Market and Technology Trends in the Broadcast Industry
Now is the time for hybrid on-premises, remote and cloud playout
Diversify. It’s what we’re told to do with our investments — never have all your assets in one place. We do this for our personal investments. Our organizations do this with their corporate investments, but do we do it for our most valuable investment — the services we provide to our viewers?
There are plenty of technologies to originate and deliver programs to the audience. Some just show up in a flash and disappear to make space for new ones. But some are here to stay, and Cloud is one of them. Cloud is mature, widespread and offers not only to IT, but also to media industry features worth to explore.
As in every modern technology, Cloud is different, complex, and to utilize its services requires a fair amount of technical understanding. But, Cloud is mainly part of a business model, it is supposed to bring the Cloud providers money, a lot of money. Thus, the users must understand and get experience with the pricing structures of Cloud services, to make use of Cloud benefits, and to avoid Cloud as a burden.
This is what the Aveco’s Hybrid playout concept is all about, to open the gates to the world of Cloud for media companies.
Aveco playout solutions are well established and well known for their technical qualities, reliability, as well as the ability to adopt any technology, any workflow and any business model. This assures a solid and reliable bottom line, and adds a space for Cloud exploration. Broadcasters can start with moving one channel to the cloud, launch one or two new ones, utilize Cloud for regional programming insertion, or perhaps run a disaster recovery in the Cloud. Aveco’s ASTRA MCR playout automation system makes sure your experience will be seamless and straightforward.
The ‘Remote’ in the title of this article names just another technology that can be added to the mix: insertion of regional programming. Edge devices located at the points of regional distribution, managed by Aveco’s automation from headquarters, can deliver s
olid additional revenues to the broadcaster, without any additional burden put on the staff.
The ability to control on-premises, remote and cloud-based playout functions from ASTRA MCR’s single easy-to-use user interface means that master control operators don’t need to know (or even care) where the services are originated from, and where the assets are located. They have optimum control wherever they are. All technicalities, as well as asset exchange among on-premises, remote and Cloud-based storages are automatically handled by the Aveco’s ASTRA MCR and ASTRA MAM systems.
Deciding what goes where is a corporate business decision. Deciding how to manage all those services and media assets in all of those locations — and how your master control operators handle all these assets in all of these locations — is an easy decision: Aveco’s automated ASTRA MCR.
The decision can change over time, as business requirements dictate, so after gaining experience with a handful of channels in the Cloud, those Cloud operations can be expanded or shrunk to optimize the technical mix and to optimize the services and revenues. Aveco has the technologies, experience and personnel to support you in your decisions.
For providing services in the Cloud, Aveco has teamed up with Harmonic for integration of Harmonic’s VOS® 360 dedicated end-to-end video cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform. Aveco’s ASTRA MCR handles all the back-end work.
This type of multi-location control of services and assets including the Cloud, provided by Aveco and Harmonic — can open up new business possibilities, while ensuring that current operation workflows are as smooth and seamless as possible.
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