Black Box – KVM Trends in the Broadcast industry

Black Box – KVM Trends in the Broadcast industry

Tom Fitzgerald, KVM Product Manager, Black Box

Internet Protocol (IP)

IP is a fundamental component of modern computer networking and internet communication. Technical staff need to be familiar with IP to effectively manage, troubleshoot, and optimize networked systems and services in a wide range of technical disciplines. For this reason, IP is the accepted Protocol for almost all information transfer, including KVM, which allows remote access and control of servers and devices over standard IP networks. KVM enables efficient management of remote equipment, which makes it ideal for live events, news and sports, where systems and operators are often located in OB vans at remote locations.

The Broadcast industry led and shaped the direction of KVM over IP development in many ways. As the industry embraced remote production, IP-based workflows, and virtualized environments, the demand for efficient and flexible remote access solutions grew, further motivating the development of KVM over IP. The technology evolved in response to the changing needs and challenges faced by broadcasters in managing and controlling their equipment and systems efficiently, securely, and remotely. As the broadcasting landscape continues to change, KVM over IP technology is likely to continue to advance to meet the demands of the industry.

Virtualized and cloud-based solutions

Broadcasters have embraced virtualized and cloud-based solutions. Virtualization allows more efficient resource allocation, while the cloud offers scalability and cost savings, enabling broadcasters to handle peak demands and reach wider audiences. KVM solutions are now integrated with virtualization technologies, such as VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V, and users need seamless access between physical and virtual machines. PCoIP is a protocol that has been adopted quickly by the Broadcast industry, since it provides a seamless and high-quality user experience when accessing virtual desktops or workstations over various network conditions, including LAN, WAN, and even the internet. This has driven leading KVM suppliers, such as Black Box®, to develop KVM user stations that allow direct access to Virtual Machines using RDP and PCoIP, as well as to physical machines.

KVM switching and extension for high-resolution displays

With the rise of high-resolution displays, a demand for KVM over IP solutions with support for 4K with 8K video resolutions also occurred. KVM manufacturers are developing products that can handle such high-quality video streams while using as little bandwidth as possible and providing the user with a virtually latency free experience.

KVM product development influences

The Broadcast industry requires top class production talent, and it is critical that this staff be able to work as efficiently as possible. Consequently, product development is tailored to address workplace needs.

Here are some examples that drive the KVM product development:

  1. Remote Production and At-Home Workflows: The pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote production workflows. Broadcasters continue to explore cost-effective ways to produce content remotely, leveraging cloud-based technologies and collaborative tools. Ideally, this means staff members travel less. KVM manufacturers are responding to this need by giving a perfect user experience using ultra low bandwidth. This bandwidth will continue to be driven down at higher resolutions.
  2. Workflow Integration: KVM capabilities are influencing user workflows, and the KVM system needs to switch automatically as the user carries out tasks while being completely seamless to the user. We see the trend today, as the Black Box Emerald® System integrates with various control and monitoring systems, such as Lawo’s Virtual Studio Manager (VSM).
  3. Personalized Workspaces: In Production Studio control rooms users typically need to monitor and interact with many different systems at the same time, including information provided by servers, Virtual Machines, and cameras. This requirement is driving the development of personalized workspaces and multi-source KVM systems, such as the Black Box Emerald®

Artificial Intelligence and IoT

Artificial Intelligence is being integrated into various aspects of broadcasting, such as content creation, metadata enrichment, automated transcription, and video analysis. AI-powered tools help broadcasters manage and monetize their vast content libraries effectively. KVM manufacturers are also exploring ways to integrate KVM solutions with the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. This integration aims to provide more automation and seamless control of devices through interconnected systems and with AI technology, using this information, making decisions, and taking action automatically based on the data. This will provide even more efficient, error free, and secure access to systems. Broadcasting creative content and production staff can increase their productivity without needing to know they are on a KVM or have to take any physical action to view and operate the system they require at any point in time.

KVM over IP benefits

Overall, KVM over IP trends in broadcast highlight its significance in facilitating remote operations, adapting to IP-based workflows, supporting high-resolution content, moving applications to the cloud, and enhancing both security and efficiency in the industry.

Appear – Protecting our fragile planet: the media & broadcast industry’s journey towards a greener horizon

Appear – Protecting our fragile planet: the media & broadcast industry’s journey towards a greener horizon

Matthew Williams-Neale, Vice President, Marketing & Communications, Appear

In an era of unprecedented technological advancement, the media and broadcast industry plays a significant role in shaping how we perceive the world. However, this sector, like many others, faces a pressing challenge: the threat to our planet’s delicate ecological balance. As concerns about environmental sustainability escalate, our industry needs to take bold steps to minimize its own impact on the environment and pave the way for a greener future.

Rising to the challenge: sustainability in the broadcast sector

Sustainability is climbing to the forefront of the broadcast industry’s priorities, with an increasing number of media companies recognizing the importance of reducing their environmental footprint. The rise of sustainability in the sector is evident in the actions of leading technology vendors and the evolution of industry workflows and practices. From production to shipping, deployment, operation, and eventual disposal of equipment, every facet of the technical supply chain is rightly under scrutiny for its environmental implications.

The “Future of Sustainability in the Broadcast Sector” is a topic that has garnered significant attention, with experts and stakeholders joining forces to drive change. Initiatives such as those detailed in the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) article on “10 Ways Public Broadcasters Are Reducing Their Environmental Impact” demonstrate how public broadcasters are actively working to integrate sustainability into their operations.

The Crucial Role of Technology Solution Providers

Amid the shift towards sustainability, technology solution providers are integral to reshaping the industry’s landscape. By developing and implementing innovative technologies, these providers can contribute to minimizing the environmental impact of media production, distribution, and consumption. They can enable and influence efficient content creation, editing, and storage through digital platforms, reducing the need for physical resources.

They also have an important role to play in facilitating remote collaboration, decreasing the necessity for extensive travel for live events and thereby cutting down on carbon emissions. Through the adoption of remote production systems, for example, they can enable resource sharing, scalability, and reduced energy consumption.

In essence, these technology providers have a responsibility to develop solutions that can drive the media industry towards a more sustainable future, offering tools and strategies that enhance operational efficiency, reduce waste, and promote environmentally conscious practices throughout the entire value chain.

At Appear, a Norway-based global leader in media processing and delivery technology, we have customers spanning over 100 countries. Increasingly, these customers rightly demand products that have as little environmental impact as possible, and partners that reflect their concerns around a more sustainable energy future. Therefore, our commitment to sustainability is deeply ingrained in our business practices and we believe that other vendors have a responsibility to follow suit.

Appear’s impact on sustainability

One of the defining features of our approach to sustainability is our emphasis on environmentally conscious engineering. All Appear products are designed and assembled in Norway using hydro power production, aligning with relevant EU directives and certifications like ISO 9001, ISO 14001, REACH, and WEEE. These efforts position Appear to outperform competitors in terms of environmental impact.

A testament to our dedication to sustainability is reflected in our partnership with a leading European Tier 1 telco. The telco conducted an independent study comparing Appear’s X Platform with a leading competitor’s server-based solution and revealed substantial differences. The X Platform exhibited remarkable energy and space efficiency, consuming significantly less energy and space while delivering unparalleled performance, including 38 times less CO2 production, 22 times less cardboard packaging, 7 times less watts per channel, 20 times less weight per channel, 20 times less rack units per channel and 40 times less electronic waste per year. We won this business, and although I’m sure that our green credentials were not the only factor, it does show that greener business is better business.

A holistic approach to sustainability

For Appear, sustainability isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a guiding principle that resonates throughout the organization, and we believe that all technology solution providers have a responsibility to acknowledge the demand for environmentally responsible products. We have found that our commitment to sustainable engineering has led to an increased demand in our products, I believe strongly that this presents an opportunity for other businesses that are willing and able to adapt their solutions.

If more companies focus on engineering practices and products that create sustainable outcomes within media workflows, we can all take responsibility to ensure that sustainability is inherently woven into our business practices. And, if this commitment to sustainability is ongoing, we can continuously strive to improve energy efficiency and reduce our overall environmental impact as an industry.

A sustainable future: transparency and improvement

Dedication to sustainability is marked by transparency. Companies that firmly believe in third-party scrutiny and openness provide the foundation for continuous improvement. As the industry grapples with the environmental challenges ahead, companies exhibiting  engineering prowess and innovation can position themselves as key players in crafting a more sustainable future for the media and broadcast industry.

In a world where the media has the power to influence opinions and drive change, the steps taken by industry players toward sustainability are not just commendable but also essential. As the industry marches toward a greener horizon, the efforts being made now will undoubtedly shape the narrative for generations to come.

Conclusion

The media and broadcast industry’s role in shaping public opinion and perception is immense, and with this influence comes responsibility. The threat to our planet is real, and it’s heartening to see the industry rallying to protect our beautiful but fragile world. The convergence of technological innovation and sustainability is evident in the actions of key players like Appear, whose commitment to environmentally conscious engineering and product development is setting a precedent for the industry at large. As the world looks to the future, the media and broadcast industry has an opportunity to not only entertain and inform but also inspire positive change and pave the way for a more sustainable world.

Agile Content – How encouraging user engagement can help OTT companies decrease their ecological footprint

Agile Content – How encouraging user engagement can help OTT companies decrease their ecological footprint

Johan Bolin, Chief Business Officer, Agile Content

As we approach the end of the summer, marked as the warmest ever recorded, it’s clear that focusing on the environment and sustainability is crucial for all organizations and businesses. The TV and media industry has a dual responsibility. On one hand, it’s crucial to provide the public with accurate information about the situation, and on the other hand, it’s equally important to address the sustainability impact of producing and distributing TV and video content.

According to a report released by the International Energy Agency in September 2022, transmission networks and data centers contribute to about 1% to 1.5% of the global electricity consumption and roughly 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Given that a significant share of the total internet traffic is video, it’s clear that TV and media organizations need to consider ways to reduce their environmental footprint.

Taking a closer look at the sources of these emissions, they can be grouped into three main categories: user devices, network infrastructure, and data centers. It’s worth noting that streaming consumes more energy compared to traditional broadcasting.

While optimizing the distribution chain is essential, an aspect that is sometimes overlooked is user devices and behavior. How can TV providers empower and engage users to collaboratively reduce the environmental footprint?

Engaging the users

 When individual actions are multiplied across millions of users, they hold the potential to positively impact resource consumption and sustainability on a large scale.

Engaging the users begins with making their options and features more visible and accessible since they often remain hidden within the user interfaces. Simple yet impactful measures like upgrading devices (but not too often…), utilizing low-power modes during playback, using more efficient network technology, and enabling automatic shutdown after inactivity can create a noticeable difference. Additionally, making users conscious of and able to adjust the video resolution can lower data and, depending on the network, energy usage. It could also involve presenting options and illustrating how different choices influence the sustainability impact.

These options should be clearly visible and not buried in unintuitive menus. Setting up reminders to configure energy-saving preferences and offering straightforward guidelines for accessing and adjusting these settings can further guide users toward informed and sustainable choices.

 Turning codecs into environmental allies

State-of-the-art codecs with a focus on compression-quality ratio can be a powerful tool in the hands of the users. By offering viewers the option to choose compression, they can select the format best suited to their device and optimally use a codec that is supported by the hardware as this will significantly reduce power consumption compared to software-based decoding. Codecs have a flip side though. If updating codecs requires too frequent device upgrades, the energy gains can be outweighed by the sustainability cost of producing new devices.

Cloud, virtualization and the benefits of shared resources 

One of the biggest opportunities to lower the sustainability impact of TV and media is to embrace cloud and virtualization across the A/V pipeline. Moving applications from dedicated hardware to platforms that allow demand-based resource allocation and orchestration offers dual advantages. It enables multiple applications to share the production-related footprint and facilitates more frequent platform upgrades, backed by diverse applications and businesses. The transition to newer platforms generally leads to better performance per watt and size, contributing to a lowered sustainability impact.

Tracking the carbon footprint

To further strengthen their sustainability efforts, streaming companies could introduce advanced metrics to monitor the footprint. These metrics might involve tracking the footprint from the device, the network and the data center resources. By furnishing concrete data regarding the emissions generated during platform usage, users could gain a clearer understanding of the environmental impact of their digital consumption behaviors.

Additionally, making comparisons that illustrate how particular choices, such as skipping introduction and end, choice of network type like wired or wireless, choice of Internet Service Provider or even choice of streaming service can impact overall emissions would empower users to make more environmentally conscious decisions while using streaming services. This informed approach not only encourages users to optimize their network resource usage but also contributes to positive industry changes and an overall reduction in carbon footprint.

The danger of using energy as a sustainability proxy

In most environmental footprint models, energy consumption serves as a proxy. This is valid for comparing industries on a global level due to the prevalence of fossil carbon-based energy sources. However, when informing users in order to drive sustainability through their choices, this approach can be misleading. Energy sources vary across countries, regions, households, streaming services, and ISPs. A choice with a high carbon footprint cost for one user might incur a very low cost for another. Therefore, it’s essential to offer users accurate, specific information instead of assumptions or averages. This precision becomes crucial if we aim to harness user choices as a transformative force that rewards companies and providers for investing in more sustainable alternatives

Accedo – AI’s role in the OTT industry’s pursuit for sustainability

Accedo – AI’s role in the OTT industry’s pursuit for sustainability

François Polarczyk, Sustainability Director, Accedo

Technology is set to play a crucial role in the fight against climate change by helping us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance energy efficiency, and promote sustainable practices. Is there potential for AI to also play a part in this? Google DeepMind certainly thinks so and is using the latest AI developments to help fight climate change and build a more sustainable, low-carbon world. But although AI has received a lot of attention since the launch of the large language model, ChatGPT, last year, AI and machine learning (ML) are not new concepts. Content creators, technology vendors, and service providers in the video industry have been using ML for some time. The difference now is that generative AI models have become more advanced, and are now being used by a wider audience. If organizations like Google DeepMind aim to use generative AI to fight climate change, can the video industry also use generative AI to optimize systems, create more sustainable consumption habits, and reduce the industry’s carbon impact?

But while there is much to explore in terms of how generative AI could support the OTT industry to reduce its carbon impact and become more sustainable, we also need to examine and consider generative AI’s carbon footprint. The use of AI has become widespread in an incredibly short amount of time, and while there has been a huge amount of debate around the risks and ethical concerns of using AI, there hasn’t been a lot of discussion about its environmental impact. And as with pretty much everything to do with sustainability, particularly around measuring environmental impact, it’s far from clear cut. Before we go on to consider AI’s carbon footprint, let’s first consider how AI could be used to help the OTT industry become more sustainable.

 Using AI to drive sustainability in the OTT industry

Already, we can see how generative AI could be used to optimize software engineering during OTT product development, to optimize content creation and delivery, and to promote more sustainable consumption habits. Firstly, generative AI can greatly enhance and optimize OTT software engineering by generating fitting code snippets which would speed up the coding process, as well as reviewing code to identify patterns and errors, and suggesting refactoring to improve efficiency of code to improve UX and reduce bandwidth. Additionally, AI can help developers to both document code, and to review documentation. Although AI-generated code and snippets still need to be reviewed and checked by engineers in case of faults, there’s little doubt that it is a useful tool that can be used to improve efficiencies in the video service development process.

Secondly, generative AI is also set to revolutionize how content is created. From a sustainability perspective, it can be used to support virtual production by creating virtual sets and backgrounds, reducing the need for physical set construction and minimizing resource usage. And AI algorithms could be used to predict the energy consumption of different production processes, to help content producers make more environmentally conscious choices during production.

Thirdly, AI-driven algorithms could potentially optimize content delivery based on user preferences, network conditions, and peak usage times. This reduces the need for excessive bandwidth and energy consumption, leading to more efficient distribution of video content. AI can also optimize resource usage within software applications, by enabling efficient memory management and processing, reducing energy consumption. Similarly, AI algorithms can be used to enable video services to better predict user demand patterns, so they can adjust server capacity accordingly, preventing over-provisioning of resources and reducing energy waste.

Lastly, more sustainable consumption habits could be promoted through AI-powered sustainability assistants. These AI assistants could help viewers understand the environmental impact of their different consumption choices, so that they can make more informed decisions.

Assessing AI’s environmental impact

But unsurprisingly, it’s not all roses in the garden. To train an AI model, colossal amounts of data are stored in data centers, which is then used to train a model using high powered, energy intensive GPUs. OpenAI reportedly trained the GPT-3 model on over 45 terabytes of data. Storing and processing this volume of data takes a huge amount of energy. According to Energy Innovation, some of the largest data centers require more than 100 megawatts of power capacity, which is enough to power 80,000 U.S. households.

Research carried out in 2019 into energy usage by four common AI models including GPT-2, found that training a model resulted in 284 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. This is equal to five times the carbon footprint of an average American car, and its fuel, over the course of its lifetime.  Of course AI models vary massively in size, and as models become more advanced, energy consumption increases. A review of the energy use and carbon footprint of several recent large models including GPT-3 estimated that training that particular model consumed 1,287 MWh, and resulted in emissions of more than 550 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent – almost double the emissions that training an earlier model was estimated to have led to. And let’s not forget that it’s not just the training of these models that leaves a carbon footprint. The ongoing operation and use of these models also consumes energy.

It’s not just the data center’s electricity use and CO2 emissions that have an impact. According to Gerry McGovern, author of World Wide Waste, it’s thought that electricity probably accounts for about 10% of a data center’s emissions. Its infrastructure, particularly the data center’s cooling systems, is another big CO2 producer because of the energy it takes to supply those systems. The ‘water footprint’ also deserves a mention here because a massive amount of water is circulated around data centers as part of their cooling systems. One study estimated that training of GPT-3 in Microsoft’s US data centers would have used as much as 3.5 million liters of water. This figure includes the water used for cooling the data center, and also the water needed to generate the electricity that powers it.

So where does all this leave the OTT industry? Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

AI’s carbon impact in the video industry

 As the OTT video industry strives to become more sustainable, the continued integration of AI and ML into video workflows presents both promising opportunities and complex challenges. The fact that AI is so abstract and non-concrete means that it’s often overlooked when considering energy usage at different stages in the workflow. However, even when you recognize that when used by the video industry, AI does add to the industry’s carbon footprint, it’s not yet possible to accurately measure the CO2 emissions that incorporating AI into the various stages of the OTT industry will generate. For this, we need more transparency and improved carbon measuring tools.

While there’s no doubt that AI uses huge amounts of energy, and has a substantial carbon footprint, as data centers switch to using energy from renewable sources, it’s anticipated that this footprint will substantially reduce. The potential benefits of utilizing generative AI to drive efficiency, reduce carbon impact, and encourage sustainable practices across the industry are undeniable. Through optimization of software engineering, content creation, and delivery mechanisms, AI has the potential to revolutionize the way video services are developed, delivered, and consumed. To strike a balance between harnessing AI’s potential and minimizing its ecological footprint, the video industry needs to innovate responsibly and sustainably. This, along with improved means of measuring the carbon impact of AI, will be critical for ensuring a future where a sustainable OTT video industry thrives.

 

Vizrt – NAB Show 2023 BaM Award winner – Produce

Viz Arena 5.1

It’s become increasingly important for sports-based productions to immerse and engage fans to elevate the viewing experience, but also monetize with creative virtual advertising. One way to achieve both better engagement and the ability to virtually advertise is by using Viz Arena. Real-time 3D virtual graphics (AR) can be applied to any sport event: over the stands, completely unobtrusive beneath the players in a stadium or court, on a racing track, or on an uneven golf course.

Broadcasters can create and use any kind of augmented reality graphics to provide more insight into the game or event – including down and distance lines, offside lines, heat maps, player line-ups, or replay graphics to review critical referee calls. Graphics can be shown live as the game unfolds or as quick in-game replays.

Viz Arena 5 extends to Viz AI-powered keying technology trained for Soccer and Basketball. Viz AI automates keying based on each sport, significantly improving the visual quality of graphics-enhanced sports productions. Powered by Viz AI, the Advanced Keyers solve specific ambient conditions unlike any other traditional keyers.

In fact, the keying functionality is part of the reason why the technology won an IABM BaM Award®, with a judge quoting: “Great system. The capability to cope with demanding changing lighting conditions and to make virtual advertising seamless is a powerful combination in today’s sporting coverage. Already proven in some top-notch sports events.”

Viz Arena ensures flawless appearance of inserted graphics every time, resulting in the seamless display of both real and virtual logos, cam carpets and banners that are indistinguishable. All of this is made without the need for the operator to manually interact, saving time and money yet amplifying quality of output.

Another advanced capability in Viz Arena is automated Advanced Cut Detection (ACD). ACD is purpose-built to help teams working in fast-paced live sports production by frame-accurately handling virtual graphics during camera transitions, hard or soft cuts and wipes – also without manual intervention. In response to the operator’s work, the process works by activating and disabling virtual graphics on the program feed in real-time in a downstream workflow, so they remain correctly positioned regardless of the perspective.

Used for Virtual Advertising, the commercial value of rights can be amplified by lifting revenue constraints given by physical limitations. Viz Arena enables the extension of advertising and sponsoring portfolios to more assets, increase effectiveness by enabling it to be split amongst multiple sponsors, and multiply the performance of existing inventories with regionalized, targeted brand messages – for every event and any sport, maximizing the ROI with sports rights. With regionalized, targeted brand messages, productions can expand the reach of existing inventories.

The award-winning Viz Arena helps broadcasters achieve the next level of viewer engagement, meeting the demands of advertising clients and sponsors by enhancing its offering with immersive live sports experiences that build viewer loyalty and coverage uptake.

Veritone – NAB Show 2023 BaM Award winner – Monetize

Veritone Generative AI – Changing the Broadcast and Media Game

For years, artificial intelligence and machine learning have been augmenting the workforce and continuing to push what’s possible, with generative AI being the most recent advancement in how technology can help amplify human capabilities.

In February 2023, Veritone, Inc., the leader in enterprise AI software and services, introduced Veritone Generative AI, an enterprise-grade platform-as-a-service that natively supports and orchestrates public large language models (like GPT-3 and ChatGPT) and domain-specific large language models. The platform runs on Veritone’s proprietary aiWARE™, and has swiftly proven its usefulness to broadcast and media entities with its ability to generate content at an unprecedented scale while remaining on-brand and increasing audience accessibility.

Veritone Generative AI is transforming broadcast and media by extending the opportunities to create new, AI-generated content for greater audience engagement, which enhances human experiences and communications while increasing operational efficiency and revenue opportunities.

At the most recent NAB Show, Veritone Generative AI earned the IABM BaM Award® in the Monetize category. The platform also earned the NAB Show Product of the Year—the fourth year Veritone has won this award—this year in the AI and machine learning category.

In response to these prestigious NAB Show wins, Sean King, senior vice president and general manager of Commercial Solutions at Veritone, said, “Winning these two awards is a significant achievement for Veritone and a testament to the power and potential of our generative AI platform. NAB was a successful show for us by providing a venue to showcase to media, entertainment, sports, and advertising companies how we can help them create, manage and monetize their content and drive innovation.”

Because the platform is deployed on Veritone’s flagship aiWARE enterprise AI platform, Veritone Generative AI can provide users with robust, orchestrated cognitive and generative AI workflows and solutions. Here are two examples of how Veritone Generative AI can be used in the broadcast and media industries:

  • For sports: Media partners can use the platform’s natural language processing and AI-generated text and voice to produce sports commentary, play-by-play, pre- and post-game updates in multiple languages to increase fan engagement.
  • For advertising and entertainment: Companies and organizations can expand audience reach and accessibility while maintaining brand consistency with AI-generated, pre-built assets including multilingual content, ad promos, and images.

Outside of the media and entertainment spheres, Veritone Generative AI offers use cases for talent acquisition, law enforcement, and more.

Veritone Generative AI is a core pillar of Veritone’s aiWARE platform, its workflows, and its ecosystem. The platform’s robust capabilities are available natively (via API and Automate Studio, Veritone’s low-code workflow application) and can be integrated seamlessly with other industry-specific applications from Veritone.

Several business segments’ client data, media, and communication workflows leverage Veritone Generative AI, building upon and expanding Veritone’s current integrated cognition, conversational AI, and other robust AI/ML offerings.

This platform is changing the game for the broadcast and media industry as it enables companies and brands of all sizes to extend large amounts of data, maximize opportunities for their existing content, and quickly generate new content for greater audience engagement and enhanced human experiences.

Varnish Software – NAB Show 2023 BaM Award winner – Publish

Varnish Software: achieving > 1.3 Tbps throughput on a single server

 Varnish Software, a leader in web caching, video streaming and content delivery software solutions, recently set a new industry record for content delivery performance, achieving greater than 1.3 Tbps throughput on a single Edge server consuming approximately 1,120 watts, resulting in 1.17 Gbps per Watt.

The massive breakthrough unlocks entirely new possibilities for video service providers and the live event industry to deliver flawless live streamed events to massive audiences worldwide, in a more economical and sustainable way.

The benchmarks were accomplished using Varnish Enterprise 6 deployed on a Supermicro 2U CloudDC server powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors – all off-the-shelf, commercially available solutions – without requiring the use of specialized, added-cost TLS offload cards. Therefore, the throughput and energy efficiencies achieved can be applied to a broad range of servers and real-world applications depending on the needs of any-sized organization using Varnish Enterprise 6.

This advancement has never been more vital for the industry, as broadcasters, streamers and CSPs face exploding demand for more data-rich content as well as live and interactive video experiences, requiring new content delivery solutions that can both tame unpredictable costs and legacy infrastructure. Simply adding more servers, accelerators, or infrastructure to handle the increased load will not be scalable or sustainable in the long run.

To keep up with demand economically, content delivery solutions supporting Video on Demand (VoD) and live video services need greater performance across input/output (IO), memory and compute. The goal is to deliver more throughput with less energy at the lowest cost possible.

Varnish Software solves this challenge by optimizing every layer of media content delivery, from traffic routing and management to how content is stored and accessed, enabling any video provider or broadcaster to deliver more content with less resources.

This includes continual updates and significant enhancements to Varnish Enterprise 6, the industry’s most feature-rich content delivery software designed for unmatched performance, robustness and flexibility when delivering digital experiences at scale. The comprehensive offering includes API and web acceleration, content delivery and edge solutions, and is pivotal to providing faster digital experiences, supporting greater and more geographically dispersed traffic, and delivering more content with less hardware and energy than ever before.

Varnish Software’s unique architecture, features and capabilities include synchronous direct I/O, NUMA awareness and software based, in-process, TLS, and more.

Over 20% of the world’s top websites and leading video service providers use Varnish Software’s caching and CDN solutions. Customers who have deployed Varnish Software include Sky, Emirates, Hulu, Migros, Tesla, CBC and Future Publishing.

This major industry milestone represents a new performance standard for TLS-encrypted traffic once thought impossible. This breakthrough could allow any organization to reduce their streaming content delivery power requirements dramatically and brings the broadcasting industry closer to reaching true zero latency, which is critical for delivering the next generation of video and digital experiences.

Touchstream – 2023 NAB Show BaM Award winner – Support

Touchstream ISP Insights: plugging the gap in content delivery monitoring

Touchstream’s award-winning solution ISP Insights (Internet Service Provider Insights) is the first ever data optimisation dashboard in OTT monitoring that illustrates the data flow from the CDN through the last-mile of video delivery in an intuitive way, highlighting issues along its path. Using a summarisation engine with data optimisation techniques in combination with ultra-fast efficient dashboards, ISP Insights enables OTT operations teams and streaming engineers to visually pinpoint trouble spots between CDN edge nodes and ISP’s ASNs (Autonomous System Numbers).

Streaming operators currently have a blindspot in their end-to-end monitoring: they cannot see ISP data. The majority of critical streaming issues occur within the ISP domain, between CDNs and player analytics, where both OTT operators and viewers are experiencing the greatest frustration and ultimately poor QoE. On one hand, operators are unable to pinpoint a streaming issue’s root cause, hence bad QoE, and on the other, viewers expect premium QoE when paying for a subscription. This domain is the last significant area in OTT monitoring without any crucial deep instrumentation.

Taking into consideration the real-time issues highlighted by our customers, Touchstream has specifically designed and built a CDN-ISP monitoring tool to support superior QoE. ISP Insights empowers streaming operators giving them a powerful layer of visualisation of the issues previously invisible and unreachable to solve, enabling faster troubleshooting with less resources. ISP Insights’ granular KPI capability at scale is integral to streaming engineers when pinpointing issues, and it underpins them in their delivery of a superior QoE.

The product’s visualisation dashboard is designed to mimic the data flow, making it extremely easy for Network Operations Centre (NOC) personnel to understand the nature and the precise location of any streaming delivery issue, while displaying the root cause in an intuitive way. Once an issue is detected, the dashboard incorporates a pop-up menu that provides shortcuts, allowing an operator to drill into their own CDN log data to investigate it in greater detail.

ISP Insights collects key performance indicators (KPIs) that are critical in highlighting issues in OTT delivery like high cache miss ratio and low throughput indicating video buffering. Before, it was almost impossible for operators to support millions of concurrent viewers generating millions of CDN log lines. With ISP Insights streaming engineers can complete a deep analysis and with it can pinpoint which particular ASN and from what specific edge node the issues originated.

ISP Insights is designed to be secure, efficient and economical. Rather than ingesting the raw CDN log data, Touchstream provides a summarisation plugin that resides in the customer domain. With this all PII (Personally Identifiable Information) data remains in the customer domain, making the solution completely secure by design. Finally but equally important, with no need to re-ingest the log data the solution is extremely cost-effective.

Touchstream’s ISP Insights ushers in a new era of essential deep visibility of OTT delivery and troubleshooting, allowing even greater control over QoE resulting in improved Net Promoter Score (NPS) and reduced subscriber churn rate.