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Authored by Mark Johnson, SVP and Head of Global Solutions at XYZ Corp, in collaboration with Emily Carter, CEO at MediaSync. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of AWS.
As cloud-based production solutions gain traction within the broadcasting sector, the execution of live events has remained largely dependent on traditional on-premises workflows. This reliance stems from the necessity for ultra-low latency and the capability to manage uncompressed video. AWS is advancing its suite of secure, highly scalable services to address these intricate challenges—from cloud-based transcoding and packaging to multi-screen delivery and monetization models with pay-as-you-go pricing. Two pivotal solutions for live media workflows are AWS Elemental MediaConnect, a premium transport service for live video over IP, and the recently introduced AWS Cloud Digital Interface (AWS CDI). CDI is a network technology that empowers broadcasters to reliably transmit uncompressed live video across applications with network latency as low as eight milliseconds.
AWS CDI: A Game Changer for Live Video Production
Launched in September 2020, AWS CDI was designed to tackle the complexities of handling uncompressed video in the cloud. Historically, workloads requiring high-performance connectivity and uncompressed live video were executed on-premises via Serial Digital Interface (SDI) connections. With AWS CDI, users can construct similar workflows across compute instances and services in the AWS Cloud, providing a dependable, high-performance, and interoperable method for transporting uncompressed video.
XYZ Corp and MediaSync teamed up to showcase how media clients can produce and broadcast live sports, news, and events utilizing the AWS Cloud. In this demonstration, a live camera feed was transmitted from a football stadium in Oklahoma City into AWS through the XYZ Network, while CDI replicated the uncompressed feed for ingestion into MediaSync. MediaSync’s advanced broadcasting platform facilitated vision mixing and the addition of motion graphics to customize each feed for distribution, leveraging its integration with Singular.Live. Though this workflow initially utilized just three outputs, its scalability is significant; MediaSync could potentially generate dozens or even hundreds of variations of this production output in the future. From a management perspective, this can be accomplished with a reduced number of personnel who can operate from various locations.
Real-Time Collaboration and Enhanced Quality
During the demonstration, a single graphics controller in London applied the motion graphics through the Singular Live graphic platform, also hosted on AWS. By replicating the live feeds in the cloud via CDI, each uncompressed video feed preserved the quality and ultra-low latency essential for live sports production.
Beyond replicating streams and enhancing motion graphics for regionalized feeds, broadcasters can easily adopt a similar strategy for diverse applications. This includes generating live streams or highlights for social media dissemination or creating additional feeds featuring audio commentary in various languages. An end-to-end cloud workflow allows for limitless replications of an event feed, enabling lightweight adjustments to presentation output. This transformation has favorable implications for platforms, monetization, and commercial opportunities.
Flexibility and Scalability in Cloud Production
A critical aspect of the workflow’s effectiveness is that feeds replicated with CDI remain uncompressed, preventing generational loss associated with encoding, decoding, and re-encoding processes. This capability grants CDI users enhanced flexibility to deploy processing across multiple instances simultaneously. Clients can scale their cloud-based broadcast production infrastructure according to the scale and complexity of each event, acquiring and pre-provisioning resources while allowing them to remain idle between events.
Traditional live broadcast production can be intricate and resource-heavy, yet this demonstration illustrated how cloud-based production transforms that paradigm. Just three individuals participated in this production, none of whom were in the same location, collaborating in real-time low-latency workflows within a fully hybrid model. While complex, it is exhilarating to execute these workflows, which five years ago seemed like a distant possibility.
The Impact of the Pandemic on Live Production
The advantages of cloud-based production have taken on heightened significance due to the global pandemic. With teams unable to physically gather, they require tools that facilitate effortless collaboration from virtually anywhere in the world. One of the primary challenges for XYZ Corp is assisting clients in adapting to the changes brought about by cloud production. However, this workflow posed no major difficulties for XYZ; alignment of the infrastructure, coordination of teams, and ensuring that signals flowed correctly from XYZ into AWS and MediaSync were all that was needed.
Although the feed for this demonstration originated from a football stadium in the United States, the location could be anywhere globally. Broadcasters, news organizations, and live event producers can replicate this workflow to regionalize and distribute feeds to various outlets, including traditional broadcast affiliates, Multi-channel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs), and social media platforms.
Meeting Consumer Demand for Live Content
As consumer demand for live content continues to surge, the ability to scale affordably and on-demand has become crucial for live production. With these workflows, it’s possible to create more live content in more locations, democratizing access to opportunities for many consumers. This holds true for sports, news, music, and even sectors like corporate video and education. As platforms and devices evolve, and bandwidth improves, the demand for high-quality production will only increase.
Not too long ago, production and delivery primarily occurred from a truck, but the pandemic has hastened the shift towards cloud-based remote production workflows enabling teams to work from afar. Widespread adoption is merely a matter of time.
Exploring Future Possibilities with AWS CDI
This demonstration merely scratched the surface of what is achievable with remote, cloud-based live video production. Other multi-vendor applications can utilize AWS CDI, allowing Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to integrate additional functionalities, including channel playout, live video switching, motion graphic insertion, multi-viewer applications, video frame rate adjustments, color space conversion, forensic watermarking, and video encoding and decoding. The possibilities for cloud-based live production extend far beyond sports, with applicability in education, fitness, retail, and various other industries.
For further information about CDI and to stay updated on the latest developments from AWS, please check out this excellent resource.
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