VICELAND wanted to launch new feeds to multiple zones such as New Zealand, Africa, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Wallonia. The team had set and aggressive timeline to launch the feeds and wanted to centrally control channels from their centralized London hub. Additionally, VICELAND was searching for an automated, OTT-ready solution that could help them with future expansion. In partnership with Amagi, VICELAND deployed edge playout-based solution to move content, and commercials from multiple sources to AWS cloud. Advanced automation of graphics and MAM integration for publishing and compliance allowed VICELAND to run multiple localized feeds centrally, without deploying a large workforce. Srinivasan KA Amagi Co-founder

1. www.amagi.com
New York Los Angeles London Hong Kong Mumbai Bangalore
www.amagi.com
Friday, 18 May 2018
WHY AND HOW VICELAND BECAMEFUTURE-READY
WITH NEXTGEN CLOUD BROADCAST
Srini
Co-founder, Amagi
Friday, 18 May 2018
CLOUD CALLING

2. 2 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary2
Customer & challenges
01.

3. 3 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
| Fastest growing youth media company
231
Million
Unique visitors
per month
03
Billion
YouTube
views
5-10
hours
Original Premium
Content Daily
Global
Presence
Offices and
on-the-ground presence
in 50+ countries
3 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
| Fastest growing youth media company
231
Million
Unique visitors
per month
03
Billion
YouTube
views
5-10
hours
Original Premium
Content Daily
Global
Presence
Offices and
on-the-ground presence
in 50+ countries

4. 4 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
VICE’ network of premium digital channels and
global audience
Strategic and creative services to create
millennial focused brand communications
DIGITAL LINEAR CREATIVE SERVICES
VICE’s 24 hour global original content
TV channel
Three key offerings

5. 5 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
THIS IS
BORN
FROM
VICE
A PREMIUM TV
EXPERIENCE MADE FOR
AND BY THOSE CURIOUS
ABOUT LIFE RIGHT NOW

6. 6 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary

7. 7 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Business requirements
Launching feeds in
non-contiguous
geographies
Multisite collaboration
on workflow
Automated processes
for entire workflow
Cost-effective
architecture
VICELAND operational in
US, UK & France through traditional playout

8. 8 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary8
Project overview
02.

9. 9 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Managed End-to-End Service Including Delivery
Media Services Playout Services Delivery Services
Asset
Validation
Quality
Control
Storage &
Archival
Rule-based
scheduling
Playout
management
MCR
Services
Live Event
Handling
Fiber
Transmission
Edge
Playout
IP Delivery
(through Zixi)
Content Ingest
and transcoding
for ad partners

10. 10 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
AWS + Amagi services snapshot
AWS S3
AWS
EC2
AWS
Lambda
WEB UI
Ingest &
storage
AWS EC2
Spot Instances
BLIP
Automation
WEB UI
OSCAR
HAWKEYE
SAURON
CLOUDPORT
Edge / Virtual Server
Playout &
Management
Amazon
IAM
WEB UI
Amazon
RDS
Security and
access
AWS
Direct Connect
- Linear OTT
- Edge Playout
- Cloud Playout
- Satellite Uplink
- Fiber Transmission
- IP Delivery
Channel
delivery

11. 11 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Amagi service layers explanation
NOC/
MCR
HAWKEYE
(Infrastructure
Monitoring)
OSCAR
(System
Access)
SAURON
(Cloud
Security)
WEB UI
Amagi BLIP
(Automation)
AWS CLOUD
S3 RDS
CLOUDPORT
SERVER
(VIRTUAL OR EDGE)

12. 12 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary12
Project architecture
03.

13. 13 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Option 1 - Cloud Playout with Fiber / AWS Direct Connect
FLANDERS

14. 14 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Horse & Country TV - Customer Deployment

15. 15 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Option 1.A - Cloud playout with IP stream
FLANDERS

16. 16 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Cinedigm – Customer Deployment

17. 17 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Option 2 (chosen by VICELAND) - Edge Playout
FLANDERS

18. 18 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Why Edge playout was chosen
Satellite/ Fiber
costs
Operator
preference
Internet stability

19. 19 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary19
Deployment challenges
04.

20. 20 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Content ingest and transcoding
- Automatically moving the content to cloud with minimum human intervention
- Allowing Ad partners to ingest commercials
- Sharing common assets between feeds
Transcoder
Storage
AWS S3
BLIP
AWS EC2
Transfer
FLANDERS/ WALLONIA
BrandDeli
NETHERLANDS
Transcoder
Assets
Sharing
MXF
TS
TS
Commercials
Ad Partners
Program | Graphics | Subtitles | Metadata
VL-VAF-VNL
Folder Structure
VL-VNL-VBL
VNL-VBL-
VAF-VL-VLWL
Media
Graphics
Metadata
Challenge
FTP
Access
VICELAND UK

21. 21 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Microservices
- Processing content and playout without deploying permanent servers
Challenge
VICELAND
Premises
Transcoder
Storage
VICELAND UK
Transfer
FLANDERS/ WALLONIA
BrandDeli
NETHERLANDS
Ad Partners
AWS Lambda
EDGE
CLOUDPORT
CLOUDPORT
CLOUDPORT
Assets &
Playlist
Commercials
& break
playlist
Asset Validation
QC
Playlist validation
Short & Full Asset preview
Lowres proxy generation
Compliance recording

22. 22 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Automated Content QC
- Validating any number of assets for quality without permanently scaling up the infrastructure
Challenge
Queued Processing Uploaded
EC2 Spot Instances
a. Black detection
b. Frozen frame
c. Missing audio tracks
d. Silence detection
e. Loudness detection
• Audio Track validation
• Subtitle checks
• Metadata checks

23. 23 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Dynamic Graphics
- Automatically rendering graphics to eliminate manual graphics insertion
BLIP
Transcoder
Storage
WEB UI
VICELAND UK
AEP Template
PLAYLIST
AWS S3
DATA CENTER
Adobe After Effects Engine
CLOUDPORT
CLOUDPORT
CLOUDPORT
Challenge
EC2 Spot Instances
Rendered
graphics
Rendered
graphics

24. 24 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Multisite playlist integration
- Multiple playlists for each feed, and additional resources to manage them
- Unfilled inventory leading to missing playlist entries
VICELAND UK
Web UIPlaylists
Web UI
Break
Playlists
Web UI
Break
Playlists
AWS S3 EMG
CP1+1
CP1+1
Playlist
With
Gaps
Dynamic
Fillers in
Playlist
BLIP
AWS EC2
Ad Partner - Transfer
Playlist
Validation
Playlist
Alerts
Playlist
Alerts
Playlist
Validation
Challenge
Ad Partner - BrandDeli

25. 25 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Live Ingest and Orchestration
- Delivering eight hours of live game show to Netherlands and Belgium
- Taking breaks on live
- Redundant set-up for live transmission
Zixi
Broadcaster
Amagi NOC
Playout management
and schedule
preparation
Live MCR
IMG UK
BLIP
AWS EC2 AWS S3
Internet Router
Zixi
Receiver
primary
Zixi
Receiver
primary
Zixi
Receiver
Secondary
Zixi
Receiver
Secondary
CLOUDPORT
NL Primary
CLOUDPORT
BLG Primary
CLOUDPORT
NL Secondary
CLOUDPORT
BLG Secondary
IPSwitch
Ericsson Media Gateway
Challenge

26. 26 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Reliability - System-wide redundancy
- Creating highly redundant broadcast workflow at hardware as well as on cloud storage
AWS S3
Availability Zones
Primary
CLOUDPORT
Secondary
CLOUDPORT
TSOIP Switch
(Example: Nevion
TNS544)
TSOIP
Ethernet/ ASI
TSOIP
Ethernet/ ASI
ASI/IP
Output
Ethernet Switch
Management Control
HB
Management ControlManagement Control
Challenge

27. 27 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
IAM and Security
- Multiple external stakeholders across continents
- Multiple internal touchpoints for content and systems
VICELAND UK
Transfer
PLAYLISTS
EMG
CP1
CP2
Ad Partners
Challenge
Transcoder
BrandDeli
AWS S3
BLIP
RDS
FTP
Transcoder
Port2323
IP1
IP2 HTTPS
Validation
HTTPS
Validation
AMAGI NOC
VICE.AMAGI.TV
VICE.AMAGI.TV
Restricted Access
AWS DC
IP1 IP2
VPC Security
Ground
AMAGI CLOUD
VPN Regulated
Access
VPN
Remote
Access
CP3
Router
Open VPN
SSH
encryption
VPN Regulated
Access
AES 256 bit
encryption
AES 256 bit encryption AES 128 bit
encryption

28. 28 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
HAWKEYE Infrastructure Monitoring
- Monitoring health parameters, asset validation, and playout errors for all feeds in a single view
Challenge

29. 29 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
HAWKEYE Infrastructure Monitoring

30. 30 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
OSCAR System Access

31. 31 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
SAURON - System Monitoring

32. 32 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
SAURON - System Access

33. 33 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
VICELAND content delivery
- Multiple datacenters and last mile delivery options
to be tackled
- Live requirement for Netherlands and Belgium
Challenge

34. 34 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary34
Impact of cloud playout
05.

35. 35 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Cloud Migration: Effects
Launched new
geos quickly
• Netherlands
• Africa
• New Zealand
• Israel
• Flanders
• Wallonia
Multi-party
collaboration
Light-touch
workflow
Reduced
CapEx and OpEx
Seamless collaboration
between Multiple 3rd party
partners & VICE offices
Minimum manual
intervention
Significant
Cost savings
Disaster recovery
System-wide redundancy for business continuity
Value added by cloud
Flexibility
Create sub-feeds or divergent feeds using the same content and playlist
01 02

36. 36 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Customer testimonial
“Moving to Amagi has provided us
an opportunity to scale up faster,
and more effectively.”
Tim Bertioli, VICELAND TV

37. www.amagi.com
Friday, 18 May 2018
THANK YOU

38. 38 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
OSCAR Infrastructure Monitoring

39. 39 Amagi Confidential and Proprietary
Multiple language tracks / closed captions (CC)
Partner Datacenter
- For Africa feed no CC were required, whereas the Israel feed required CC to be played in Hebrew
VICELAND UK
Playlists
Transcoder
AWS S3
BLIP
CC Detection
CC Mapping
Program
Graphics
Hebrew
CC
TATA DATACENTER
CP1
CP2
PARTNER
CP1
CP2
Linear Feed
With CC
Disable
CC
Enable
CC
Linear Feed
without CC TELE
HOUSE
Linear Feed
with Hebrew
CC
Challenge
VL-VAF-VNL
VL-VNL-VBL
CC
EC2
EC2