Technology for hybrid/converged Playout and Streaming ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Pierre Baumgartner Agenda Converging playout and encoding Delivering ready-to-air channels Hybrid playout architectures Case study: channel OTT encoding Case study #2 : channel manipulation Questions & Answers ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 2 Converging playout and encoding ©2018 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 3 Why converging playout and encoding? • The number of channels drastically increases – Secondary channels (barker, music, occasional…) – Regional channels – OTT variants of Premium channels • Channel regionalization is growing • The need of scalable and future-proof technologies becomes critical – IT security needs • Need for a cost effective solution, which collapses channel playout, compression and delivery, on a future-proof, secure and scalable infrastructure ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 4 Automated playout traditional infrastructure TRAFFIC SYSTEM SCHEDULE AS-RUN AUTOMATION SYSTEM IRDs SDI ROUTER MPEG ENCODING MASTER CONTROL SYSTEM SERVERs BROADCAST PRG OUT DELIVERY PROGRAMING MULTIPLEXER HD/SD ENCODER SOURCES (SDI) SWITCHING / BRANDING / EFFECTS OTT STUDIOs ORIGIN SERVER DELIVERY MULTI-SCREEN ENCODER PLAYOUT COMPRESSION ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 5 Collapsing together playout and premium encoding TRAFFIC SYSTEM SCHEDULE AS-RUN AUTOMATION SYSTEM IRDs SDI ROUTER MPEG ENCODING MASTER CONTROL SYSTEM SERVERs BROADCAST PRG OUT DELIVERY PROGRAMING MULTIPLEXER HD/SD ENCODER SOURCES (SDI) SWITCHING / BRANDING / EFFECTS OTT STUDIOs ORIGIN SERVER DELIVERY MULTI-SCREEN ENCODER PLAYOUT COMPRESSION ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 6 For HD, SD and multi-screen. For broadcast and OTT TRAFFIC SYSTEM SCHEDULE AS-RUN AUTOMATION SYSTEM IRDs SDI ROUTER MPEG ENCODING MASTER CONTROL SYSTEM SERVERs BROADCAST PRG OUT DELIVERY PROGRAMING MULTIPLEXER HD/SD ENCODER SOURCES (SDI) SWITCHING / BRANDING / EFFECTS OTT STUDIOs ORIGIN SERVER DELIVERY MULTI-SCREEN ENCODER PLAYOUT COMPRESSION ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 7 Delivering ready-to-air channels ©2018 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 8 Remaining in the compressed domain • GOP or Frame-accurate splicing between TS live and/or file sources – Frame-accurate splicing requires to dynamically re-encode the frames at the transition • The pro’s – Preserve the audio/video quality of the sources – Optimize the resources better channel density – Optimize the in-to-out latency • The con’s – The sources to play-back shall have the same format (A/V codec, resolution,…) – Audio and video processing is not possible ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 9 Spectrum XE splicing playout workflow External Graphical Traffic External Storage interface & Billing Automation Asset Automation Manager TS Media Library Multiplexing Compressed Streaming Splicer TS Monitoring Live feeds ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 10 Re-encoding the sources to play • Dynamically decode the compressed source, perform the A/V processing and switching in the non-compressed domain, do the channel branding and re-encode • The pro’s – Use heterogeneous input formats: compressed / non-compressed, MPEG-2 / H.264 / HEVC, SD/HD – Perform A/V video processing, such as • Video up / down scaling • Audio loudness control – Perform advanced channel branding – Generate a statistical multiplexing pool at the output – Perform ABR encoding for OTT delivery • The con’s – Re-encoding is not transparent in terms of video quality : need for a Premium VQ encoder ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 11 Spectrum XE re-encoding playout workflow External Graphical Traffic External Storage interface & Billing Automation Asset Automation Manager TS Media Library MPEG- 2/4 A/V MPEG-2/4 Multiplexing SD/HD HEVC Statmux TS Processing Graphics Decoding Switcher SD/HD Packaging Live feeds (Resizing/ and DVE De-interlacing/ OTT ABR Streaming Loudness/…) encoding Monitoring SDI Live feeds ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 12 Hybrid playout • Hybrid audio / video – The video component is re-encoded, the audio components remain compressed. • Application: channel branding, up/down scaling – The audio components are re-encoded, the video remains compressed • Application: audio loudness control (ad-insertion) • Primary and secondary sources – One primary compressed source is passing through • The audio/video quality of this live feed is preserved – Whenever the system switches to a secondary source, the re-encoding mode applies • The re-encoding sources may different formats • Non-compressed secondary source (SDI) is possible ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 13 Spectrum XE hybrid playout workflow External Graphical Traffic External Storage interface & Billing Automation Asset Automation Manager TS Primary live feed TS Media Library MPEG- Multiplexing 2/4 A/V MPEG-2 Splicer Streaming MPEG-4 Monitoring SD/HD Processing Graphics TS Switcher HEVC Decoding (Resizing/ and DVE live feeds De-interlacing/ SD/HD Loudness/…) encoding SDI live feeds ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 14 Playout and encoding convergence • An encoding system may need playout capabilities • SCTE-35 insertion controlled from schedules • Basic channel branding or black-out • A playout system may need encoding capabilities – Delivering channels ready-to-air – Tier 2/3 channels, disaster recovery, channel regionalization ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 15 Hybrid playout architectures ©2018 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 16 The workflow plane • Discrete appliances are replaced by software defined customizable workflows • A workflow is a logical view of the processing modules involved in playout and encoding • A workflow can be instantiated once or multiple times, with a different set of parameters • The library of processing modules can be enriched : new A/V codecs, new streaming protocols, new video effects… ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 17 software framework • A unique video framework: Maltese – Maltese offers a unique library of elementary software processing modules dedicated to audio & video (decoding, processing, encoding…) – Maltese allows assembling these elementary modules in workflows and instantiating the workflows into multiple jobs. – Maltese provides a native Web Services API • A video operating system – Clustering: Maltese can manage multiple servers as a single system – Load balancing: Maltese automatically estimates the CPU cost of a job and is in charge of allocating the appropriate HW resources to make it run. – Resiliency: Maltese continuously monitors the jobs health and is able to restart or re-deploy a faulty job automatically and instantly. ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 18 The infrastructure plane • Software based playout/encoding workflows can run on COTS high-end servers. – CPUs are enough powerful to run encoding and playout applications – IP networks can be used to convey non-compressed or compressed audio/video streams. • Multiple deployment models are applicable – A standard IT based server (appliance) • One graphical user interface, a local storage system – A cluster of multiple IT servers • One single graphical user interface, an external shared storage • Native load-balancing and redundancy mechanisms CiaB CiaB CiaB VM VM VM – A Virtual Machine Hypervisor Hypervisor Hypervisor Hypervisor • A virtual edition, which makes the application hardware agnostic Hardware Hardware Hardware Hardware – A cluster of Virtual Machines • To take benefit of elastic hardware resources ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 19 Infrastructure • The standalone hardware appliance – Internal media storage (RAID5) – 1+1 redundancy • The cluster of Spectrum XE nodes – A unique interface to command & control all nodes – A unique external storage (MediaGrid) shared by all the nodes – An internal load-balancing mechanism (+ simulator) – A native N+P resiliency • The Virtualized edition – Makes Spectrum XE agnostic of hardware – VMWARE virtualization technology ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 20 The control plane • A Channel-in-a-Box (CiaB) solution runs its own built-in automation – It is connected to an external traffic & billing system, which provides the schedules • Different types of channel playlists exist: – 24/7 time-based playlists channel origination – Trigger-based playlists : (SCTE-104 over SDI, SCTE-35) regionalization, ad-insertion – Manual control playlist : live events control, EAS • These channel types may not be exclusive – One channel could be driven by multiple playlists. As an example: TRAFFIC SYSTEM TRAFFIC SYSTEM EMS 24/7 schedule Commercial breaks Call ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 21 control plane • Spectrum XE allows defining multiple video layers for one channel – Each video layer is driven from an independent playlist (playlist levels) – The video layers (playlist levels) are ordered by priority. • Let’s take an example Playlist level 1 Video Layer #1 Channel A Channel B Channel A (national automation) Playlist level 2 Video Layer #2 Ad1 Ad2 3 (local traffic, triggers) Playlist level 3 Video Layer #3 EMS (manual or trigger control) ChannelAd1 A EMS Ad2 Channel3 B Channel A Final programming ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. 22 The 3 planes of the Spectrum XE architecture ©2017 Harmonic Inc. All rights