Delivering live video content quickly, reliably, and at scale is a mission-critical capability for the media industry. Media companies need to deliver content from destination A to multiple destinations (often in the millions) to ensure they reach the right audiences wherever they might be.
While last-mile consumer delivery has been leveraging IP for some time, so far, industry players have been a lot more willing to opt for cloud and IP-driven video transport technologies for their Tier 2 or 3 content contribution and primary distribution, choosing more ‘traditional’ transport workflows for their high-value Tier 1 content.
However, innovation in software-defined transport networks that are media-centric in nature renders them fit for purpose for the stringent quality, synchronization, and reliability requirements of the media industry. When it comes to valuable live content, media companies shouldn’t continue missing a trick — here is why!
Building Media-Centric Foundations in Video Delivery
In the media industry, we often hear that the internet wasn’t built for primary delivery of media content. Pretty much any cloud provider can move packets from point A to point B or even to C and D over an IP network.
However, when these workflows are live video streams any packet loss will lead to failures. This is because a generic IP network lacks the critical foundations, by design, that are required for critical live media transport to platform partners, especially when transporting high-value media content.
For broadcasters and media services providers, the answer to this challenge isn’t shying away from cloud and IP innovation. The next-generation software-defined networks that are built specifically for media transport combine the benefits of hardware-defined networks and the cloud by leveraging media-centric foundations:
Observability
Sending a video signal to a destination over a generic IP network is like taking a stab in the dark. By choosing the correct transport protocol chances are that your signal will reach the destination, but you’ll have no visibility of how it got there and what its quality is like at the other end. You’ll be unaware of any problems the signal might have encountered at any point in its journey. In other words, you’ll be completely blind and unable to take any preventative or restorative action.
The answer comes with a software-defined network that breaks down the network into smaller segments. In doing so, it delivers monitoring metrics that provide insight into the video signal delivery every step of the way. This visibility enables broadcasters and media service providers to have control over their media delivery and ensure it is efficient, high-quality, and seamless.
Protection
Using a generic IP network to deliver video signals also runs into the problem of protecting these signals. Video delivery requires tight uptime and 24/7 robust and redundant services that are simply not available by generic IP networks.
A media-centric approach to enhancing the protection of video delivery requires a smart combination of ‘traditional’ broadcasting and cloud engineering that can apply some of the traditional broadcasting engineering methods to next-gen IP networks. This is why traditional broadcasting engineers are extremely valuable in this new era of cloud-powered media. With the right approach and innovation, IP networks that are tailored to the needs of video transport can overcome reliability challenges.
This is where flexibility is key. The more protected the IP networks are, the more expensive they get. With the right media-centric network, media companies can pick and choose which of their content (typically the most valuable) will be the most protected on an input/output basis. In this way, they can control when, which, and how they choose to protect the media they deliver without having to make huge investments upfront.
Scalability
Another critical foundation of a media-centric delivery network is the capability to scale up or down content distribution quickly, easily, and efficiently, depending on demand. This is what we call a "jellyfish" network that is based on an agile and nimble architectural approach that enables broadcasters to scale their streams as and when they need it.
Synchronization
Ensuring accurate timing information across the IP networks and synchronizing contributed with distributed video signals removes the challenge of having different partners receiving feeds with millisecond delays depending on their region. Synchronization is also a critical capability for the betting industry as any millisecond delay can have a big impact on the real-time betting experience and overall fan engagement and cause the broadcaster financial and reputational damage.
A Media-First Approach
There’s no doubt that IP and the cloud have redefined the media industry, sparking previously unthinkable innovation and use cases. However, not all IP networks are born equal and, in this case, fit for purpose.
Having the right media-centric IP media delivery network is a competitive advantage. It empowers you to drive new levels of efficiency, scalability, and flexibility while protecting your most valuable video content. It also grants you the control you need to optimize quality and prevent any issues with signal delivery.
For the media industry, this isn’t simply the era of the cloud and IP — it’s the era of the media-centric cloud and IP, and smart broadcasters and media services providers will harness their power today.
