”

THE FINGERPRINTS OF IP ARE ALL OVER THIS

At the heart of all of this bespoke-to-virtualized activity is the steady progression of IP (Internet Protocol)-based technologies, permeating all industries, as the goods and services all around us become more “Internet-like.”

In the case of video, it started (as technological advances usually do) with consumer technologies: Internet-connected TVs, smart phones, tablets.

It’s happening now, in video distribution, as satellite providers and the industry we used to call “cable” shifts more and more of its total available capacity to IP-delivered video and services.

Broadcasters and studios are next, as the transition to all-IP marches further “up” the video food chain. If the global transition to “all-IP” could be illustrated, it’d look like one of those maps that follows a moving progression, like spring —a bloom of green to the South, edging ever northward. Except in this case, it’s a progression from what you’re seeing on your screen, all the way “back” to the camera that captured it.

WHY NOW?

The IP transition for broadcasters didn’t happen earlier because Ethernet networks and interfaces weren’t fast enough to carry uncompressed video. Virtualization didn’t happen earlier, because data centers lacked “GPUs” (Graphical Processing Units), plus they were originally built to support “web-based” and “non-real-time” applications. However, professional media applications, like broadcast video, are necessarily real-time animals, and need GPU heft to operate well. Add in the absence of network scheduling techniques, necessary to avoid packet loss — “no dead air” isn’t a “nice to have” when it comes to TV broadcasts. It’s a basic necessity.

Those restrictions are lifting, rapidly, as the exhibits and sessions at the 2018 NAB Show will assuredly demonstrate. Again, this is as close as I’ll ever get to an endorsement, but from the Department of Full Disclosure, Cisco commissioned this series and provided the engineering contacts and background that informed this piece.

So if “getting virtualized” is on your “figure it out” list, and you long for a web-like, drag-and-drop way to see and manipulate video workflows, or even better, if you need to convince your IT-side colleagues of the changes needed in the data centers for broadcast video, that’d be a good whistle-stop for your NAB wanderings.

Bottom line is, the triad of virtualization, orchestration and automation is both inevitable and a plausible way to optimize your gear. That alone brings cost savings. But like any other technological advance, it’s as much about slivering costs as it is the “gotta have it!” capabilities that come along for the ride.

This is the second in a six-part blog series preceding the 2018 NAB Show. Click here to read more about what broadcasters will be talking about at this year's show. Click the thumbnail below for the next installment in this series.

About the Author:Leslie Ellis is a respected “technology translator,” well known in cable and telecom circles for her award-winning, 20+ year “Translation Please” column in Multichannel News. She took on this Cisco-sponsored pre-NAB series to point out common and frustrating obstacles, for anyone on the sliding transition toward “being more Internet-like.” It is less of a comprehensive representation of available options and more a glimpse into what’s worrisome, on a day-to-day basis for engineers and IT people who work in media and entertainment.

OTTAWA—“Virtualization” is the big buzzword in efficient, money-saving broadcast systems. In plain English, virtualization is “a term that sums up the logical division of actual server resources [CPU, I/O, and RAM] into ‘virtual servers’ that support specific software applications at will,” said Al Kovalick, founder of Silicon Valley’s Media Systems Consulting and cloud columnist for TV Technology. “Virtualization allows broadcasters to ‘spin up’ new automation systems, content channels and distribution platforms in a purely software environment; rather than having to purchase, install and service specific hardware for each new project.”

‘VIRTUAL SERVERS’
Virtualization is the natural add-on to the broadcast industry’s existing software-based automation systems; the kind that control day-to-day program scheduling, content playout, and channel-in-a-box applications. These automation systems save broadcasters money by eliminating the need to buy expensive proprietary hardware every time they want to add a new process/playout stream; by allowing the work formerly done by this hardware to be performed by low-cost commodity servers. Virtualization takes this cost-saving process a step further by replacing physical computers with “virtual servers” carved out of the broadcaster’s existing server resources.

Harmonic Polaris Live Because today’s automation systems are software-based, vendors such as Imagine Communications are encouraging broadcasters to target these systems as their initial points of entry into virtualization.

“We see automation as being a fulcrum point for customers wanting to make use of virtualization, because they can do as much or as little as they want to,” said Chuck Kocsis, senior product manager for the Dallas-based company. “This flexibility gives broadcasters the comfort zone many need before venturing into a new technology.”

At the same time, virtualizing a broadcaster’s automation system can provide tangible benefits for the entire operation. The reason: “Presuming the word ‘automation’ implies operations without the requirement for human intervention, 95 percent of operations can be automated,” said Rush Beesley, President of RUSHWORKS in Flower Mound, Texas.

NO MORE DEDICATED HARDWARE
Whether software-based systems are operated on a broadcaster’s own data center, a third-party data center in one or many locations, or in the private or public cloud, virtualization offers the potential for broadcast operations to become entirely software-driven. In its broadest sense, this means an end to discreet pieces of proprietary broadcast hardware from content acquisition to editing, mixing, recording, and commercial/program playout to multiple platforms.

As a result, virtualization moves the cost of new channel launches and production facility upgrades from money-intensive capital expenditures (CAPEX) to more manageable operating expenditures (OPEX). “You no longer have to prebuy or overprovision your facility with physical equipment, that you may not know if you’ll be using for the next year, or two, or three,” said James Stellpflug, vice president of product marketing for Belgium-based EVS.

Jean-Louis Lods, director of business development for DMC One content distributor that has already implemented virtualized channel playout and distribution is Amsterdam’s Digital Media Centre (DMC). It provides European playout services to A&E Networks, BBC Worldwide, CBS, and Fox Networks Group; among others. DMC has deployed Pebble Beach’s Orca software-defined virtualized IP channel solution on the company’s Private Broadcast Cloud located in the Equinix AM3 datacentre, about 3.7 miles away from DMC’s new operations center.

The payoff: “Time to market [for a new channel] and the challenge of acquiring an assortment of equipment from different vendors and connecting these together with SDI cabling has been removed, while commissioning a new channel is greatly reduced from a typical lead time of 10-12 weeks to literally hours, if not minutes,” said Jean-Louis Lods, director of business development for DMC. “This time-to-market feature naturally lends itself to support for services such as pop-up channels, companion channels for special events on OTT, and finally simply more redundancy if and when required.”

Karl Mehring, director of playout and delivery for Snell Advanced Media (SAM)BUILD UP, TEAR DOWN
The ability to create temporary new services to is one of main advantages of virtualization, according to Karl Mehring, director of playout and delivery for Snell Advanced Media (SAM). “This flexibility lets broadcasters launch new channels to take advantage of short-term opportunities, such as the Olympics, and then to shut down those channels once the opportunities have passed.”

Because virtualized deployments are entirely software-based, launching new services over a broadcaster’s existing distribution system “comes down to a licensing question,” said Andy Warman, director of production and playout strategy and market development for Harmonic in San Jose, Calif. “You just increase your licenses when you add a new content service, and reduce them when the service is shut down.”

Factor in the ability of software-defined virtualized deployments to do as much or as little as a broadcaster requires, “and we are moving to a content service environment where you are able to customize a playout solution almost on demand,” said Shawn Maynard, vice president/GM for automation systems provider Florical Systems in Gainesville, Fla.

Moving to a virtualized playout environment can also protect broadcasters from human-caused playout disruptions. “This is because everything is being remotely fed into master control from a virtual machine that’s living in a nice environmentally-controlled server room; well-protected from the normal issues that can occur in a control room where somebody can spill coffee into a piece of equipment,” said Dave Turner, executive vice president of ENCO Systems in Southfield, Mich.

Tally up the many advantages of virtualization, and one can see why “broadcasters are not looking to build their own rack rooms anymore,” said Scott Rose, senior director of product management, digital media for Grass Valley. “Instead, most of the major broadcast groups are looking at trialing both virtualized technology and varying rates of IP in their facilities, and some are starting to adopt them in line with their equipment replacement cycles.”

NOT A PANACEA
Clearly, moving to virtualized automation offers substantial benefits to broadcasters.

“But it’s a bit of a misnomer that you put something into a virtualized environment and everything magically takes care of itself,” said Eric Openshaw, general manager for Pebble Beach North America. “There are a number of network infrastructure variables, especially in a real-time system, that the engineers at the operator’s facility need to understand and interact with, which require a unique IT skillset beyond traditional broadcast engineering. It’s not set-it-and-forget-it.”

As well, cloud-based virtualized systems can be inefficient and costly if the data farms that support elements of these systems are geographically distant from each other.

“For any workflow automation system that needs to move media from point A to point B, you better be sure that the media is very close to where it is being processed,” said Paul Turner, vice president of enterprise product management for Telestream in Nevada City, Calif. “Otherwise a simple copy, which would take a matter of minutes in your facility, could take hours because the data has to keep going between Singapore and Seattle.”

This said, the efficiencies and cost savings provided by virtualized automation make this option worthy of consideration by broadcasters large and small.