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Samsung Electronics will use Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud-based service infrastructure to manage the delivery of apps and software to its Smart TVs worldwide, the companies announced Monday. The CE maker sells Smart TVs and provides Internet-connected services in 120 countries — and plans to expand even further. Compared with the cost of expanding its in-house IT services, Samsung achieved a tenfold cost reduction by choosing to run that infrastructure in Microsoft’s cloud, according to the companies. Samsung also “observed greater speed of service in Asia, where it sees most of its Smart TV traffic,” they claimed. In this context, you’re looking at a classic build-versus-buy scenario. According to Microsoft, other companies using Windows Azure include General Mills, LexisNexis, NASA and Television Broadcasts Ltd. (TVB), a Hong Kong-based TV broadcaster.
The experts weigh in on when companies should encode and transcode their own content, and when it makes sense to move to the cloud. Economies of scale, faster deployment and format responsiveness, plus drastically reduced CAPEX (capital expenditures): All of these are reasons why it can make sense to move video transcoding and distribution from your company to a third-party cloud-based service. At the same time, there are instances where it makes sense to keep transcoding and distribution in-house. Here’s how to decide when the cloud makes sense, and when it doesn’t.
VMs have enabled a new public utility of cloud-based computing, providing IT resources that are charged based on usage. This new utility has transformed the way IT companies deploy applications hosted on x86 server architecture, allowing them to quickly deploy new software and services. More recently, vendors of broadcast technology have extended their use of the x86 Intel server architecture as they move towards workflows based on files. In the early days, it was back-room systems such as Traffic and Scheduling that made the most use of an x86 architecture. As IT servers become ever more powerful, many of the broadcasting tasks, which historically have been handled by unique proprietary DSPs, are now able to be carried out, using software, on standard IT servers. If we look at an entire workflow — ingest, transmission and uplink — of a typical publisher-broadcaster, we will find IT servers running applications at every stage.
Limelight Networks introduced a new solution framework designed to address the specific digital media workflow needs of vertical markets—Limelight Orchestrate. This suite of industry-specific content publishing workflow solutions leverages a flexible application platform for hosting cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) services, marketing automation technologies, and powerful analytics. Combined, the Orchestrate technologies and services help to manage the growing complexity inherent in publishing digital content to large International audiences that are accessing content from a myriad of connected devices. Featuring video publishing and management, web content management, cloud storage, site acceleration, and Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, customers can use Orchestrate to elevate their Internet activity from just managing and publishing content to driving revenue by delivering an enhanced online end-user experience. Limelight Orchestrate is made even more powerful by Limelight’s scalable global network.
When we covered Windows Azure Media Services at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show a month ago, one partnership highlighted in the mock-up demonstration that caught our eye was Digital Rapids' new Kayak technology. At this week's Streaming Media East show, we asked Mike Nann, Digital Rapids director of marketing, to expand a bit on the tie between Kayak and Azure. "At NAB, we demonstrated our solutions working with Windows Azure Media Services in two different ways," said Nann. "One way is in the context of Transcode Manager, and one is in the context of the Kayak workflow platform itself. While Kayak is our new workflow platform, Transcode Manager 2.0 is a specific solution built on the much-broader Kayak platform that can also run on Windows Azure." Nann explains that Digital Rapids sees the tie-in to AMS taking on two forms when Transcode Manager 2.0 and Azure Media Services (AMS) are both launched later this calendar year.
Out of all the companies with industry-standard video editing apps, only Avid has managed to release a Cloud-based version – and this only recently. How is it that Forbidden Technologies has been able to get so far ahead in this space? Many companies have tried to use a readily available web video streaming technology, such as MPEG, to base their editing system on. The eight year lead Forbidden has in its frame accurate cloud post-production platform shows just what an obstacle it is to try to fit together pieces designed to solve the wrong problem.
Cloud streaming delivery models such as Microsoft's Windows Media Azure could change the landscape for dedicated encoders. In our recent coverage of the National Association of Broadcasters' show (NAB), we mentioned Windows Azure Media Services as one of several emerging cloud models for scaling up streaming delivery to television-level viewership. The benefit of cloud-based delivery holds potential, yet one part of Azure Media Services was under-reported: live streaming. Why does live streaming in Azure Media Services demand more attention? We think the inclusion of at least one live encoder option is a precursor to a larger trend that will occur within the live encoding space: a move towards one-off rentals of live encoding and away from buying dedicated live encoding resources.
Civolution, a leading provider of technology and solutions for identifying, managing and monetizing media content, has announced that its NexGuard – Online Media Delivery (OMD) video watermarking technology will run on Windows Azure Media Services. Windows Azure Media Services is a new set of cloud-based media technologies that enable Microsoft Corp.’s customers and partners to create, distribute and manage customized media solutions across all types of devices and platforms. As the newest addition to Civolution’s extensive and award-winning forensic watermarking application suite, NexGuard – OMD enables secure delivery of digital media assets processed through the cloud on Windows Azure. Windows Azure Media Services enables users to upload a video asset to the cloud and configure watermarked output renditions. The watermark insertion is performed in two stages. The first stage, referred to as ‘watermark pre-processing’, is performed once per media asset while transcoding original assets to the desired delivery format. The second step, referred to as ‘watermark smart embedding’ is applied upon streaming by Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) or third party CDNs. After a media asset is passed through the NexGuard watermark pre-processor, the file is delivered in Smooth Streaming format, to PC, Mac, Xbox and whole host of connected devices like iOS, Android and Connected TV’s which are all capable of supporting smooth streaming format. This format can then be uploaded to a CDN for delivery to the end user and is fully compliant with Microsoft Silverlight. At the CDN level, a transaction identifier is applied by the NexGuard watermark smart embedder, making each delivered stream and copies thereof uniquely traceable. In November 2011 Civolution announced it joined the Akamai NetAlliance partner program as a Digital Media Solution Partner, integrating its NexGuard smart embedder technology with Akamai’s HD CDN.
Haivision says its new HyperStream Internet media services portfolio simplifies and automates media distribution through cloud transcoding and CDN connectivity for OTT delivery of high quality, adaptive live HD content. Available as both a user-controlled software as a service (SaaS), and as a fully managed service, HyperStream brings together the power of cloud-based transcoding on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and easy connectivity to Akamai’s SOLA Media Solutions for global delivery, security and analytics. HyperStream Live is a pay-per-use live cloud transcoding SaaS for delivery of adaptive video content to desktop and mobile devices over the Internet. HyperStream Concierge is a fully managed service for Internet media delivery, including cloud transcoding, CDN distribution, video player configuration, event set-up and management, and on-site support as needed.
Windows Azure Media Services is a cloud-based PaaS solution that enables you to efficiently build and deliver media solutions to customers. It offers a bunch of ready-to-use services that enable the fast ingestion, encoding, format-conversion, storage, content protection, and streaming (both live and on-demand) of video. It also integrates and exposes services provided by industry leading partners – enabling an incredibly deep media stack of functionality that you can leverage. You can use Windows Azure Media Services to deliver solutions to any device or client - including HTML5, Silverlight, Flash, Windows 8, iPads, iPhones, Android, Xbox, and Windows Phone devices. Windows Azure Media Services supports a wide variety of streaming formats - including Smooth Streaming, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), and Flash Media Streaming. One of the unique aspects of Windows Azure Media Services is that all of its features are exposed using a consistent HTTP REST API. This is true both for the media services we've built, as well as the partner delivered media services that are enabled through it. This makes it incredibly easy to automate media workflows and integrate the combined set of services within your applications and media solutions. Like the rest of Windows Azure, you only pay for what you use with Windows Azure Media Services – making it a very cost effective way to deliver great solutions.
Front Porch Digital, the leader in solutions to migrate, manage, and market media content, today announced LYNXdr, a secure, cloud-based, disaster recovery (DR) and long-term asset storage service for the media marketplace, from broadcast to government. LYNXdr is the first commercially available product from the company's LYNXsm cloud-based content storage management (CSM) initiative announced last fall -- the first of its kind in the industry, and the first to integrate cloud-based online video publishing (OVP). Front Porch Digital's LYNX technology is an integrated cloud-based environment for managing assets on a global scale, from any device and any location. Leveraging established secure "cloud" technology, the LYNX family of products supports a range of networked and distributed solutions, giving media organizations a next-generation approach to global asset management with an outstanding range of benefits in adaptability, on-demand scalability, capital cost reduction, and simplified maintenance. Tightly integrated with multiple, geographically diverse hosted CSM solutions based on the company's flagship DIVArchive technology, LYNX services provide a route to sustained profitability in fluid and competitive operating conditions by offering rapid infrastructure deployment on demand, matching IT investment to revenue opportunities, and making it easier to bring new channels to market, for both play to air and online delivery. PRODUCT BRIEF : http://www.fpdigital.com/Resource/Files/Lynx_brochureV2.pdf
According to Julian Clover at Broadband TV News, KIT digital has implemented temporal tagging into its new suite of apps for RTE, the Irish public broadcaster who have picked KIT Cosmos cloud-based solution for future endeavors. Such an approach would work not only with broadcast and on demand content, but also radio. Feargal Kelly, KIT digital’s VP of media solutions, says broadcasters need to move way from what he calls ‘passive second screen socialising’ to one that creates stickiness and increases viewer engagement with the content. “The level of misunderstanding of the second screen socializing purpose is so high, that some of the apps that allow viewers to message each other while watching TV are supplied by broadcasters and channel owners themselves,” he says. Kelly says that rather than place watermarking within the video, as is the case with the Zeebox social media application, broadcasters should put effort into the backend as was the case with Red Button apps. By using metadata it becomes possible to sync content that is frame accurate. See temporal tagging : https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/metadata/articles/-/blogs/7323943
Not that long ago, when only authorized set-top boxes could receive video service, life was relatively simple for cable operators. But now, as cable operators and TV networks have begun deploying TV Everywhere, one of the key hurdles has become the time and expense involved with integrating and maintaining these services with the ever-expanding array of connected and mobile devices that consumers prefer. To address this pain point, mPortal, a provider of mobile service delivery solutions, is announcing this morning its SPRINGBOARD Media product, a cloud-based approach to help accelerate TV Everywhere rollouts.
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Cloud services for media workflows go far beyond transcoding, and the pressure on pricing means that the battle between capital and operating expenditures will ultimately be won at the finance table... The cloud and its use to power digital media workflows is headlining many of the recent media-related announcements, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to parse through the myriad cloud messages to clearly identify what is real and what is simply noise. What is clear is that the cloud is rapidly evolving both in features and capacity in an attempt to address various technical and business issues that are prohibiting targeted verticals from adopting it. In this article I’m going to discuss those issues and point out key areas that should be considered when evaluating the various cloud offerings. READ ALSO THE REPORT ABOUT CLOUD VIDEO SERVICES @ NAB 2012 : http://blog.eltrovemo.com/711/nab-2012-ott-advancements-doubts/
Motorola Mobility says it will soon begin trials on a new cloud-based digital video recorder system that, at least on paper, has the potential to kick-start the pay TV industry’s ambitious yet cumbersome TV Everywhere initiative. The company’s networked DVR could theoretically fulfill the wide-reaching promise of TV Everywhere, allowing subscribers to multichannel services the ability to access their TV programming on devices ranging from notebook computers to tablets to smart phones. (It also spares pay TV services the expense of leasing out millions of DVR set-top boxes.)
There’s plenty of talk about “editing in the cloud,” and the common catchphrase I’ve heard is, “You could replace your microwave truck with a Starbucks.” In other words, cloud-enabled devices will let you edit anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection. There were three companies at the show with viable cloud solutions for post and news: Avid, Quantel and Aframe.
ActiveVideo Networks, creators of CloudTV, the advanced TV software platform based entirely in the cloud, today announced the general availability of its CloudTV H5 platform that can bring any navigation interface or application written in HTML5 to any digital set-top box or connected CE device. The scalable and battle-tested CloudTV H5 platform utilizes highly-optimized HTML5 browser technology running in remote servers to execute and render complete user experiences in the cloud. The fully-formed user experience is then streamed to the user's device in a bandwidth-efficient adaptive bit rate video stream. Subscribers control the experience by using their remote controls to send key presses to the remote browser, controlling the application in the same way as they would if it were running locally. Surprisingly, the latency between a customer key press and the UI response is minimal.
RAMP’s MediaCloud is the Web’s first platform to leverage cloud computing to deliver a comprehensive solution for generating and managing all types of rich metadata. Considered the “currency” of content, metadata includes the speech transcripts, time-stamped tags, categories/topics, named entities, geo-location and tagged thumbnails that comprise the backbone of the interactive Web.
NAB 2012 closed its doors two weeks ago, so it’s a good time to draw an appraisal on various themes concerning OTT issues, and especially premium OTT issues, that have been handled through industry technology offer during the tradeshow. Here we’ll go from production to distribution and examine the salient NAB facts and products, at least the ones which have a potential influence on OTT workflows evolution in the coming months (or years ?).
The media have been quick to embrace the potential of the cloud and it's a market that will look very different in the future. As cloud computing now passes from what we might perhaps call its adolescence into full adulthood, the industry as a whole is starting to refine its messages with regard to specific industry verticals. With clear advantages in terms of operational flexibility, quick start up with low capital-expenditure and back end serviceability, cloud computing is arguably well suited to the often erratic nature of the media industry across print, video and web-based new media streams.
FUJIFILM Recording Media U.S.A., Inc. announced at the 2012 National Association of Broadcasters Show inLas Vegas,Nevada, the introduction of their Permivault cloud based storage service. Permivault provides both on-premise and off-site solutions for long-term active archiving and disaster recovery. Fujifilm created the Permivault service to help customers faced with the growing explosion of content and data. These customers demand a reliable, cost-effective storage solution that is secure, scalable, and always accessible online. Permivault cloud storage service provides a secure storage architecture powered by StrongBox from Crossroads Systems, Inc. StrongBox is the first enterprise-level storage solution that leverages Linear Tape File System (LTFS) technology, featuring the unparalleled scalability and economy of tape with the speed and accessibility of disk. “Through the innovative combination of disk and tape within StrongBox, customers using Permivault gain uncompromising access to their content in an affordable, online active archive,” said Rob Sims, CEO, Crossroads Systems.
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"In a notable example of how vendors are looking to used cloud-based technologies to help streamline workflows, Avid announced Interplay Sphere, a cloud-based distributed production system. Using a cloud-based architecture, users of Sphere-enabled applications like Avid's Media Composer and NewsCutter would be able to edit, share and quickly get content to colleagues and facilities in multiple locations." AVID site & info (video): http://apps.avid.com/interplay-sphere/
It's hard to talk about software in 2012 without mentioning "the cloud". You've seen the ads from sofware vendors asking what your cloud strategy is? With all this hype, it's worth taking a look at the state of cloud video editing and the promise it could hold for Professional Video Editors. First the dream. Imagine having instant access to all of your material without having to plug in a hard drive. Even better if you could access it on any computer, from anywhere in the world, with the ability to easily collaborate with others, right? No more backups, because this would done securely, automatically, and redundantly. How about transparently using clusters of computers to instantly render video, output it into multiple formats, and deliver it as easily next door as the other side of the world. All of this without having to invest in racks of equipment or worrying about upgrades. Sounds like a game changer right?
Some aspects of the news desk and story editing can migrate to the cloud today. Functions such as script writing, proxy A/V editing, logging, rundowns, reporter assignments and similar can execute as a hosted service in the cloud. Why can some work areas migrate, even partially, while others not? Primarily, it's related to performance. Namely, it's the metrics of access "bandwidth," low-latency and deterministic timing. For some media operations, these are blocking specs for any cloud migration. The cloud is not "frame accurate," so the heart and soul of a many facilities, on-air ops, won't be migrating any time soon. So, based on existing vendor products or the potential of such, the diagram outlines what is likely in 2012. The figure assumes; application execution and storage in the cloud, 3-5 Mbps rates per client and < 75 Ms round trip latency from facility to cloud. Higher client rates and precise timing are best left to local means for the near term.
The latest version of FMS brings some significant feature upgrades, including Apple HLS live and on-demand streaming to Apple iOS devices, live HTTP streaming on Amazon CloudFront CDN, protected HTTP Dynamic Streaming for Flash, Dynamic stream packaging for single source video output to Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming and Apple HLS, and video origin hosting. SIP and IP Multicast aren't yet available with Amazon Web Services.
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