Qumulo’s modern storage platform tames monsters, aliens, robots and zombies for MARZ

Out-of-this-world storage innovation enables GPU rendering with high performance, scalable capacity, and real-time analytics

Special effects production for feature films and television used to be different creatures. Feature films typically had the big budgets to hire editorial and post-production specialists and leverage top-of-the-line equipment for visual effects (VFX), while episodic television programming teams often had to make do with fewer resources and limited budgets.

But now, original high-end content with sophisticated and spectacular visual effects on broadcast and cable networks, as well as streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Hulu, are blurring the line between feature film-caliber content and television programming. Studios and producers want feature film-quality VFX on a television production timetable – either distributing content week-after-week for episodic programming, or multiple episodes dropping on a single day.

Very few VFX studios have the technology or expertise to consistently produce high-quality effects on this demanding schedule. The few that do maintain massive amounts of storage infrastructure and rendering equipment in warehouse-sized spaces, with big staff and high costs to match.

The MARZ distinction

MARZ is a different type of studio, starting with its name. Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies (MARZ) is a Toronto-based VFX studio that efficiently delivers feature film-quality visual effects for premium television series, and specializes in character creation, alteration and replication. To view the studio’s portfolio, tune in to shows such as HBO’s Watchmen, Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys, and Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy.

MARZ’s fast turnaround times for its visual effects are radical for traditional TV production schedules. To achieve this, the team depends on an IT infrastructure centered around efficiency, performance and innovation.

MARZ uses high-speed GPU rendering clusters, game engine technology and artificial intelligence to produce its sophisticated effects. Leading VFX applications such as RedShift software accelerate its high-end production rendering. MARZ primarily uses Houdini, Maya, Z-brush, and Substance for animation, simulation, modeling, look development, lighting, and more.

Mission-critical VFX rendering not keeping the pace

MARZ was under pressure with its aging legacy storage environment. The existing Isilon system was straining to support resource-intensive workloads, and turnaround times on projects were suffering. MARZ needed to accelerate GPU rendering performance and real-time VFX production, and they needed it urgently.

The challenge was to find a high performance, high density file storage solution that was highly available and linearly scalable, and that provided advanced analytics for storage capacity management. The right solution also shouldn’t require a warehouse-sized physical space to house the infrastructure. That level of power and efficiency, at a smaller size, doesn’t often come off the shelf, and most storage vendors are unable to meet those requirements.

MARZ’s founders had used Qumulo’s hybrid cloud file storage at their previous company, Intelligent Creatures. They liked Qumulo’s software but wanted to be sure that the vendor could meet MARZ’s extraordinary performance requirements, while also staying within MARZ’s targeted budget.

Qumulo and its partner IC Technology met with the MARZ team and discussed Qumulo’s file storage, as well as its recently-launched C-72T hybrid SSD/disk storage platform. The C-72T is purpose-built for high-performance, high density environments with massively-sized workloads, just like those at MARZ.

In other words, the new scale-out NAS file system was smaller, faster, and offered increased performance and capacity. MARZ was sold.

“We designed our pipeline to produce feature film-quality visual effects for television, and to support the incredibly fast pace demanded by weekly episodes or a full season of episodes dropping on the same day,” said Farnia Fekri, MARZ’s Director of Marketing. “The post-production schedule provides a very short timeline to create quality effects. We chose Qumulo because its software allows us to deliver higher quality visual effects on a shorter timeline, and ensures that we fulfill our promise to our customers.”

“Our rendering turn-around speeds are radically fast. We selected Qumulo’s file storage to support the imminent 8K standard, and immediately put it to the test on our 4K shows, with more than 30 artists hitting the system hard, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Qumulo’s file system performed flawlessly and has exceeded our expectations,” said Sebastian Bilbao, MARZ’s Chief Technology Officer. “With our fast-paced growth, we would have been dead in the water if we had not taken rapid steps to upgrade to a storage system that met our challenging requirements.”

MARZ deployed the new file system on Qumulo’s Capacity Series C-72T platform. The studio purchased four nodes for its new high-performance, high-density rendering environment, for a total storage capacity of 288TB.

The C-72T, part of the Capacity Series of Qumulo platforms, is extremely dense and stores 72TB of capacity in a 1U form factor that can scale up to 3PB. Its high-density, block-level architecture delivers 100 percent usable capacity. Hybrid SSD/HDD media supports fast performance with efficient storage, and 6-core, 2.2 Ghz CPU and 64GB memory.

Qumulo gives MARZ wings

Installation of Qumulo’s file system was easy and problem-free. MARZ seamlessly migrated 90TB of data from its legacy Isilon to Qumulo during the implementation. The new rendering environment was set up in a day, and within a week the MARZ development team had all of their scripts running on the new file storage system.

“Having enough storage and keeping throughput at its highest are big challenges for any VFX studio,” said James Morgan, System and Support Administrator at MARZ. “Scaling up is also a major challenge for us, or rather it was. We don’t have to worry about that since scaling on Qumulo is so easy.”

Since deploying Qumulo’s software, MARZ has more than tripled its previous storage capacity and doubled its performance.

In addition to its increased performance and capacity, Qumulo’s high availability helps to support MARZ’s post-production and VFX workflows. If the studio’s infrastructure experiences a disruption, Qumulo’s software ensures continued operations without data loss or interruption. At MARZ, Qumulo has supported a constant, uninterrupted production workflow since deployment.

Further, Qumulo’s real-time analytics allow the MARZ team to pinpoint problems and effectively control how its storage is being used, instantly. Bilbao’s team is able to see usage, activity and throughput at any level of the unified directory structure.

“Our mission at MARZ is to deliver feature film-quality visual effects on television timelines,” said Bilbao. “Qumulo’s distributed file system has allowed us to scale with ease without disrupting production, and deliver premium TV projects with speed and quality, which are two critical requirements for our fast-growing company.”

Qumulo Helps Guru Studio’s Storage Take Flight

For nearly two decades, Guru Studio has been a leader in animated storytelling. With partners like Netflix, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Spin Master, to name a few, Guru’s award-winning content captivates and inspires audiences all over the world. Its roster of hit shows include the global smash hit PAW Patrol, Abby Hatcher, Mattel’s Ever After High, and its own original properties True and the Rainbow Kingdom, and the two-time Emmy nominated series Justin Time, which now airs in more than 100 countries. Specializing in 2D and 3D animated kids and family content, Guru has built a proven production pipeline that’s nimble while enabling a fast-paced, collaborative environment. The company now has over 400 animators and artists in its state-of-the-art loft studio in the heart of downtown Toronto.

Guru’s IT team is lean, consisting of five technology experts all housed at the company’s headquarters. Jason Burnard is the IT Director at the studio overseeing IT operations and has been with Guru for almost eight years. Kym Watts has been with Guru for more than five years and is a pipeline developer. Watts helps manage the studio’s software and infrastructure, and also maintains some of the tools used by artists.

Competition in the animation industry is fierce, and Guru’s IT infrastructure plays a direct role in differentiating the studio. “Guru is unique in everything it does,” said Burnard. “The infrastructure to support our customized approach can be demanding on our workstations and resources. Our job in IT is figuring out how to address those challenges and ensure our systems are optimized to fit our growing needs, all while doing so at a competitive price.”

Aligning infrastructure with business growth for the long-term

One of Guru’s major challenges, both from a business and IT perspective, was keeping pace with the studio’s rapid growth. “As the studio grows and takes on more productions, we’re constantly balancing huge demands on our infrastructure with keeping the systems accessible for our artists at all times. That’s our biggest challenge on a day-to-day basis,” said Burnard.

And what role does data storage play in Guru’s business? Watts said, “The importance of storage is massive. As the animation studio behind hit shows like Justin Time, True and the Rainbow Kingdom, Abby Hatcher, and PAW Patrol, we have amassed thousands of assets over the years. Having these assets available online so that our artists can quickly and easily access them is key as it saves lots of time. We no longer have to hunt around for tapes.”

Reliability was also paramount for Guru when it came to its storage. “Our storage infrastructure must be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s one of the core requirements of IT – from how artists work on their machines, to even how accounting departments access files,” said Burnard.

“The second thing we need from our storage is the ability to diagnose issues as they occur. We need insight into what’s actually happened, so we can figure out if it’s something we need to adjust and determine where the problem is coming from,” said Burnard.

“From the technology and infrastructure side, we also need the storage system to serve at scale,” said Watts. “Since moving our storage infrastructure over to Qumulo, we no longer need to have someone dedicated to storage. It becomes a shared role that a few people in our team can help with. As our studio grows, we love that we do not need to re-think our storage solution, it’s simple enough to pop another node in the cluster. To expand the cluster we just scale it up!”

Gaining visibility into their data, rebuilding trust in what’s possible with storage

Guru began searching for a new storage solution after the terms expired on its previous system. “With Qumulo, one of its biggest features is being able to capture the analytics and details of our data to see what is happening on our workstations,” said Burnard. “Being able to access real-time data helps us make informed decisions. Previously, the information we used to get from artists’ workstations on the floor was very limited. But with Qumulo, we tapped into the analytics immediately and found some crucial insights. It wasn’t another thing we needed to purchase.”

Watts recalled when Qumulo’s file system was first installed and began processing the studio’s data. “When we had our first productions migrated over to Qumulo, we were all watching how it accumulated stats and data. In the first month, you could see where specific applications were hitting storage particularly hard, and we could isolate those areas. We discussed it with Qumulo and, with the tools they provided, we were better able to optimize our data management and storage workflow without skipping a beat.”

Burnard added, “What we love with Qumulo is that there is no need to have regular meetings with our storage vendor. Together on Slack, we can figure out exactly what the system is reporting and confirm that we don’t have a pipeline issue. Qumulo is a real-time solution in identifying problems and helping us to a fast resolution.”

The transition to Qumulo’s file storage wasn’t just about improving Guru’s storage capacity and performance. Burnard said, “It’s getting people back into trusting that our storage is working correctly.”

Additionally, “Being able to tap into the API gives us a lot more visibility and control over what happens to the data that lives in Qumulo’s file system. One of the things that’s phenomenally quick is the ability to track data for every project hourly and determine whether it’s up or down. With the API, you can drill 2 or 3 layers deep and get listing of sub-parts in the file system,” said Watts.

It wasn’t just Guru’s IT team that saw the benefits from Qumulo’s storage. Burnard was able to better understand his data usage (and, in turn, his infrastructure needs) for the studio’s executive team. “Using Qumulo’s analytics and the API, we can get a forecast of where our storage is going to be. Previously, when we had to forecast our storage, there was no easy way to quickly assess what we needed. Now, when we talk about expanding our storage, I can bring actual numbers.”

Immediate answers and accessibility via Slack contribute to customer delight

When considering Qumulo, there were several factors that set it apart from the competition for Guru. “We are a relatively small IT group, and so we needed a support team that was actually supporting us. The fact that Qumulo uses Slack as an avenue for support is a huge advantage. The ability to ask questions directly with engineers and get immediate insights really stood out,” said Burnard.

A critical example was when Burnard was viewing live production data in the storage snapshots and getting differing results. “Essentially, we went into Slack and discussed the results I was seeing and how I was interpreting the data. Within a couple of hours, they walked me through how the snapshot architecture was designed and written. They made sure I fully understood the reporting. It was very educational, and I feel they learned from us, too, including how we were using the file system. Support from Qumulo is like having another team within the same building.”

Guru’s relationship with Qumulo is well-aligned both today and in the future. “When we talk to Qumulo about their plans for the future, their vision is very much aligned with where we want to be,” said Burnard.

Watts added, “Qumulo definitely has the right goal for the future of storage. I’m excited to see what comes next.”

Anthem Sports & Entertainment Massively Improves Reliability and Productivity, Consolidates 10 Channels of Broadcast Content onto Qumulo

Media and entertainment company eliminates data silos and gets crippled workflows performing with simple to manage and extremely scalable Qumulo file data platform

Anthem Sports & Entertainment Inc. is a television production and multimedia company that produces and broadcasts entertainment, sports, gaming and theatrically released films and documentaries. Anthem has offices and studios throughout the world, and broadcasts 10 channels in Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East.

Anthem’s rapid file-based data growth created a heavy load on its legacy systems, which
were dispersed for different environments.

“We needed an innovative new approach to centralizing and optimizing our data.”
– Ryan Barnes, Supervisor of Technical Implementations & Maintenance at Anthem

Anthem got what it needed and much more with the Qumulo file data platform. Qumulo’s powerful, scalable platform is built to radically simplify the complex workflows of the media and entertainment (M&E) industry and other file data-intensive sectors.

Roughly 90% of Anthem’s data is video content, with another 10% representing graphic images and text documents. Teams use a wide variety of applications including Imagine Communications for system automation, Amazon AWS Elemental for encoding video streams, and Telestream Vantage for file transcoding.

Many of Anthem’s applications access the same file throughout the production workflow. However, the company’s decentralized file data infrastructure resulted in data sprawl and multiple file copies for different applications and distribution channels. Because IT had to copy files to different departmental servers, duplicate data wasted essential capacity. IT spent hours of time each week managing disparate servers for performance, capacity, and security.

The legacy infrastructure largely consisted of an aging media server, JBOD media and Blu-ray optical storage. Rack space was at a premium and energy expenses were high.

Even more importantly, the environment had serious performance and availability issues and could not efficiently scale.

Innovative New Platform Optimized for M&E

The aging media server was at capacity, plus it was causing significant errors that impacted workflow.

The IT team researched new solutions and quickly decided on Qumulo. IT ordered a seven-node Qumulo file data platform that
was optimized for M&E with real-time operational analytics, radically simple data management, an API that automates provisioning and application integration, and massive scalability.

Barnes said, “One of our design requirements is easy expandability and upgradability. I want to avoid doing forklift replacements every few years. We did talk to a few other vendors, but none of them could give me a clear answer about scalability. With Qumulo, it was straightforward. You just choose a node type, buy it, and slide it into the cluster. Done.”

Anthem Boosts Productivity with 225TB+ Managed on Qumulo

Implementation was straightforward. Once Qumulo was up and running, previous problems vanished and productivity increased. The IT department no longer had three or four legacy system service issues to address each week. Qumulo file data management and consolidation reclaimed wasted space and accelerated performance.

IT centralized active file data onto Qumulo, migrating around 200 terabytes to the new platform. Today, IT stores more than 225 terabytes of Anthem’s core data. Should the company need to expand in the future, it’s a simple matter of adding new nodes to automatically scale capacity and performance.

“Consolidating all these systems onto Qumulo has been a huge benefit. We don’t have to spend hours each week keeping the systems running. Qumulo virtually manages itself and its performance is simply phenomenal.”
– Ryan Barnes, Supervisor of Technical Implementations & Maintenance at Anthem

Barnes described the difference once Qumulo arrived. “Replacing our legacy systems with Qumulo has been night and day. We have better performance and reliability, and we’ve seen improvements across the board. And since Qumulo is capable of so much more than our old systems, we now have time to focus on strategic and operational advancements – areas we never had the freedom to focus on before.”

Productivity Boost

Data consolidation onto a central platform improved data security and data management, which freed up to 500+ labor hours annually and allowed the IT team to focus more time on innovative, high-priority new projects.

Increased Performance

Transparent folder views made it simple for workgroups to manage folders for size and throughput. Higher performance also improved the user experience with flawless playback.

Analytics and visibility

Anthem traffic managers easily meet contractual obligations for show schedules, airings, and commercials with Qumulo file logging and tracking. IT uses analytics for proactive troubleshooting, trend tracking, and optimizing the file data platform for even greater efficiency and innovation.

Consolidation and radical simplicity

By consolidating core data onto Qumulo, Anthem achieved radical simplicity. Complex processes run simply off a single file data
platform with centralized files for easy access.

“Thanks to Qumulo’s stability and performance, we’ve boosted productivity and no longer have to waste time troubleshooting storage and file issues. The Qumulo file data platform has radically
simplified our file data management.”
– Ryan Barnes, Supervisor of Technical Implementations & Maintenance at Anthem

Ongoing Innovation with Qumulo

Qumulo freed up the IT team to work on new technologies for the company, including a work-from-home solution for high-performance video workflows. The team is also using its time and resources to build an innovative IP-based playout system, which will enable Anthem to distribute content to Africa and the Middle East. And Qumulo significantly improved their VOD offerings by consolidating files and metadata into a single high-performance system.

Network I/O for System T broadcast platform successfully participates in ST 2110 JT-NM testing

Testing provides additional clarification on System T standards conformance and interoperability

Oxford, UK — Solid State Logic (SSL) successfully participated in the Spring 2020 JT-NM Tested program, with the HC Bridge SRC and other devices from the SSL Network I/O range included in the “JT-NM Self-Tested” catalogue for ST 2110. With the unforeseen cancellation of the face-to-face event, the JT-NM move forward with the self-tested element placing greater emphasis on the extremely valuable testing tools. JT-NM’s efforts, backed by AMWA, EBU, SMPTE and VSF, are significant for the industry. Media stream and security testing tools are vital for broadcasters to move forward with IP based media production infrastructure.

SSL Network I/O devices are compliant with ST 2110-30 and ST 2022-7 to conformance levels A, B and C, all of which can be used simultaneously to receive and transmit streams on a single device. System T and Network I/O provides AoIP for all eventualities, with ST 2110, AES67 and Dante on the same hardware, all possibilities are covered. Unique full routing control from within the console’s software provides true AoIP resource sharing. Mic inputs are routed across the network when needed, audio outputs can quickly be patched from different consoles as required. Connection management and audio shuffling is performed directly on the network, without the need for additional routing hardware; a truly virtualised audio router.

For more information on Network I/O and System T, please head to: https://www.solidstatelogic.com/solutions/broadcast-production

For more details on the JT-NM Tested program in March 2020 and test results, please go to https://jt-nm.org/jt-nm_tested

If you would like to arrange a consultation or online presentation on the IP-native System T production solution for broadcast, please email sales@solidstatelogic.com.

Guildhall School of Music & Drama expands production and performance capabilities with Solid State Logic and multi-site AoIP infrastructure

The Guildhall School is a vibrant, international community of young musicians, actors and production artists situated in the heart of the City of London. Ranked as one of the top ten performing arts institutions in the world (QS World University Rankings 2020), the School is a global leader of creative and professional practice which promotes innovation, experiment and research, with over 1,000 students in higher education, drawn from nearly 60 countries around the world.

It’s one of those establishments where, despite its age – and the school was 140 years old in 2020 – it’s not surprising to find cutting edge equipment such as the award winning digital broadcast System T platform and the last analogue ORIGIN studio console in place, and working in unison. What is perhaps surprising is the sheer degree to which they are being driven — “We’ve got 72 live broadcasts taking place between now and the end of year,” comments the School’s Head of Recording and Audio Visual, Julian Hepple speaking in mid-October — and to find a state of the art Dante network threading all of the School’s performance rooms together with the System T S300 console sitting at its heart.

“We have two main campus buildings that are directly across the road from each other and within the school there are six large state of the art performance spaces built six and seven years ago: a concert hall, theatre, studio theatre, Music Hall, opera theatre, and so on,” explains Hepple. “System T gives us access and lines from each one of those performance venues and 24 classrooms as well. We’ve got a big Dante network that sits alongside a big NDI video network as well, to allow us to pull in and out of any room we want to and push anything anywhere, as well as do big multi-channel records and all that kind of stuff.

“As a result at the start of term we were able to deliver the country’s first full scale, socially distanced Symphony Orchestra, with 94 musicians in four different rooms, linked together by System T, who can all see a conductor on-screen via the NDI video network, as well as a multi-view of all the other rooms. I think we’re the only people doing that.”

Fast turnaround in the face of adversity

Hepple jokes that the School has effectively turned into a video production company, but also points out that it has managed remarkable things in the teeth of a global pandemic that has shuttered many institutions around it. That includes running its Gold Medal competition, which didn’t stop for either World War and counts the likes of Sir Bryn Terfel, Tasmin Little, and Jaqueline DuPré among its previous winners. And a lot of that is down to its System T installation and the way that it has helped the School navigate the problems that the need for social distancing can cause.

The School shut earlier than most at the start of the year which gave it an early insight of what it would need to do.

“That’s when the initial plan for the project came about and part of the reason I got the funding for the project was because I said I think we can still have the Gold Medal this year and we can use this technology to keep going though pretty much everything,” says Hepple.

Hepple is a two-time Grammy nominated Producer / Engineer, and through his wealth of contacts pulled together what effectively amounts to a DIY installation of the new system. Liam Halpin from Datasound Consulting put in the Dante, Guildhall engineer Sam Ziajka was responsible for networking, and the project was managed by Dylan Bate Project Management. It was a two day install by SSL followed by a further two days of training, and the team has been doing two gigs a day since the start of September.

“We hit the ground running and we were off,” he says.

The best of both worlds: digital & analogue

The full kit list that went into the School over those truncated few months is headlined by its 32-fader S300 console supported by a T25 Tempest Engine, and, in terms of IO boxes, a “bunch” in Hepple’s words of SB 32.24s, an A 16.D16, and an A32 stagebox that sits in front of an analogue SSL ORIGIN console used primarily for jazz recordings and which sites it on the Dante network. “And then we’ve probably got 70 or so non-SSL Dante devices that sit on there too,” Hepple says. “All our little classrooms have little rack mixers in them basically with a Dante card in the back. And we’ve got a whole bunch of two channel in / two out Dante little no-tricks boxes that we can go and throw in a room.

“The ORIGIN allows me to teach students in a totally analogue workflow in there, so I can teach them proper gain structure and signal flow and all that kind of stuff,” he continues.

“So in one building we have this absolutely glorious SSL analogue environment. And in the other building, we’ve got this equally glorious SSL digital setup. And the link between the two of them is just brilliant for us; it’s just really flexible.”

That flexibility has been the key to some of the School’s achievements in the past few months, with one of the biggest impacts being made by the TeamViewer application on the S300 and the way it enables remote working.

“On the S300 I can sit and mix gigs from home,” says Hepple. “I’ve got a member of staff that’s currently having to self-isolate, so they’re prepping all the show files and putting them on there. With a combination of wider access Dante networks, the S300 and a couple of streaming plugins, we can do stuff from anywhere, it’s absolutely brilliant. We had a big band gig last night and I mixed the audio from my home and one of my engineers vision mixed from his home. That’s fantastic.”

The socially distanced symphony

The socially distanced orchestra that has been set up at the School is a bit of a marvel of logistics that has been enabled by some very clever technology. 54 socially distanced strings sit in one room, with brass and percussion in another room, a 13-piece woodwind section in another (sitting three metres apart rather than the usual two due to the particulates that the players exhale), and so on.

“Our low latency network has allowed for meaningful large ensemble performance to continue – a vital part of our students development here at the school. We love it,” comments Jonathon Vaughan, Vice-Principal & Director of Music.

The key to managing a nigh-on 100-piece orchestra spread across numerous rooms is managing latency on the Dante fibre network that is threaded throughout the School’s buildings.

“I can get anywhere on site to anywhere else on site in six milliseconds audio wise, which is quicker than the real world,” says Hepple. “ If I am a conductor and I am 10 metres away from a trombone player at the back of the room, there’s a 30 milliseconds lag between them. If I put a close mic on that trombone player, I can get the sound in the headphones of the conductor before it would have got there in realtime. And because the audio is so quick, that allows me to catch up on the video side of things. The video side runs at about 100 milliseconds latency, so you just have to do some common sense things to accommodate that. I don’t have the conductor in the same physical space as any of the instrumentalists for instance, so we are never fighting against the real world speed of light for a conductor’s downbeat; everyone’s getting the video at the exact same time.”

Six of the best

Overall the result is a tightly integrated and flexible audio production system that has enabled the School to function whatever has been thrown at it. And for young musicians that is vital.

“It is brilliant it is for us to be able to integrate the ORIGIN with the System T via that A32 box, because being able to do our broadcast work from an analogue console is brilliant,” says Hepple. “And as a teaching tool for the students, it’s brilliant. As well as all the multi-room stuff, the fact that we can just send stems of anything to a Mac lab, or to a specific student who’s recording using an orchestra; they just open Logic and I’ve already mapped the inputs out through the Virtual Tie Lines, they just log in and there are their stems.”

“Everything is self-serving. I can do three things at once now because it is all flowing and it’s like night and day in terms of what we can deliver to the students in terms of digital and blended learning.”

Plus, of course, there is the fact that he can swiftly switch between large scale jobs like that and other ones, managing them all through the S300. And now that every room in the campus is essentially a live room, that flexibility is key as the console jumps between different projects.

“We’ve learnt how to do the live orchestra now. At the moment I’ve got that event parked a few layers down on the S300, someone else is mixing a gig routed to another master output on top of it, and I’m remoted in from home. It’s like having six consoles.”

Audio over IP – IP technology for broadcast audio routing systems

As the AoIP debate continues to confuse and delight in equal measure, what is clear is different scenarios require specific solutions. So is there a solution that encompasses open standards and existing proven AoIP technologies to the benefit of all?

By definition, network infrastructure (switches, routers and cables) is protocol and technology agnostic, it carries data. This is one of the primary reasons to use IP technology in a broadcast facility, the same infrastructure can carry different formats of video and audio data. Key to developments are open standards, ensuring the widest potential future interoperability. Key to real-world installations are system requirements and technology choices driven by the application, or specific usage case. The market share of AoIP technology stacks is also an important factor to consider for interoperability. At this point on the standards adoption curve for audio, the use of licenced AoIP technology stacks provides the widest guaranteed interoperability and greatest functionality when considering audio specific routing requirements.

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System T – Breaking down barriers

Decentralised and distributed remote audio production

Providing audio production services for outside broadcast events and sports has slowly been moving away from the traditional OB truck scenario as the industry battles with reduced budgets and – more recently – with the need to reduce engineers physically being in attendance. This has resulted in new solutions to manage audio productions: ‘remote’ and ‘at home’ production.

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How European businesses can thrive in a post-COVID world

The global pandemic fast-tracked large-scale digital transformation plans and taught businesses around the world a great deal about their agility and resilience. As the business community emerges from a period of survival and heads into thrive mode, there is an opportunity for introspection and renewed vigour of business and IT strategy.

That’s why Telstra commissioned independent market researcher, Vanson Bourne, to explore how companies across Europe managed digital transitions during the pandemic, and how they are leveraging technologies to succeed in a post-COVID world.

Our white paper, Agility in the new Digital Normal: How European businesses can thrive in a post-COVID world, offers insights such as:

  • How did companies fare amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and what can we learn?
  • What is the impact of the pandemic on digital strategy?
  • What was the security impact of a rapid digital transition and a remote workforce?
  • How optimistic are businesses as they shift from survival mode to growth, agility and innovation?

To learn more about how to prepare for a post-pandemic world, register via the links below and download the white paper.

Download White Paper

Telstra in India: An Exciting Expansion into Media and Sports

We invest so much time and energy in our work that we always seem to leave a little piece of ourselves in every project. Telstra’s recent point of presence (PoP) expansion into India also required tremendous dedication and time commitment from our team, but this one started with a little of me already in it.

Born and raised in India, I have a special personal connection with the country. After university in the United States, I returned to India to start my filmmaking and media technology career and then worked in India for almost 10 years before moving to international roles. Knowing first-hand how strong the appetite for media and entertainment content is in India, our recent Telstra investment in connectivity there made sense for so many business reasons.

For me, above all, this was a passion as well as a work project.

The total Indian media and entertainment industry is growing rapidly, expected to reach around $25.6 billion (USD) with annual average growth of about 3.2% by 2022. Within that total, digital content is king. Consumer preferences are increasingly leaning towards over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms for content consumption, with forecasts calling for India to become the world’s 6th largest OTT streaming market by 2024.

Digital advertising was the second largest medium in India in 2020, with digital ad revenues expected to surpass TV ad revenues in 2021. India’s online gaming and music streaming markets are booming, while direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television viewing also remains strong.

India’s media and broadcast industries are also dealing with major challenges in transforming their network infrastructure because of several factors: the costs of implementing new technologies on aging legacy platforms, managing the integration and interoperability of multiple networking environments, increasing bandwidth requirements, fewer personnel and shrinking budgets.

With all these shifting content and media trends, consumer online activity and changing market dynamics, the time was right for a significant expansion of our Global Media Network (GMN) into India. Our newest GMN PoPs in Mumbai and Chennai enable us to transport content in and out of India across an extensive range of networks. This, in turn, simplifies delivery for the media, broadcast and sports industries and lets us easily connect end customers and broadcasters to the GMN.

Telstra’s long-standing Indian presence

I’m not the only one with a history in India. Telstra has about 25 years of network connectivity experience in India, enabling mid-tier and large Indian and international organizations to more effectively communicate and collaborate with their customers.

Today we have a full in-country team including sales, technology and service operations teams. In the heart of Bangalore’s IT corridor at the Embassy TechVillage sits Telstra’s brand-new, full-service Innovation and Capability Centre (ICC) where we have more than a thousand Telstra employees dedicated to creating the next generation of products and services for Telstra from India.

But we didn’t have any GMN PoPs or endpoints in India until 2020. Our goal is to continually add core sites and customer endpoints to our GMN network, and the Indian market was always a focus. We knew we had customers who needed to get content into India and Indian customers who needed to get content to global audiences.

These two PoPs add a new dimension to our India presence. Now, we can support the delivery of permanent services – the linear channels of scheduled content delivered through broadcast and cable networks or on OTT platforms.  At the same time, we can offer occasional use services for sports, esports and entertainment events.

This expansion opens India up to the larger sports, media and entertainment ecosystem. Yes, we’ve been offering telecommunications and internet connectivity to the Indian market for many years. But the exciting aspect of this investment is that now we also have true solutions and services for the media, entertainment and sports community – combining our investments in technology with our investments in people on the ground in India, specifically in the media and broadcast vertical.

Hitting it for a six

We also have a growing customer base and project list resulting from our expanded capabilities, including our work with international sports rights-holders and broadcasters.

We recently supported a remote production project for the Indian Cricket Tour of Australia, which took place between November 2020 and January 2021. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, a broadcast team couldn’t be sent from India to Australia.

Telstra Broadcast Services configured a remote production solution in less than four weeks, providing network and audio services, a local broadcast crew, plus a network engineer on-site for the matches. We used Telstra’s low-latency, high-bandwidth Optical Transport Network (OTN) between Australia and Asia to deliver seven feeds per match back to the broadcaster’s commentators and production crew in Mumbai.

The event was a technological success, seamlessly transporting content in a variety of formats including J2K HD and MPEG4. The India Tour of Australia was also a rating smash in Australia and in India, becoming the most-watched overseas cricket series on any digital platform in India. Congratulations to the Indian Cricket team for their thrilling series victory!

Now if a media or sports company – whether it’s based in the U.S., Britain, Australia or anywhere – needs to get content into India, they can rely on Telstra. If there’s an Indian company that needs to take content to the Indian diaspora or international audiences, with Telstra they can reach new viewers and global markets.  And, if it’s sports-related we can help reach sports fans in India and all over the world.

Maybe I’m biased, but we love working with our Indian customers. They continually push us with their technology savviness, their ability to scale to deliver to Indian audiences and their high expectations for quality. For us, the exciting challenge is constantly figuring out new ways of collaborating and working with our customers and partners in India to say, “OK, how do we do this next step, either from a technology, business or innovation perspective.”

I’m proud to have played a part in bringing the Telstra Global Media Network to India, and it’s been a wonderful homecoming for me!

Find out more about Telstra Broadcast Services.

Telstra Broadcast Services ready for America’s Cup Finals

The America’s Cup (AC36) may not feature any teams from the Americas (New Zealand squares off with Italy beginning this weekend) but it will feature plenty of broadcasters and long-distance transmission connectivity given its location in Auckland, NZ.  Steven Dargham, head of Major Events at Telstra Broadcast Services, discussed the company’s efforts around the world feed distribution and more with SVG editorial director Ken Kerschbaumer.

How many rights holders, etc. are riding on the Telstra pipes?

Telstra distributed AC36’s world feed to over 60 global media and digital rights holders on its global fibre, internet and affiliated partner networks. Hundreds of countries will receive AC36 from broadcasters with rights in multiple regions.

Any sense of how many circuits and total bandwidth will be used?

To accommodate large bandwidth acquisition, Telstra deployed dual 10GigE over diverse dark fibre backbone from AC36’s International Broadcast Centre to dual Telstra Global Media Network PoPs in Auckland. The feeds then travel across the Tasman to Telstra’s Broadcast Operations Centre in Sydney, Australia, which acts as the centralised global distribution hub to right holding broadcasters. The aggregated content is then delivered over the internet for streaming and on subsea cables with protected capacity of up to 5Gig.

Everyone’s needs are different. How is your team meeting some of the different demands?

AC36 is one of our most recent exciting projects and is different compared to our delivery of the 2010 Americas Cup from Valencia, Spain. This year we had to build a flexible network solution to accommodate COVID impacts, such as a remote production model, advanced multi-service media edge equipment, Ethernet data services and high-speed internet services, as well as reduced on-site engineers. A range of high-quality media-edge hardware was deployed to support H.264 encoding, RTMP, Zixi and SRT, J2K and remote production capable equipment. The multi-service edge equipment backhauled all contents to the Telstra Broadcast Operations Centre (Telstra BOC) in Sydney where the centralised booking, monitoring and distribution to global media and digital rights holders took place.

How many people are on site from Telstra?

The initial plan was to have six operations and engineering staff in Auckland. Instead we have two onsite staff at the International Broadcast Center in Auckland, 24×7 live operations support and AC36 booking staff at the Telstra Broadcast Operations Centre in Sydney, and the remainder of our operations and engineering support in Paris and London.

What has been the biggest challenge working this event compared to others?

It’s no secret COVID created new challenges for live sporting events, however at the same time it created new opportunities for delivering large events. In the past broadcasters were reluctant to adopt new delivery models. The challenge of having minimal on-site engineers was overcome with the trust in the engineers and our global remote production, fibre and internet delivery models. Proven hybrid delivery models make broadcasters open to flexible delivery solutions that incorporate new technology.

Does Telstra have a major presence naturally in New Zealand or is it smaller connectivity that heads up to a larger hub in Sydney?

Telstra has an established presence in New Zealand with an agile operating model with local telecommunications providers. Telstra has key points of presence on its Global Media Network to service multinationals with content from New Zealand and Pacific Islands.