22 TECHFEED Production in the Cloud
Words by Elsie Crampton As cloud becomes a viable resource for production, it has the potential to change not only the way we produce and distribute content, but even the type of content we make CONTENT IS KING: NO, REALLY
he traditional way of doing business in the content industry – probably for several hundred years now – has been to buy a
“What you’re doing now is putting together an end-to-end supply chain that is software defined,” says Eric Bolten, vice- president of strategic account development at Zixi. “It will go across different production environments and, depending on the requirements, you’ll be able to spin up resources as required, and be able to handle anything from a live Q&A feed on a small-tier event to Super Bowls, Olympics and World Cups where audiences are both large and varied.” Zixi has been an leader in video transport over IP since the early days. As early as 2013, the company was doing live digital acquisition, and has become a major force in cloud delivery, with a customer list that’s a who’s who of major broadcasters and content companies. “Workflows are becoming mixed,” says Bolten. “You’re not going to want to use satellite and take up an entire transponder anymore, so you’ll be using cloud-based and internet-based workflows in certain sections of the content supply chain. You may be using traditional master control in the centre segments of the chain, then your distribution will go to traditional cable and multiple service operators, as well as off to the various platforms in the digital sphere.” THOUSANDS OF EVENTS, THOUSANDS OF STREAMS Cloud production, in particular, is beginning to transform live video, expanding the ability to cover and exploit the potential of a live event. In the linear TV world, a single
gone from expecting very little from the streaming world, to expecting it to be equal to (or even better than) their traditional TV broadcast. A broadcast workflow held together by a single cohesive style of workflow is a thing of the past. As interoperability and IP delivery become the norm, hybrid workflows will become the standard, and the idea that different entities in different departments have different job functions is starting to blur.
set of tools and then use those tools to produce something for your audience. But the world of cloud production presents a whole new paradigm; one in which the content and audience come first and the tools are brought on to serve that content and audience as needed. ‘Content is king’ is by now a meaningless cliche, but in the fully connected, cloud- driven production environment, it is the content that will have the final say about which tools will be used and how. Expectations from audiences are high,
in part because of the ubiquity of the high-end content streamed
through cloud-based delivery. People have
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