WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—Around-the-clock news outlet Cheddar has moved to the cloud with the assistance of Playbox Neo.
Powered by Playbox Neo’s own CDN and the full Playbox Neo Suite media platform, Cheddar delivers its live and recorded feeds to 27 headends worldwide with full redundancy for uninterrupted service.
A distribution backbone of 54 connections ensures efficient signal flow between headends and end subscribers, supported by built-in failover paths for maximum reliability.
The 10-year-old Cheddar delivers finance and tech news and analysis live and on-demand across all traditional and OTT platforms. Previously, Cheddar used on-premises servers in its New York City-based master control facility for playout. When the media outlet was considering a new physical location, it wanted to install a new, temporary on-premises system with the aim of easily moving to the new venue.
Cheddar contacted Playbox Neo to customize a temporary on-prem playout system. Due to the pending move, a different workflow based on a PlayBox-designed-and-installed turnkey solution connected to its private CDN was chosen.
The cloud-based playout system delivers Cheddar's 24/7 feed as a fully SSL-secured, multi-bitrate adaptive HLS stream, with synchronized discontinuity handling across every ABR variant to ensure seamless playback on each downstream platform.
SCTE-35 ad signaling is carried end-to-end through the workflow, allowing Cheddar's distribution partners to perform downstream ad insertion and dynamic ad replacement on their own platforms. The feed is delivered in full compliance with the technical specifications required by major FAST and connected TV platforms and is backed by a redundant origin architecture with automatic failover to protect against service interruption.
It worked so well that Cheddar opted not to move to a new master control facility. Its PlayBox Neo Suite includes AirBox Neo for automated content streaming and broadcast playout as well as TitleBox Neo for graphics creation and Live Ingest.
“This system has worked like a dream for us,” said Thomas Staples, director of programming operations at Cheddar. “With simple administrative privileges, I can control all playout from the PlayBox server at the private CDN from my home in New York. The cloud charges are significantly lower than we’d pay with a hyperscaler. Also, we never spent money on a new facility because we no longer need to, not to mention the huge savings on rent. The PlayBox Neo Suite running on their own CDN has saved our network a significant amount of money—with zero limitations.”
More information is available on the company’s website.
