How media CFOs can reduce investment risk

Content has always been king in the media and entertainment (M&E) industry, but when it comes to today’s white-hot competitive landscape, it’s also a key differentiator. Unfortunately, aggregating content simply isn’t enough to win eyeballs and loyal subscribers.

Established streaming services with deep pockets like Netflix and Prime Video have been competing with traditional broadcasters for several years. Now they’re going head to head with large studios like Disney and CBS Viacom (both of which have vast libraries) to enthrall streaming subscribers with captivating original content. In 2019, the industry invested an estimated $160 billion in TV and video programing worldwide, a figure expected to grow to $180 billion by 2022. Netflix alone is estimated to have spent $15 billion last year to buy, produce, and license content, a 25% jump over the company’s 2018’s $12 billion spend.

As the battle rages, the key to capturing the market is getting quality content to consumers as quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively as possible. But as the M&E industry consolidates and takes ever-greater risks with original programming, it must also bridge the disconnect between production teams and the finance decision-makers holding the purse-strings.

With gig workers now making up a high percentage of all studio employees and an increasing reliance on external partners and suppliers, how can companies make the production ecosystems work efficiently? And how can they successfully pivot from producing locally to distributing globally?

To overcome these issues, an effective production management solution must provide transparency of, and support for, the entire production journey. It must offer real-time data about budgets and projections so that creators, producers and financial backers can make the right investment decisions.

Connect creatives with decision-makers

One of the biggest hurdles to efficiency in M&E organizations is the disconnect between creative teams and corporate back offices. Content producers need effective production budgeting, planning, and resource management, while business leaders are looking to reduce risk and maximize profitability.

The new Oracle Smart Media Production Planning (SMPP) cloud ERP solution is designed to help you meet those goals. It uses advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, to help content creators find new efficiencies, revenue opportunities, and competitive advantages.

Oracle SMPP lets your organization track the performance of media franchises with true production costs and revenue KPIs, in real time, across the entire lifecycle. It also reduces risk by learning from past performance to make future content investments more effective. Imagine handling delays, production changes and on-set emergencies with instant budget updates and rapid approvals from head office. That’s all doable with SMPP.

The solution includes Oracle Cloud ERP and EPM augmented by blockchain, AI, and mobile, delivering planning and resource management to production teams and corporate offices alike. Finance teams can model complex budget scenarios to forecast risk, costs, and revenues, and identify the best way to maximize a franchise’s ultimate profitability. Best practices are embedded into production accounting and planning, making everyone more efficient and productive. As the production team makes decisions and adapts to changing circumstances, the data is instantly available within Oracle Cloud ERP.

Maximize crew resources with blockchain and AI

With the best contractors in high demand, finding the right media crew can be a daunting process. Who’s available? Who has the right skills? Can you trust that their credentials are accurate?

SMPP allows your team to create a marketplace of trusted production suppliers using a blockchain-based network of immutable supplier records. This lets you track the best contractors (and avoid those who are less desirable) with up-to-date feedback ratings and validated competences, not only from your own experience but also from trusted peers and external parties. AI-assisted production planning helps you rein in complexity when hiring vendors and adapt quickly to contingencies so you can minimize costly downtime. Have a camera operator call in sick? SMPP can leverage AI to find an available replacement with the right skills so your production doesn’t experience delays.

Become the studio of choice

How productive is your crew? How satisfied are your contractors with the current administrative process? Knowing who the best contractors are is one thing, but giving them the best work experience is entirely another. SMPP enhances crew member experience with a configurable mobile app. The app provides access to relevant information and administrative processes, putting teams in instant communication with one another. What’s more, messaging and transactions are recorded on the blockchain to build trust, and automation speed up processes like timesheet submission, invoicing, and payment. Onboarding runs more smoothly, schedules are instantly updated, and your team can focus on being creators instead of admins. It’s never been easier to be a contractor!

Build the integrated media company of the future today

With Oracle SMPP, you can modernize your productions’ finance operations. It’s an integrated solution that connects production management with corporate accounting. Your team can use real-time, data-driven insights to minimize investment risk and improve planning and decision-making.

Learn more about how Oracle Smart Media Production Planning can transform your content creation process.

What lies in store for the broadcast industry in 2021?

Olivier Suard, Vice-President of Marketing, Nevion

With vaccines rolling out for COVID-19 in many countries there are signs of light at the end of the tunnel at the start of 2021. In the broadcasting industry, 2020 saw five years of evolution crammed into a single year as a direct consequence of the pandemic.

In fact, broadcasting has been compelled to change more rapidly than in any other period in its almost 100-year history. Predicting exactly how things will play out this year is a challenge with broadcasters, service providers and vendors all rethinking where their new priorities lie. However, there are some things we can forecast with a relative degree of confidence. With that in mind, here’s what can be expected to impact broadcasting in the coming year.

New technology will drive new projects

Broadcasters were forced into survival mode when the pandemic caused the cancellation of almost all live sport for a period and complicated live production due to social distancing. The impact was felt strongly both financially and in terms of making broadcasting work in the new environment.

Practically all planned investments were put on hold as a result. The need for those investments hasn’t faded though, and as the COVID situation improves in 2021, the year may see a flood of new projects, particularly around the move to IP.

Vendors to go virtual

Despite the situation, many projects avoided cancellation or postponement in 2020. Several broadcasters saw the pandemic as an opportunity to embark on transformational projects at a time when they would cause minimum disruption to live production – as so many live events had been cancelled. Others had commitments which they could not circumvent, for example, moving premises.

To meet that demand, vendors have had to find new ways to deliver projects in a timely manner, with travel severely reduced. For example, virtual meetings, remote training, remote configuration and remote testing were among the new ways of delivering projects. Among these innovators, Nevion, has been able to deliver significant projects during 2020, aided by the fact that its key products are largely software based and therefore amenable to be managed remotely.

Even if the travel situation improves, this experience will be carried through into project deliveries in 2021 because of the positive impact these delivery methods have on project efficiency and effectiveness.

The rise of “from-home” production

Many shows had to be created from home last year – with both the contributors and production teams being home-based. Although the use of best effort technology, including office tools like Skype and Zoom for ingest and home-broadband network connectivity, kept shows on air, it resulted in a real degradation of production values (normally a key differentiator for broadcasters compared to other video content competing for eyeballs). Regrettably, some broadcast output was arguably of lower production quality than that of many professional vloggers.

However, “from-home” production (distinct from “at home” production, i.e. traditional remote production) will remain in broadcasters’ toolkits even when the situation improves, but they will be looking to the industry in 2021 to start improving its production values. Exploring the use of alternative broadband connectivity (including potentially 5G) and orchestration across locations including homes will be one part of this multifaceted task.

Cloud and 5G

In 2021, the use of Cloud in live production will be the next step in Cloud technology’s steady movement upstream in recent years, from distribution to playout and increasingly into the MCR, Small scale productions can already be done in the Cloud – indeed Nevion’s parent company Sony offers virtual production solutions using up to six camera sources, professional quality switching and reliable streaming. Initiatives like the VSF’s Ground-Cloud-Cloud-Ground (GCCG) and AWS’s Cloud Digital Interface (CDI) are laying the groundwork for larger productions with a multi-vendor soft-eco-system.

5G is also generating a lot of excitement. At present though, it’s only 4G on steroids. The real game-changer for live broadcast production will be when service providers offer QoS through guaranteed bandwidth, and it remains to be seen if this will happen in 2021.

More industry consolidations

Consolidation amongst vendors has been a long-standing trend, but in recent years the need for solutions with broad footprints has accelerated that process. For example, Sony’s acquisition of Nevion in 2020 is part of that shift.

On top of this, the Covid-19 pandemic has made consolidation even more pivotal due to its impact on the finances of vendors of all sizes. As we move further in 2021 there will no doubt be further developments in this area.

In The Hub Ep 19 – Host Broadcasting – w/ Gareth Jones

In this week’s episode, Neil speaks to Gareth Jones – Head of Production Management at Host Broadcast Services, or HBS. Gareth recalls his start in the broadcasting industry, highlights from major sporting events like the World Cup and predicts what might hold the key to the future of the broadcasting and media industry.

How US horse race Breeders’ Cup used Wildmoka to publish more content and boost audiences by ~50%

Summary: Wildmoka helped the event’s organizers publish more video, win more engagement and increase betting revenue in 2020

Breeders’ Cup is the organizer of The Breeders’ Cup World Championships, the annual climax of the North American horse racing season. The event, first launched in 1984, attracts horses from across the world, as well as racing fans and sports bettors.

In 2020, Breeders’ Cup, their digital agency Grand Slam Social and betting partner TVG/FanDuel were facing a unique set of challenges. Covid-19 lockdowns meant fans and bettors could not attend the event in person. At the same time, Breeders’ Cup wanted to up their social media game and be the first to publish results, highlights and other shoulder content ahead of other providers. Unfortunately, they did not have the capacity to publish all this video manually.

Shona Rosenblum, principal of Grand Slam Social, summarizes what the companies were looking to achieve:

Grow engagement (which is key for increasing betting activity)
Be first to publish highlights and increase overall volume of event content
Diversify digital content – clips, highlight reels, live races from linear TV, profiles of racehorses
Diversify content sources – including from mobile phones, studio commentary, analysis, trackside interviews
Easily train new editors to support volume growth
Allow the digital team to work from home in line with social distancing rules

Breeders’ Cup and Grand Slam Social turned to LTN Networks for the IP video infrastructure and Wildmoka to provide a ‘digital media factory’ that would help publish all this content.

Wildmoka at the Breeders’ Cup 2020

The 2020 edition was the first time Grand Slam Social’s digital team used Wildmoka. So, how did it work?

Betting company TVG provided content including races, talk shows and shoulder content which was delivered to LTN Global. LTN then passed these streams to the Grand Slam Social/Breeders’ Cup team, who used Wildmoka to edit and publish clips.

Shona Rosenblum reports that during the two-day event, Breeders’ Cup produced in the range of 500 social media posts across various channels and over 1,000 throughout the week. Video posts were published on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as well as the Breeders’ Cup’s website and apps.

This significantly improved previous workflows which required nearly 10 minutes to get a single video highlight posted to social and digital, long after others already published content to market. In contrast, with Wildmoka, that time reduced to less than one minute. “Wildmoka technology allowed us to be first to post for the first time. This set us up to break the news of our Champions and celebrate their wins before all other media” says Rosenblum. “It was a banner year for social media impressions, engagement and video views.”

Grand Slam Social’s teams found Wildmoka easy to use. “We had no issues, we could do all we needed to do” Rosenblum explains. “It was super easy to use and streamlined our process to publish to multiple destinations”. Staff could be trained quickly and as many new seats as required could be added to the license at no extra cost. Rosenblum summarized, “for Breeders’ Cup, Wildmoka was a no-brainer”.

Wildmoka also was particularly helpful during lockdown. Because Wildmoka is a cloud-based SaaS platform, Rosenblum’s team of editors could work from home using a web browser to do all the editing and publication – there was no need to install special software. They could then access a variety of content feeds from the field – provided by TVG or linear TV – as if they were working at the office. She also noted Breeders’ Cup had no scalability issues – all feeds were scheduled and worked as desired.

The versatility of Wildmoka’s “digital media factory” goes beyond than clipping and publishing content. When Breeders’ Cup’s live-media servers went down, the team recovered by quickly switching to Wildmoka live streaming, allowing them to run feeds on Facebook Live.

Impact of Wildmoka

The ability to publish more content faster had a major impact on the Breeders’ Cup’s KPIs. Compared to the previous three years, Rosenblum reports that:

Net audience growth increased by 48%
Betting handle also increased significantly
Impressions were up 22%
Video views increased 23%
Engagement rose 28%

One of the most popular content pieces was the daily Morning Show during the week of the Breeders’ Cup. Wildmoka let editors clip extracts of shows and add in sponsor logos and tags in real-time. This bolstered value to their sponsors, boosted loyalty, and drove conversations around betting that could be correlated to increased handle at Breeders’ Cup as compared to the last time the event was held at Keeneland.

Ahead on the stretch

With an increase in the volume of content published via Wildmoka, Breeders’ Cup boosted engagement and video views around contender content which contributed to an increase in online wagering. This would be an impressive feat at any time but even more during a pandemic year.

To see how Wildmoka can increase audiences of your sports event, read our customer stories, or get in touch for a free, no-obligation demo.

Show Imaging Transforms to Accommodate Virtual Event Production

Clear-Com digital and wireless products “made this possible” for Southern CA-based live events company

In early May of last year, Show Imaging entirely transformed itself from a live events company to a virtual events company with a widespread, global audience. This means that on a regular basis, they are bringing technicians, clients, producers and talent from disparate geographical locations, onto one virtual stage. According to Show Imaging’s Director of Technology, Beau Monaghan, “Clear-Com® has made this possible.”

Show Imaging anticipated the shift to all-virtual events in late March, when the initial COVID-19 restrictions were announced. They began construction on a production studio right away and had a completed facility after only seven days. After two months of using the space to pitch clients, they booked their first virtual production and have been completely booked ever since.

“In live show production, intercom was almost an afterthought. Not to say that it wasn’t absolutely crucial to the show, but we would bring our selection of analog and digital intercom and set it up at a singular location,” Monaghan explained. “With virtual events, intercom is at the epicenter, because it’s the only way we can bring everyone together to simulate a singular location.”

Show Imaging was able to leverage their existing Clear-Com inventory to transition into this new virtual space. Their Eclipse® HX Digital Matrix could tie remote locations together with their LQ® IP Interfaces and enable a remote producer in a remote studio on FreeSpeak II® Digital Wireless Intercom to speak to a zoom producer in a different remote studio, in a different state, on HellixNet® Digital Network Partyline.

“We had a warehouse full of gear for live production, and the ability to use what we had to transform our business was absolutely critical,” Monaghan said. “We added a few more LQs and after testing Eclipse HX and realizing how well it complemented what we already had, we decided to purchase that too.”

One of their recent projects with an Atlanta-based pharmaceutical company demonstrated the power of an integrated intercom solution and made use of Show Imaging’s host of Clear-Com equipment. They tied their main studio in Vista, CA to the client’s headquarters in Georgia with additional remote locations in Texas, New Jersey and Kansas, all in real time. By using a combination of Agent-IC and LQ devices connected to local HelixNet and FreeSpeak ll systems, trunked back to an Eclipse frame in their main studio in Vista, all the interested parties were able to communicate with each other seamlessly and effectively.

In some cases, clients with no intercom experience are required to provide direction during a live virtual event. In these scenarios, Clear-Com’s Agent-IC Mobile intercom App is an easily teachable, cost-effective and fast-to-deploy solution that complements existing intercom systems.

“By providing an easy and clear way to communicate all around the globe, we have been very successful in delivering multi-city events with thousands of attendees,” Monaghan said.

In addition to their primary studio space, they have also constructed 10 smaller studios, four of which use Clear-Com Encore® Analog Partyline , and six of which use HelixNet. These studios do not feature cameras but are full featured virtual control rooms that can pull together a variety of shows from live and prerecorded material. Once live events are able to resume, Show Imaging plans to keep all studios operating as part of their overall service offering.

Show Imaging has a Creative Studio dedicated to curating and elevating the look and feel of any event, as well as a Software Development division that specializes in creating custom software and web experiences for live and virtual events.

About Clear-Com^®

Clear-Com, an HME company, is a trusted global provider of professional real-time communications solutions and services since 1968. We innovate market proven technologies that link people together through wired and wireless systems.

Clear-Com was first to market portable wired intercom systems for live performances. Since then, our history of technological advancements and innovations has delivered significant improvements to the way people collaborate in professional settings where real-time communication matters. For the markets we serve — broadcast, live performance, live events, sports, military, aerospace and government– our communication products have consistently met the demands for high quality audio, reliability, scalability and low latency, while addressing communication requirements of varying size and complexity. Our reputation in the industry is not only based on our product achievements, but also on our consistent level of customer engagement and dedication to delivering the right solutions for specialized applications, with the expertise to make it work. Around the globe and across markets, Clear-Com’s innovations and solutions have received numerous awards and recognitions for ingenuity and impact to customers.

For more information, please visit www.clearcom.com

Bespoke Audio Visual Provide Customizable Virtual Events Using Clear-Com

Clear-Com products connect onsite and remote suites and elevate virtual event capabilities

Toronto-based Bespoke Audio Visual has always emphasized providing services that are custom-tailored to the unique nature and needs of every event and client they work with. During COVID-19, this means bringing people together by means of elevated virtual events. Bespoke AV has applied their wealth of industry experience and leveraged their substantial inventory of Clear-Com^® technology to allow for a depth of connection and interplay well beyond your average video call.

The effect the pandemic has had on live performance events has been profound, however, the corporate sector has been greatly impacted as well. Bespoke AV continues to cater to this industry, which relies heavily on a wide range of in-person events for their success, by providing technology solutions that offer a high degree of customization and sophistication.

“Our challenge (now) is to encourage clients to come out of the last few months and get back to putting on well-staged, well thought through events,” said Mike Wilson, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Bespoke AV. “Even if they’re not coming into our studio space, we’ve outfitted all of our control rooms with Clear-Com products that are allowing us to connect to everyone. Our key focus is to increase the quality of the message our clients are putting out. Our clients are very thankful that we’re approaching this in the way we are, by taking their normal needs, goals, and wants and accommodating them in this locked-down environment.”

Once Bespoke realized they would not be able to do in-person events for an indefinite time, they came up with a vision to continue to work effectively in the virtual space, while maintaining quality and brand integrity. “Our clients essentially came to us and said, ‘Obviously the show we planned isn’t going to happen, but we still want to do something – what can we do?’ So, from there we distilled that down to what we have now,” said Technical Manager, Andrew Bernacki.

That solution relies on remote production control rooms, which are able to communicate with remote participants, producers, other control rooms, and even in-person event sites, all facilitated by a Clear-Com Eclipse® Digital Matrix intercom system. That system allows each room to produce a managed, high-quality end product that combines the collaborative, real-time elements of live in-person events with the remote viewing experience required by these unique times.

The intercom mainframe consists of a Clear-Com Eclipse HX-Delta, with one E-IPA-HX IP card (64 Ports). “That’s the most important card in our system. It provides connectivity to our AES67 Iris™ Panels, AES67 FreeSpeak II® IP Wireless Transceivers, Agent IC® Mobile App connectivity, and the LQ® box connections we use for HelixNet® and other LQ interfaces. We also have IVC Connections for any V-Series™ panels we need to deploy outside our facility over the Internet, and an MVX-A16, 16 Port Analog Card as our analog Audio I/O for smaller control rooms that don’t have Dante functionality.

Additional Clear-Com products include an LQ-2W2, which acts as a bridge between the HelixNet Digital Partyline System and the Eclipse Matrix System, an LQ-R4W8 as a SIP Phone Bridge for the Eclipse, which provides 8 phone lines for less technically inclined producers to get into each control room’s Party Line, and a Dante-64 card for sending and receiving audio from the multitude of Dante enabled devices throughout the control rooms.

Similarly, their wireless intercom depends on Clear-Com AES67 FreeSpeak II IP transceivers and beltpacks, ten Agent IC clients that remote producers, operators, and/or venues access via their mobile device. For wired intercom, 12 VI-PNL-12L V-Series Iris, two VI-PNL-32L V-Series Iris Lever Panels, and four HXII-BP two-channel HelixNet beltpacks are deployed. Further connectivity is also available with Bespoke’s additional LQ-2W2 units that can be sent to remote venues to integrate their intercom systems with Bespoke AV’s matrix over the internet, if required.

“For Bespoke AV, an apt way to describe this innovation is a natural, if virtual, extension of their work,” Bernacki says. “The big pivot, for us, was moving from one-directional webcasts with a time delay to a two-directional, remote presentation experience with low latency – and one that incorporates a virtual audience so everyone experiences the show in real-time. With fluent communication between operators, producers and talent everyone can interact with each other, on stage and behind the scenes, just like an in-person event, and the system can be customized as needed depending on the show.”

As of September 2020, Bespoke AV has completed five control rooms in their Toronto office, with more to come. “If you don’t fit into one of those control rooms, we’ll build whatever works for your show in the same way that we would in any given room where an event was being held,” explains Bernacki.

It all depends on the type of event and the level of experience and interactivity a given client requires, be it offering a more effectively branded and polished experience than your average online meeting, “Like a university on-boarding new students, where they just need us to inject PowerPoint slides and mix in a presenter from a remote location,” Bernacki continues, to a full-on gala dinner and awards show that, although mounted entirely remotely, involved a level of connectivity rivaling the real thing.

“Every virtual table was its own, separate call where the people at that table were able to talk to one another. Then we piped in other participants to each of those as necessary and our hybrid event studio space acted as the main stage. When someone at a table won an award, we took video and audio from that, broadcast it to the other participants, and also allowed those on stage to interact and have an ongoing conversation with the audience. The producer for that event didn’t stop there,” Bernacki adds. “Catered meals were sent to the homes of each of the people in attendance!”

In another application, Bespoke AV deployed individual video displays (one for every 50 virtual audience members) for the host, so they could experience and react to the audience’s facial expressions and feedback in real-time. “That made a huge difference to the host’s energy and comfort level and, I think, made for a better experience for the audience as well.”

Although Bespoke AV relied heavily on their existing inventory of technology, Bernacki cites the company’s relationship with GerrAudio has been instrumental. “GerrAudio is top-notch. The reality is, aside from Clear-Com being a superior product, the continuing support we get from Gerr made Clear-Com, and by extension, GerrAudio, a no brainer choice for us. That level of service always seals the deal for me. GerrAudio is my favorite distributor to work with, not only because they’re lovely people, but because they’re personally invested in our success.”

About Clear-Com^®

For more information, please visit www.clearcom.com

Providing rapid, reliable delivery of large software downloads to demanding end users

The customer:

A world leader in computer graphics technology

Chaos Group creates powerful rendering and simulation technology. It helps artists and designers create photoreal imagery and animation for design, television, and feature films. Its physically-based rendering and simulation software is used daily by top design studios, architectural firms, advertising agencies, and visual effects companies around the globe.

V-Ray, its award-winning production renderer, is the industry standard for these kinds of companies, and has been used to create blockbuster effects for more than 150 feature films. Chaos Group counts 95 of the top 100 architectural companies and practices in the world as its clients.

The challenge:

Controlling costs with large downloads

With more than 100,000 V-Ray users around the world in high-pressure industries such as design, TV, and film, it’s essential that Chaos Group can deliver downloads quickly and reliably. These software assets and builds are extremely large – its material library, for example, is around 8GB – and the company’s users need easy, hassle-free access to these files. At the same time, Chaos Group needs to be able to control its budgets and scale up download traffic without costs becoming unrealistic.

“We launched a new product in the earlier part of 2020 and we knew that downloads would increase by about four or five times,” comments Krasimir Nachev, Team Lead DevOps/SysAdmin at Chaos Group. “We needed to find a partner that could help us deliver these large assets reliably and cost-effectively, and has the global reach to serve our customers worldwide.”

The solution:

A scalable, high-quality CDN

Following a successful trial period, Lumen now delivers Chaos Group’s assets to its customers around the world over a high-quality global Content Delivery Network (CDN). This high-capacity, high-availability, and low latency CDN has points of presence on six continents, allowing for rapid delivery even when the downloads are very large.

The benefits:

Robust, scalable and cost-effective content delivery

“As a leader in our market with customers around the globe, the worldwide speed, quality, and reliability of the Lumen CDN has been very important to us,” says Krasimir Nachev. “The CDN allows us to serve content to our end users easily and to provide them with a great experience. We also liked the API, and found it very easy to integrate with our services.”

“At the same time, with Lumen, our costs don’t spiral out of control as downloads increase. We’ve actually reduced the cost of distributing our software builds by around seven to eight times.”

Support has been another positive factor for Chaos Group. “Network problems or downtime would be a real headache for us, so responsive support is important,” says Krasimir Nachev.

“Support from Lumen is great. The team responds very quickly and has good technical skills – they really know what they’re doing. We are extremely happy with Lumen and we look forward to developing our relationship further.”

Giant Network builds seamless online game experience with BaishanCloud gaming solution

COVID-19 outbreak has accelerated the growth of the online gaming industry. In the first half of 2020, the Chinese online gaming market’s sales revenue reached more than US$20 billion, increased by 22.34%. While the online gaming industry is competing vigorously, any company that wants to seize a sweet spot in the attention economy must accelerate its games to become more premium and exquisite. Online games nowadays are constantly being renovated and iterated. The design and development must be new and innovative, and the game experience must be seamless and stable.

In the in-depth communication and cooperation with gaming companies, BaishanCloud (Baishan) found that companies generally face the following challenges in ensuring gaming experience:

How to improve the download experience for mobile and online game installation packages on their devices? How to deal with traffic surges during promotions, package and patches updates, or game launches? How can web games prevent lagging, login difficulties, and frequent disconnections caused by the heavy load at the origin?
Online games have a mixture of static and dynamic content. How to ensure real-time and seamless experiences for players?
Social media has become an indispensable part of online games. How to provide players an interactive communication experience?
Credential stuffing, DDoS attacks, and 3rd party plug-ins are commonly observed in online games. How to better ensure fairness and security?
It is a trend for gaming companies to expand overseas. How to quickly adapt to the network environment in different countries during global expansion?

Leveraging its globally distributed edge network and technical capabilities, Baishan created a specialized and comprehensive solution to resolve the challenges above. Many gaming companies in China have adapted Baishan’s gaming solution. Among them, the Giant Network, an online game developer and operator that focuses on massively multiplayer online role-playing games like Lego Star Wars, Elsword, and Glorious Mission, also started using Baishan’s gaming solution including content distribution and edge security services since 2017 to provide the best gaming experience to players worldwide.

BaishanCloud – Gaming Industry Solution

Globally distributed network with load balancing and multi-client support

With edge PoPs deployed worldwide, Baishan pushes installation packages, patches, and other gaming resources to the PoPs closest to the user and intelligently balances the loads based on user location, network latency, and capacity. It provides scalability for gaming companies under scenarios with high concurrent requests such as game launches, promotions, or updates.

Whole application acceleration

Online gaming applications are composed of a mixture of highly-interactive and personalized dynamic content and a large amount of rich media static content. Baishan utilizes intelligent routing, link optimization, and API acceleration to reduce the end-to-end latency to less than 200ms. It solves problems like network congestion at the origin, content interaction failure, dynamic transaction delays, slow account balance reload, etc. This helps create a high-quality user experience for players on any device anywhere across the network.

Support multi-scene interactions to create a virtual face-to-face experience

Most games nowadays, especially the popular ones, involve interaction and coordination between players. Players hope to experience the plot’s ups and downs and share their experience instantly with their teammates. It is essential for gaming companies to re-create the “face-to-face” experience virtually. Baishan leverages its light-weight SDK and UDP-based ultra-low-latency streaming technology to provide high-resolution video and audio and reduces the end-to-end delay to less than 150ms. Additionally, the team mode feature compressed the latency even more to less than 100ms, which allows the players to interact with each other in real-time. Baishan also offers a real-time interactive live streaming service to support live streaming game broadcasting. The high-availability and concurrency setup allows broadcasters to interact with audiences seamlessly while playing the game.

End-to-end security protection

Baishan’s Edge Security product uses big data analysis technology and AI algorithms to continuously analyze user behavior and provide in-depth threat detection for enterprises and gaming companies. This helps build a complete defense system for their end clients. When serving the Giant Network, Baishan identifies and intercepts over 9 million credential stuffing and scan attacks against the login system every day and protects the origin from over 100,000 unknown attacks. The end-to-end security protection reduces the Giant Network’s own security alerting by 80%, allows their security staff to focus on new innovations.

Global resources and 24/7 technical support

Baishan has a globally distributed edge network covering 6 continents with direct connectivity with over 100 ISPs overseas to provide gaming companies with stable performance and service quality in the global market. Baishan also reserves terabit- per- second capacity for unpredictable traffic surges. To further guarantee its service and assist gaming companies’ rapid expansion, Baishan has a team of senior technical experts to provide 24/7 on-demand support and troubleshooting.

By offloading the content delivery to Baishan, Giant Network is able to focus on developing and innovating their services and applications while improving their operational efficiency to provide a better player experience and become more competitive in the market.

In addition to the gaming industry, Baishan has been providing secured and reliable content delivery services to enterprises in other industries such as technology, government, e-commerce, finance, medical, and more.

BaishanCloud is a leading global data service provider specialized in cross-border content delivery and edge security in China and Asia. To get more articles on trendy topics related to cloud delivery, streaming best practices, edge security, cloud technology in China and Asia, please visit www.baishancloud.com and subscribe to the BaishanCloud newsletter.

Best Practices of Content Delivery into China

China is already the home to the largest internet community globally with 940 million users and over 80% mobile penetration rate, yet it is still growing fast. Revenue for Internet services increases at a rapid 25.4% in 2020, reaching $803.1 billion. From 2016 to 2021, internet traffic in China will grow 3-fold, at a CAGR of 26%. In March 2020, internet users in China spent about five hours per day online. However, for international companies trying to get into the market, the Chinese internet is notoriously hard to understand.

In this blog post, we will talk about the best practices of content delivery into China.

Best Practice 1: Ensure Content Regulation Compliance

The first thing that makes China’s internet challenging to navigate is its content regulations. Most famously, China is known for its so-called the Great Firewall, which is a nation-wide rulesets-based content censoring mechanism blocks and filters content that do not comply with the Government’s regulation. The most well-known cases would be the blocking of Google and Facebook. To deliver content in China with less risks, you will need to register and license your website.

Internet Content Provider (ICP) License is a standard license required by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) for companies looking to establish a web presence in China. Companies will only be eligible to host a website in China or use China-based hosting and CDN services if they have a valid ICP license.

An ICP is required if you plan to host a website or use a content delivery network in mainland China. It is also possible to host websites outside China in China-rim areas (like Hong Kong or Japan) if you don’t want to go through applying for an ICP. However, this approach often comes with a higher delivery cost, compromised performance, and the risk of content being blocked permanently by the Chinese government.

There are two types of ICP: ICP Filing, also known as ICP Bei’An in Chinese, is required for non-commercial websites and can’t be used to generate revenue.

ICP Commercial License, or ICP Zheng in Chinese, on the other hand, is for commercial websites to engage in online retail activities legally.

If you have any questions regarding acquiring an ICP, visit Baishan’s ICP Guideline or send an email to info@us.baishancloud.com for a free consultation session.

Best Practice 2: Enforce China Localization

It is well known that many major international websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Google are blocked in China. Some other common web services, like Shopify, are slow and unstable. For companies that want to build a reliable local presence in China that works, certain technical localization is required.

First, you need to replace all components that are blocked or don’t work well in China with localized services. This means replacing your video hosting platform from YouTube to YouKu or Tencent Video, or register a Weibo account to replace your Twitter API.

Then, you need to boost your visibility on the Chinese internet, performing search engine optimization on Chinese search engines like Baidu and Sogou.com.

Finally, optimizing the speed of your website in China. This can be done by using a content delivery network that emphasizes building physical presence in China like BaishanCloud.

Best practice 3 – Optimize Delivery Quality Base on Your User Distribution

When considering how to deliver your content to China, it’s critical to understand your users’ geographical distribution to the city and ISP-level. China has very unique network environment where a few ISPs dominate the whole network.

This pie chart shows the ISP market share in China.

A few state-owned ISPs control the market, and the competition among them is quite intense. One unique outcome of their competition is that they have minimal peering with each other. This means data transmission between ISP suffers from significant network latency.

As you can see from this chart, while in Beijing, the network latency is only 1.5ms within the China Unicom network, the latency is almost 10 times when going across to another ISP.

To optimize the delivery performance based on your user distribution, the first thing you need to do if move your origin servers (or content library) closer to the end-users. If your content library lives on public cloud like Google Cloud or AWS, their Tokyo or Hong Kong region would be an excellent option. At the same time, make sure set up the backup origin and error-based failover to minimize the disruption in order to maintain the viewing quality.

Furthermore, it is crucial to work with a local content delivery network, like BaishanCloud, who has resources across Mainland China directly connecting to all major and smaller ISPs to guarantee your website performance.

The China internet landscape is complicated and can be hard to navigate if you don’t know the intricacies. That’s why finding a reliable and experienced local content delivery partner can save you lots of trouble. From increasing delivery performance to helping with local compliance, a trusted China content delivery network can help you avoid pitfalls and save costs while you can focus on building your services and content.

To access more content related to cross-border content delivery, streaming best practices, edge security, and tech trends in Asia, please visit www.baishancloud.com for more information.

How media CFOs can reduce investment risk