Richard Heitmann, VP marketing, Aspera, an IBM company[/caption]
The media world is changing. Consumers today expect to access more content than ever before, from wherever they are, and on the devices most convenient to them. This trend has challenged traditional media companies to produce content in faster timeframes and in a wider range of formats to meet demand, putting a considerable strain on their fixed-capacity data centers, IP networks and satellite distribution systems. To alleviate these problems while improving the quality and availability of their programming, broadcasters are increasingly shifting their workflows to the cloud to keep pace with the growing demand.
Delivering high-quality programming to support the huge number of diverse devices in the market is not a simple task. Varying performance levels and screen resolutions of consumer devices necessitate an extensive amount of video processing to optimize the original content for each device platform.
Live and near-live streaming of broadcast quality video content have also required expensive and specially provisioned infrastructure. Traditional distribution systems use expensive live satellite feeds from the streaming source or dedicated terrestrial networks with high quality of service to ensure low latency and low packet loss rates so as to not degrade play-out quality. This cost is burdensome in any media application or service, but it becomes especially impractical in live and second screen experiences for events that occur one time, such as sporting events, movie premieres, concerts, operas and other one time events that can’t justify the investment in the dedicated infrastructure for direct distribution, or amortize CDN costs over long periods of viewing.
The cloud is the ideal candidate for meeting the variable and growing performance requirements for fast and secure transfer, processing and delivery of content. As demand rises, cloud infrastructure enables real-time provisioning of as many virtual machine instances as necessary to handle the increased transfer demands of video from the venue and the associated higher transcoding workloads required to transform the content and prepare it for delivery. When demand decreases, compute capacity can be scaled back to avoid over-provisioned scenarios, ensuring the most cost-effective use of the underlying infrastructure. By only paying for the infrastructure they truly need, production teams are empowered to process their workloads faster than ever before while eliminating large upfront investments in expensive IT equipment that would typically remain idle for a large portion of the day.
A great example is a recent global sporting tournament in Brazil. During this time, 34 cameras covered each stadium and 
produced around 60 hours of in-game footage from the 90 minutes of game time plus an additional 30 hours to cover live pre-match and post-match footage. This resulted in a massive amount of data that needed to be moved over the WAN and into the cloud using Aspera On Demand.
To satisfy consumer demand for content anytime, anywhere, and from any device, the organizers partnered with broadcasters to ensure all video footage was available and optimized for second screen devices such as laptops, phones, and tablets. Video had to be processed for streaming and uploaded in near real-time to the cloud where it could be transcoded for each target device platform as soon as game coverage began. In addition, six live streams of produced content had to be delivered concurrently alongside the direct camera streams. This totalled 40 streams of high-definition video for each game that were uploaded via Aspera directly into cloud infrastructure in near real-time.
All of the video streams combined demanded an exponential scale-up of transfer capacity and video processing, but only for a few hours each day when games were played. The organizers benefitted from utilizing dynamic provisioning of resources within a cloud infrastructure to meet large spikes in demand with agility and cost efficiency. Without Aspera’s FASP high-speed file transport technology, moving this amount of video in near real-time would have been an insurmountable task.
Broadcast and media production systems provider EVS utilized Aspera’s transfer technology to build up their revolutionary cloud-based content delivery solution, capable of delivering live and near-live distribution of sports action to streaming networks. EVS’ C-Cast technology captured video from each of the multiple camera angles via on-location live production feeds and passed it to Aspera to move those files in near real-time over the WAN to the cloud data centre in Ireland, over 8000km and an ocean away. Elemental Cloud ingested the uploaded mezzanine format and converted it into multiple bitrates, resolutions, and streaming protocols required to serve the full range of fan devices. Simultaneously, high-resolution final content was delivered via Aspera to regional rights-holding broadcasters, who were able to live stream multiple feeds and offer video-on-demand coverage from up to 24 camera angles.
By utilizing the cloud, the organizers allowed fans to enjoy optimized viewing of live and near-live coverage of matches from multiple camera angles on any mobile device of their choosing instead of settling for just one live TV feed. In addition, broadcasters had access to all live streamed camera feeds instead of just a single stream from the event’s central production site. This granted broadcasters far greater freedom to provide their own online live streaming and customized edited content to their customers.
On behalf of the organizers, Aspera moved 2.7 million files totalling over 27 terabytes during the tournament. Cumulatively, nearly 14,000 hours of media content was transported using Aspera’s high-speed transfer technology in less than 14 hours. That’s more than 4.2 Gbps of effective transfer rate and 1000x the playback rate.
Utilizing cloud infrastructure, Aspera’s On Demand Server was able to scale up to accommodate massive spikes in transfer
demand for each game. The new Auto-Scale Cluster Manager solution enabled the dynamic provisioning of transfer server instances in the cloud as game coverage began and de-provisioned servers as games finished and transfer requirements ended. This allowed the organizers to have exactly as much capacity as they needed, exactly when they needed it, and without having to pay for more.
Aspera’s FASP technology is widely used and proven to deliver the fastest and most predictable file transfers to its users under the most challenging situations. With complete management of bandwidth and uncompromising security levels, Aspera’s solution meets the levels of reliability and security that broadcasters demand.
Whether it’s for routine delivery of programming to online platforms or to offer multiple angles of live events, online web viewing and second screen services are vital tools in capturing and retaining the loyalty of today’s audiences while bolstering revenues. As the industry makes its transition to a software-defined and IP-network centric future, the cloud delivers real business benefits by boosting capacity effectively and affordably. The key to making it all work is fast and reliable collaboration between media organizations via high-speed Aspera transfers to the cloud.