In this presentation we will look at how customers in the broadcast and media space are using AWS to innovate and serve their content to end users in new ways. We will cover how AWS is being used for media creation, storage, processing, delivery, and monetization of content.
After the session you will understand how to apply these technologies and techniques to your own business.
27. Video Factory – Workflow
SDI Broadcast
Video Feed
x 24
Broadcast
Encoder
Live Ingest
Logic
Playout
Data Feed
Amazon Elastic
Transcoder
Elemental
Cloud
DRM
QC
Editorial
Clipping
MAM
Amazon S3
Mezzanine
Time Addressable
Media Store
Amazon S3
Distribution
Renditions
RTP
Chunker
Transcode
Abstraction
Layer
SMPTE
Timecode
Mezzanine Video Capture
Mezzanine
Playout Video
Transcoded Video
Metadata
28. Why Use the Cloud?
• Up to 24 channels, 6 days a week
• A perfect pattern for an elastic architecture
Off-Air Transcode Requests for 1 week
39. Who are my customers ?
What do people really like ?
What is happening socially with my products ?
Where do people consume my products ?
What else might they be interested in?
41. « Using AWS, we can analyze live
viewer data in 60 minutes to deliver
targeted ads during a program »
Sanjeev Bala
Head of Data Planning & Analytics
Channel 4
Amazon Web Services launched in 2006, offering very few initial web services, which is nowadays commonly called ‘the cloud’
Cloud Computing, by definition means the on-demand delivery of IT and application services via the Internet using a pay as you go model.
Today, we take many things which we consume as an utility for granted. If we go back in time to the era of the industrial revolution this was not the case. Every factory had to build and maintain their own steam engines and power generators to run their factories, as there was no electricity infrastructure. This is very similar to what we see today in cloud computing, where many companies move to the cloud to be able to focus on their core business.
Today our data center footprint is global, spanning 5 continents with highly redundant clusters of data centers in each region. Our footprint is expanding continuously as we increase capacity, redundancy and add locations to meet the needs of our customers around the world.
Beyond the pure infrastructure service, AWS today offers over 30 services, which you can consider as building blocks to assemble your IT products.
We are going to show some examples on how customers in the media domain are using them…
If you look at a typical end-to-end media workflow, many companies are leveraging the cloud for distribution at scale - cloud services have enabled media and entertainment companies to tackle the challenges and complexity of offering consumers content anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
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Media companies such as studios and broadcasters have several other upstream aspects of the content production workflow, including:
For live broadcast scenarios we have the venues, which include cameras and production trucks where the content production happens. The broadcast center receives the signal from the venue via satellite or high speed fiber, and often includes storage and asset management aspects - live editing, clipping, logging, graphics and so on happen here. The broadcasters then process the feeds for distribution to their audiences which may be via a number of distribution mechanisms to a variety of devices such as set top boxes, PCs, and mobile phones.
For non-live scenarios, such as film production, there are other processes upstream from distribution – things like rendering, special effects, and editing.
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What if the media companies could leverage the cloud for more aspects of their overall media workflow? How would that improve their ability to be agile?
The cloud can be leveraged to meet ever increasing infrastructure demands of these upstream media workflow scenarios, and can also be leveraged for downstream scenarios related to consumption device experiences where cloud based big data solutions are being used for things like program guides, recommendation engines, ad decisioning, and second screen experiences.
Let’s dig into those scenarios a bit…
a single frame can take up to 40 hours to render
Not limited to the physical infrastructure, can expand as much as needed to meet business demands (preview the scene, change sequence, etc.)
Helped them to do what they couldn’t do by their own as a company.
Didn’t wanted to be in the datacenter business neither, wanted to be in the visual effects business.
Can shutdown a project as easily too.
Atomic Fiction had 4 months to create realistic Alien Landscapes for the Star Trek: Into Darkness movie
In total, they consumed 1.7 million rendering hours – this is almost 200 years, of which more than half (900.000) have been done in 30 days.
Also mention that once completed, they went back to 0 within a week…
= no need for capacity planning
http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/spotify/
About Spotify
Spotify is an online music service offering instant access to over 16 million licensed songs. The application is available for Windows and Mac OS operating systems, as well as multiple mobile device platforms. Spotify users can choose between a free, ad-supported version and a monthly subscription that allows users to enjoy music without ads on a wide range of mobile devices. Both options allow users to enjoy instant access to one of the world’s biggest music libraries, and to enjoy, discover and share music on a number of different social platforms, including Facebook.
The Challenge
Because the company’s goal is to help people listen to whatever music they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, Spotify faces the perpetual challenge of cataloging not only yesterday and today’s popular tracks, but also all those to be released in the future. Spotify adds over 20,000 tracks a day to its catalogue.
Emil Fredriksson, operations director for Spotify, explains, “Spotify needed a storage solution that could scale very quickly without incurring long lead times for upgrades. This led us to cloud storage, and in that market, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is the most mature large-scale product. Amazon S3 gives us confidence in our ability to expand storage quickly while also providing high data durability.”
Why Amazon Web Services
The company created Python-based backend systems to interact with its huge volume of content in Amazon S3. In addition, Amazon CloudFront delivers the Spotify application and software updates to users.
Just as music trends perpetually change, Amazon Web Services (AWS) helps Spotify continuously evaluate its infrastructure in order to meet evolving business goals. Fredriksson notes, “By removing the restrictions incurred by in-house solutions, we enabled much faster development and deployment cycles.”
As part of this evaluation, the company frequently examines the possibility of integrating new services into its existing AWS feature stack. Based on this practice, Fredriksson reminds other technical decision makers that resource utilization can be unpredictable. He explains, “Consequently it is very important to design your systems so that they can react to variations in performance and compensate with scaling.”
The Benefits
Spotify is taking its own advice to maintain a highly responsive system. While establishing new storage previously required several months of preparation, it can now be obtained instantly through AWS. While the company cannot always predict the next overnight music sensation, its infrastructure can spontaneously adjust to any alterations in user demand.
Fredriksson, says, “The ability to go from a system architecture design and capacity requirements to an online and working production system in very little time is fantastic. We are very much aware of the work and lengthy preparation involved in provisioning capacity, whether it is storage, servers, or networks. Therefore, we understand how valuable it is to be able to reduce all of that to an AWS API call.”
Regional OPTs:
18 channels, all on at once, 6 days a week
Want to transcode them all at the same time, but not to have those encoders hanging around idle at other times
Previously have taken 9-12 hours for the queue to move through our system
It’s news content – People want it while its still relevant
New system designed to cope with this (and more) throughput spikes
Sanjeev Bala is Head of Data Planning & Analytics at Channel 4