Does it make sense to take MAM and playout to the cloud?

Álvaro Montalbán, EMEA sales director of VSN, helps to discover the cloud migration status of two processes core of broadcast activity: MAM and playout.

The cloud is already part of broadcasters' daily lives. It may not be applied in every installation, but it is present in many of the projects present and future of engineering teams. It is an everlasting variable of route sheets; a possibility, no matter how unnatural it may sound, palpable.

Its consolidation responds to different variables. Since the promises were made For almost more than a decade, broadcasters have taken advantage of their opportunities, while providers have known generate expectation and solutions in the form of new business models and process optimization.

Apart from the first uses as deep storage, as well as processing muscle applications (with the promising process virtualization on the horizon), the industry has also put integration on the table in hybrid processes o 100% cloud of the file management (MAM) and the continuity and issuance processes (playout). The former are more widespread, the latter more emerging, could provide new answers to the daily operations of reach televisions. national, regional or local.

Alvaro Montalban, as an expert on the subject from his vantage point in VSN, helps to know the state of the matter. Does it make sense, in the Spanish context, to consider cloud transitions in the MAM and playout worlds? Is it worth waiting for the consolidation of both technologies?

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Cloud: a personal question

Cloud development has advanced significantly over the last decade. It is a concept that has been breaking down barriers over the years, writing its next steps in parallel to the needs of television environments. Montalbán recognizes the merits, although he points out that he still there is time for its consolidation: "Perhaps you could think that in 2023 and 2024 it would be much more widespread, but it has advanced a lot thanks to the industry itself and all the circumstances associated with the pandemic."

“It doesn't happen overnight,” he acknowledges, while observing the heterogeneity of its deployment. Currently, the adoption of cloud processes adapts to the nature of each agent. Its financing (public or private), scope or number of delegations is determining its implementation. There are no rules or trends. The implementation follows its own rhythms, although its leak into the foundations of the most traditional broadcast has accelerated thanks to COVID-19: “The fact of having had to work in virtual and remote environments has helped push the adoption of the cloud.”

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MAM in the cloud: advances and opportunities

“Classic television, with its news, entertainment and live programs, will always have on premises”Montalbán acknowledges. The MAM vision 100% cloud, an idea repeated by certain industry agents, is inaccurate for traditional workflows, but not for new television models: “If a television has content completely in the cloud, they could study this possibility.”

Virtue may not be found in the middle point, but it is an important part of the market. The format hybrid is the most widespread option, since multiple processes are carried out in the local systems deployed in the facilities and others in solutions cloud supported in browsers. Completing the picture, cloud service providers such as AWS o Azure appear with their gigantic basements, the paradoxical cloud home.

The distributed architecture of many of the Spanish regional television stations, which have different delegations, favors working against the cloud instead of against a central server.

MAMs reinforced with the advantages of the cloud are especially relevant systems in terms of accessibility. The distributed architecture Many of the Spanish regional television stations, which have different delegations, favor working against the cloud instead of against a central server. “There are favorable elements and others that are not, but a distributed architecture can be interesting for many Spanish television networks.”

“It is easier to set up a machine on AWS than on a physical server.”

At the business level there are also opportunities, especially for those television stations that are located in a convergence point in terms of business model (something quite widespread given the moment of redefinition of television that the industry is experiencing): “If a television or audiovisual company is starting, it will have the possibility of undertaking a certain investment in a cloud system instead of make a concrete investment in all its facilities, waiting to see how the business evolves. (…) In terms of resources, it is easier to set up a machine on AWS than on a physical server,” says Montalbán, but not before highlighting the complexity of adopting these models in corporations belonging to public administrations.

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MAM in the cloud: challenges to overcome

Faced with these opportunities, and taking into account that “at a technical level, almost all solutions are prepared to work in the cloud”, there are still challenges to overcome. One of them is the question of hosting: “A medium-sized television will have an LTO library with its historical file, its storage in down in the cloud and you will have to be recovering it. In the end, in most cases they will communicate with data centers private. The cost of handling and managing that content will be the main challenge.”

Another issue that often comes up in conversations is the question of privacy. It is a critical issue that, no matter how many security certifications ISO 27001 that CDNs and software/service providers can comply with, security will depend on the coordination of efforts of all the agents in the chain: “You can have a completely solid security solution and store your assets in one of the most secure data centers.” in the world, that if in the end a client puts a USB in his system that he has found somewhere...

“On a technical level, almost all solutions are prepared to work in the cloud”

On the horizon, Montalbán sees an acceleration of remote ingestion and production processes, including equipment such as mobile phones or laptops in the equation. The streamlining of coverage that MAM processes can provide in the cloud could be a critical factor in opting for their implementation, especially in a context in which getting to the news first is crucial.

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Playout in the cloud: door to new services

Faced with optimism regarding MAM processes in the cloud, Montalbán does not consider that bringing playout to the cloud is a priority in the short and medium term for broadcasters. The operational advantages of this process, widely publicized by certain market agents and highlighted at market fairs (perhaps mere noise), are not enough to undertake the change in the traditional structure of television.

The moment in which the industry finds itself, with the IP on the horizon but with him SDI as the main standard in broadcast infrastructures around the world, justifies his position: “If you have your infrastructure mainly in SDI, it will obviously be difficult for you to convert everything. There are many parts of the chain that can be broken.”

The operational advantages of bringing playout to the cloud are not enough to undertake the change in the traditional structure of television.

Playout in the cloud does not make much sense given the reality of Spanish television today. Even so, Montalbán recognizes that, depending on the financial capabilities of each chain, the possibility of using these systems as back-up o disaster recovery. Another use that the person responsible for VSN identifies is its use for the management of canales pop-up or channels FAST: “They are very dynamic contexts that could benefit from these processes.”

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Who can afford to make the leap to the cloud?

There are several success stories that demonstrate the integration of 100% cloud processes. Despite this, while large American and pan-European corporations have the financial muscle To bring high-demand processes to the cloud, Montalbán sees it as “complicated” for small and medium-sized televisions in Spain have “the majority of their management or continuity environments in the cloud.” The costs still they are not acceptable, and the promise of UHD and the greater demands on content management do not help bring optimism to financial teams.

Montalbán considers that it is quite feasible that many of these televisions will begin to carry small parts of your processes to systems cloud.

Given this situation, Montalbán does consider that it is quite feasible that many of these televisions will begin to carry small parts of your processes to cloud systems. VSN itself is promoting several of these options, such as its trafficking systems: “It is true that many public administrations cannot afford to spend an amount on a traffic system, but perhaps they can afford to pay an amount per month and try it.”

“The innovation dynamics of the technical directions of each television also come into play here,” Montalbán explains.

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Steps for cloud television

It is true that there are drawbacks in the consolidation of processes core supported by the cloud among broadcasters, but also that the industry is moving towards offering broadcasters the possibility of choosing the cloud in their upcoming transitions.

Montalbán, in his examples in this regard, reduces the possibilities that the conservative option win the battle between broadcast engineers: “Physical media will become less and less common. There are few video tapes left, since they are already all LTO. And the less LTO there is and the more digitized everything is in cloud systems, the more viable it will be to process all content natively in the cloud," explains the VSN sales director, then alluding to IP: "The less "video equipment and the more IP equipment there is, the easier it will be for part of the continuity to exist in the cloud."

An article by Sergio Julián Gómez

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