IBC Printed Guide - September 2014 - 98

www.inbroadcast.com PRODUCT GUIDE | Sept 12 - 16, 2014

Versatility, Scalability, Flexibility: Driving
The Demand For Hybrid Video Platforms

The demands of consumers for high quality content on the go increasingly challenges the ability of operators to deliver...
By:
Nikos Kyriopoulos
Director of Product Management

ideo anywhere, anytime, any
content. Operators are driven by
the need to retain customers and the
allure of new revenue.
Consumers are now addicted
to quality content, when they
want it, on any device they carry.
Ultimately, both will benefit from
this evolution, but operators face
short-term challenges managing the
architecture required to meet the
new demands.
Video service providers, which
include the traditional providers who
have always had access to content,
but need to distribute it in new ways,
now compete with new entrants,
including mobile carriers, ISPs,
online and big box retailers and
more. To counter this competitive
pressure, operators must stay agile.

Consumer Consumption
Evolution Means Complex
Workflows And Need For
Versatility For Operators:
As
consumer
demand
and
operational directives shift, operators
need to dynamically migrate services
across multiple architectures and to
multiple end points. Operators must
of course provide live, catch-up and
video on demand services, but also
much trickier workflows such as
live to video on demand (recording,
archiving, replays, catch-up) and
video on demand to live (playoutbased services). Further consumers
expect video delivered anywhere,
any screen and any type of content,
as they migrate from place to place
and from device to device. Being
able to manage these complex
workflows is essential for operator
success.

Video Domination
On The Network Means
New Scalability Requirements:
As video continues to dominate
network traffic, making up 66% of
all consumer driven Internet traffic
in 2013, and 79% by 2018 (Cisco
Report),
operators,
particularly
telcos, are questioning conventional
unicast delivery models while
envying the scalability of broadcast
TV. LTE-B/eMBMS deployments
around the world showcase how
existing LTE infrastructure and
spectrum investment can be utilised
to deliver unicast or broadcast video
according to viewership/popularity
of service and substantially offload
their cellular network.
Juggling Complex
Consumption Patterns
Means Multiple Architectures
And The Need For Flexibility:
Although
each
technological
advancement by itself provides
incremental or even disruptive
benefits, operators are faced with
the task to optimally streamline their
operations in order to accommodate
those advancements under the
same ecosystem and within a
controlled budget. Further, with
changes to consumption models
come challenges on how to manage,
monitor and navigate services
across the cloud, ground and virtual
architectures.
Traditional
ground-based
architectures,
operating
24x7,
make good sense for operators
with installed infrastructure or in
circumstances where content is
locally available. Virtual operations,
running on a hypervisor or

commercial cloud infrastructure,
allow the recycling of IT equipment
for a variety of services and can
be repurposed fairly quickly, but
generally command a substantial
OPEX, possibly diminishing the ROI
of the service.
Cloud-based
services
make
the most sense for seasonal or
unscheduled peaks of demand,
as often seen in live special event
broadcast, like TV show finales,
breaking news, the Super Bowl or
World Cup, and can be scaled very
quickly without CAPEX.
(Unprecedented demand, a sign
of what future events will look
like, came with the World Cup.
The Germany vs. Portugal game
generated 4.3 Tbps of Internet traffic,
and Argentina vs. Netherlands in the
semi-finals generated 6.9 Tbps, with
10% of the world watching online -
Akamai Report).
These services can be scaled
very quickly without a CAPEX hit.
While delivering better SLAs, due to
implied redundancy, operators are
asked to give up some operational
control. Current pricing models for
cloud transcoding are prohibitively
expensive
and
unpredictable,
and owing a "private cloud" cost
prohibitive.
Additionally,
most
cloud
transcoding services do not offer
a reliable way of ingesting live
feeds as those are generally much
more challenging and demanding
compared to VoD ones.
Given
the
advantages
and
disadvantages of each workflow,
operators have to manage services
across the three architectures.
Switching from one to another
requires reconfiguration of services
and options, as typically different
products
and
platforms
are
involved in each case. Feature
parity and seamless monitoring
and
migration
are
essential,
but rare.

How Media Excel Addresses
This Complexity:
Media Excel's HERO product line
helps operators meet evolving
video production and consumption
patterns. The HERO product line
combines an encoding engine for
H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC, native
support for all adaptive technologies
(including MPEG-DASH), and a
broad ecosystem of DRM, CDN and
ad serving integration partnerships.
HERO enables live and video on
demand transcoding services from
sub-VGA to 4K/UHD, from MPEG2 to AVC and HEVC, in ground,
cloud and virtual environments. We
provide both a carrier grade chassis
and a cloud-based virtual appliance.
With our HMS (HERO Network
Management System), operators
get full visibility, configuration and
control from a central location for
all those diverse workflows. HERO
Cloud offers packet loss-free ingest
with SMPTE 2022/Pro-MPEG FEC
as well as HLS and RTMP ingest over
HTTP with native error correction.
Given the challenges of managing
multiple architectures, Media Excel
also provides workflow management
and APIs, including SOAP, REST and
SNMP based monitoring and control
for load balancing and optimal
resource utilisation.
Finally,
our
pricing
model
empowers operators to take full
advantage of the potential of cloud
services without imposing additional
OPEX headaches. HERO Cloud runs
on many virtualisation environments,
including Amazon/AWS, IBM, Atos,
Fujitsu, VMWare, HYPERV, Microsoft
Azure and KVM. HERO delivers
high-profile services with operators
worldwide, including RTL, Orange,
NFL, NBA, MTV, Vevo, Korea
Telecom, AT&T, Verizon, Level3,
QuickPlay, MobiTV and more.
Contact us at events@mediaexcel.
com to set up an appointment at IBC
or visit us on our stand.
Media Excel
HERO Network
Management
System.

Media Excel OTT and multiscreen infrastructure.

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IBC Printed Guide - September 2014

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