Stepping up live IP Cloud Production
End 2015, we launched Cloud Production, a comprehensive IP-based video production platform where all resources are available from a cloud based IP infrastructure. On November 22nd 2015, Carlo’s TV Café was broadcast live on RTL4, the leading Dutch commercial TV channel, using Cloud Production. This was the first live multi-camera broadcast ever to be televised using cloud technology, which has been adopted rapidly by other large commercial and public broadcasters.
The case
The international media landscape today has been defined by mergers, reduced production budgets, new collaborations and changing viewer behavior. Broadcasters and producers face a challenge to maintain and raise the quality of their productions with pressure on budgets. The current production process requires committing complete studios and production teams exclusively to a single project, even when they often utilize only a small percentage of the production capacity of the team, technology and equipment. For many productions, significant budget allocations are made for complicated logistics, setting up and deconstructing sets, and parking costs.
The solution
The company’s Cloud Production platform centralizes resources so that they can be shared more efficiently, sustainably and across multiple productions and locations every day—enabling the production crew to focus on the quality of the productions. Because of this centralized approach, significantly fewer crew members are needed on location, which also greatly reduces travel and accommodation costs. What’s more, NEP’s Cloud Production offers the flexibility to allow directors to work in close proximity of the recording location or remote in a centralized gallery setup. All of this contributes to a more sustainable environment in which large trucks and crew vans are no longer needed; there is complete control over the production processes—just as there is with traditional productions; and depending on the type of production, the director has the option of working remotely or on site while the technical infrastructure in the datacenter is shared amongst productions. Directors can fully focus on content.
The foundation of Cloud Production has been proven and is based on years of experience, including our forerunners LiveCenter, and our cloud video editing platform since 2006.
Due to large investments in a national darkfiber infrastructure and several data centers over the last ten years, NEP has almost infinite bandwidth and can therefore work without any compression or delay. The studio location and all essential parts of Cloud Production are connected via IP network connections. All connections use NEP’s own unique dark fiber network to connect to its data center(s), where all technology is housed. The entire infrastructure is monitored by NEP’s software monitoring tool GrandCentral and supported by a 24/7 expert service operations center. By using this scalable IP technology and capacity, NEP the Netherlands can process HD 1080i, 1080p and UHD, as well as future formats such as high frame rate and high dynamic range.
Showcase Euro 2017 women
While many media companies and broadcasters are working on remote production and video over IP, we have made a leap to a Cloud platform on which resources are available on demand.
Peter Bruggink CTO NEP The Netherlands
