In part one of our series, we discussed how broadcasters can reduce the costs and complexity of managing media workflows in the cloud by moving specific functions to a content delivery network (CDN) infrastructure operating in parallel.
We also introduced using a contribution network to help efficiently manage production workflows before delivery.
The contribution network and CDN share similarities in design but are quite different in practice. Importantly, they exist at different stages of the media ecosystem, though they are complementary in the big picture.
Fundamentally, the contribution network offloads many services and stream management responsibilities — including transmuxing, transcoding, ad-marker translations, audio/video conversions, automated archiving and rewindable streaming — before content is delivered to consumers.
To best understand a contribution network’s value, it is necessary to know its place in the production workflow.
The broadcast ecosystem begins at the origination point for source-quality production. The contribution network is the first workflow a content producer may use. It is a useful intermediary between content origination and traditional CDN delivery for the processing, conversion and other services necessary to prepare content for consumption.
The heart in the cloud
As discussed in part one, the studio was the production heart. Talent and producers were in studios, and the “network” was the equipment and connecting cabling. The workflow functions were traditionally managed on-premises or within the physical studio infrastructure.
The technology ecosystem has shifted as studio workflows move to the cloud. The studio now supports production teams operating from multiple remote locations. The production still happens in real-time but people are spread over different sites.
So, where is the “heart” of the studio now? It’s in the cloud, so the workflows and content exist in someone else’s network. It could be a vendor’s cloud network or an organization’s resources hosted by a cloud provider on a virtual machine, such as a playout system.
The cloud can be considered the internet network, its connected service and the available content production tools within it.
Here is a list of pre-final-delivery production tools:
- Remote audio and video feeds
- On-air video and talk systems for the host and talent
- Playout systems
- Mixing and switching functions
- Content clipping and editing functions
- Testing procedures and feeds
- Low-latency streams and feeds
- Content management systems (CMS) and digital asset management
- Media file uploads and ingestion into CMS
These are a few of the functions before the final delivery. They are essential to the content creation process. The end consumers are not part of these workflows yet. That is what makes the contribution network separate from the CDN. The producers are the contribution network “consumers” and the services within it before being passed to the CDN for delivery.
On the post-route
Once the core content is created, the contribution network has another role to play before content is delivered to the consumer. The post-production workflows, where a wide variety of content management functions are implemented, include the following:
- Content indexing systems, such as audio fingerprinting and AI metadata tools
- Addition of closed captioning and related subtitles
- Protocol transformations and transcoding functions
- Watermarking
- Packaging for content tracking, analytics and syndication platforms
- Tokenization and content control and other DRM-related functions
- Ad tech platforms, campaign management and marketplace connections
- Syndication formats
- Operational workflows like redundancy, disaster recovery (DR) and other business continuity
These macro functions entail various functions. Let’s dive into some examples.
Protocol transformations transcoding
Consumers access content via different media types. Television production needs a 4K or higher quality feed, while mobile phones need a ladder of resolutions from high quality to low quality, depending on the user’s data plans.
Social media networks often need feeds using specific protocols and codecs such as RTMP and H.264. Meanwhile, call-in shows, sports broadcasts, gaming, gambling and interactive industries need low-latency solutions that allow hosts and consumers to participate in real time.
These production workflows are all implementations of the contribution network. The source quality content is transcoded according to the destination platform and network in pre- and post-production workflows.
So, where is the “heart” of the studio now?
Content tracking, analytics and syndication
These different destinations, syndications and affiliates need to be tracked and monitored. It is common to attach metadata and add-ons to content to facilitate analytics as it leaves the studio and heads toward the consumers. Routinely, a broadcaster wants to know the content is delivered successfully and how it is used.
For ad insertion, it can be essential to quantify the feed for the benefit of downstream advertisers, including concepts like mid-roll markers and information about the content, such as the genre or station name. Here, we see functions such as SCTE-35, metadata, API for CMS and URL parameters routinely deployed.
Operational workflows
Operations should not be overlooked as an essential workflow benefitting from the contribution network stage.
Today, media companies routinely have redundant feeds produced by diverse studios and delivered through diverse CDNs to consumers.
Proper engineering dictates that any single system component will fail eventually, and the way to achieve 100% uptime in media services is to operate redundancy at every level.
In the contribution network, this often looks like multiple systems for maintaining and producing the content. Examples include using multiple encoders and diverse media asset management systems.
Contribution networks, traditional CDN delivery
Diverse production workflows happen before content is delivered to the consumer. The CDN is the final step.
It is the bridge between the content and the consumer and, like the contribution network, is a rich ecosystem. It also plays the role of the broadcast tower in the streaming world — a large transmitter reaching millions or a low-power translator reaching a small, targeted set of end-users.
The CDN also needs access to the content library the consumers need and implementations of necessary functions such as rights restriction, geo-targeting, watermarking, captioning and other consumer benefits and necessities. These facts make the CDN’s role as a bridge clear — it must make the prepared content available to the audience.
To this end, the CDN might bring in a variety of functions, such as ad insertion targeted to individual consumers, analytics about consumer usage, DRM and other rights restrictions, redundancy and 100% uptime features, and scaling for audience size and formats for consumers’ devices.
Changing studio tools
I think it’s fair to say that the media industry better understands the CDN and its delivery to the consumer. We have seen a long evolution of the delivery portion of media on the internet.
In contrast, we are still seeing the evolution of the contribution network. While many functions exist for the benefit of the production team, Covid-19 and the endemic era have accelerated the studio’s evolution worldwide.
We are seeing a burgeoning innovation changing studio tools from on-prem-only systems to hybrid and even cloud-only solutions. We can also start to see how the workflows we discussed can effectively support remote operations by leveraging the cloud infrastructure while still taking advantage of a contribution network and CDN infrastructure.
In part three, we will showcase where some of the wins are in the cloud versus on-premises studios.
The author is president of StreamGuys.
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