Industry Insight

The Evolution of the Media and Entertainment Cloud

Perspectives from Cisco® and Ascent Media™


Get ready for the next wave of media computing services: the private media cloud. A hosted computing fabric designed specifically for media companies can spur innovation and drive down costs.

Contents

Introduction

The transition currently sweeping the media and entertainment industry is as structural and as fundamental as the introduction of color TV or cable networks. Three key industry changes (consumer demand for more choices, the emergence of online video content, and a push to cut costs in response to economic hardship) are having a profound impact on business profitability. In fact, this impact is so fundamental that media executives are forced to examine the cost structure of their business. When the Wall Street Journal asked Jeff Zucker, president and chief executive officer of NBC Universal, “How do you bridge the gaps between the digital dimes and the analog dollars?” Mr. Zucker answered, “We’ve got to change our cost structure.”1

One approach to changing the cost structure is to transform the disconnection and isolation of different business units. For example, many media companies today, including News Corp, Viacom, and Disney, are merging business units or consolidating different services groups. By building a common infrastructure for equipment and services across multiple segments of the business, media companies can amortize technology costs across different business units. When implemented correctly, these projects can generate substantial savings with minimal impact to productivity.

This article discusses a logical extension of this trend, in which media companies use “cloud computing,” a hosted technology fabric that provides computational services on demand, to lower operations costs. The article introduces a new concept: the “private media cloud,” a custom-built cloud designed for the unique requirements, standards, and services of the media and entertainment industry, and built to address media-specific problems. When multiple companies share a private media cloud, they can deploy new technologies such as Interoperable Master Format (IMF) at a lower cost of adoption.

More importantly, the private media cloud can accelerate innovation by allowing developers to produce content-specific applications such as automatic generation of metadata from content, content repurposing and translation, and automatic embedding of hyperlinks for feature products into content. These kinds of innovations can translate directly into the ability to derive additional revenues from content. Ultimately, a private media cloud reduces the operations costs of distributing content, increases revenues, and unlocks new benefits for content owners and distributors alike.

What is a Cloud?

“Cloud computing” is a term applied to large, hosted data centers, usually geographically distributed, that offer various computational services on a “utility” basis. Typically, the configuration and provisioning of subscriber services in these data centers are highly automated, to the point that services are delivered within seconds of a subscriber request. A cloud may be hosted by anyone: an enterprise, a service provider, or a government.

An important aspect of cloud computing is the nature of the services that are being extended to the subscribers. At the most basic level, cloud computing can provide subscribers with compute, storage, and networking resources on demand. However, cloud computing services can also be highly sophisticated and offer subscribers capabilities such as executing content-specific functions (i.e., transcoding a specific piece of content). In general, cloud computing can make a broad range of capabilities, from very coarse functions to hundreds of content-specific functions, available to subscribers. All of these capabilities can be billed back to subscribers on a “pay-as-you-use” basis.

A private media cloud is an extension of the basic cloud computing concept, providing a cloud platform-as-a-service designed specifically for media companies, Figure 1. It supports the standards, services, storage models, and security attributes that are useful in solving common problems along the media and entertainment value chain. A private media cloud is “private” in the sense that it is used to provide intra-enterprise and inter-enterprise services to a controlled number of participating companies with similar needs and requirements. It is built to provide interoperable media services, enabling infrastructure within multiple enterprises to interact transparently with the private cloud.


What is an Interoperable Master?

In order for media companies to benefit from greater collaboration (whether through a private media cloud or through the myriad other ways in which they interact and serve their downstream constituents), the companies need a common media format. Such a format, named the Interoperable Master Format (IMF), is currently the subject of discussions among several major studios, hosted by the University of Southern California’s Entertainment Technology Center. (See www.etcenter.org/IMF.) The goal of the IMF effort is to develop a voluntary specification for a single digital master that can be used as the basis for creating any downstream media deliverable, for any screen size, bit rate, resolution, compression codec, etc. The IMF will store one master set of file-based elements, including metadata, which can be transformed, combined, and packaged for downstream distribution using multiple Composition Play Lists, Figure 2. The availability of high-quality, uniform, interoperable, file-based masters should lower costs, improve time-to-market, and increase interoperability of existing production processes. The IMF specification is intended to be open, so that file-based IMF workflows can be implemented and customized by any content creator, service provider or distribution partner.


How Does a Private Media Cloud Create Value for the Media and Entertainment Industry?

Media and entertainment firms are continuing to merge previously disconnected business units and partners and to expand shared infrastructure. As a result, digital production, distribution, and business processes are becoming increasingly integrated, interconnected, and collaborative. This trend is occurring both within firms and across firms. A private media cloud approach allows firms to create their own internal cloud, as well as to interact more transparently with external media-tuned data centers that provide private cloud services. The value of this degree of interoperability can be felt in several areas, but especially when implementing and deploying processes across business units, for example, processes associated with the IMF. This value manifests across the value chain, and is shared by content owners as well as consumer-facing firms such as broadcasters and digital retailers.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the example of a private media cloud supporting IMF-related operations. Based on their understanding of private media-tuned data centers currently supporting the media and entertainment value chain, Cisco and Ascent have identified several specific sources of value. They include:

Data consolidation

Consolidating video, audio, and metadata outputs from production and post-production processes into a consistent “Interoperable Master Format” can simplify downstream processing, increase reliability, and decrease the costs with which downstream distribution targets can be fulfilled. Media and entertainment content datasets are large compared to those in other industries, at tens of terabytes per title. Aggregate annual industry capacity will be on the order of hundreds of petabytes. Such large, concentrated datasets are well suited to be served from a “private cloud” tuned for the media and entertainment industry. The private media cloud consolidates and optimizes storage, management, and operations costs, and provides a consistent set of “on-ramp” services to facilitate the creation of interoperable master datasets.

Minimized data movement and transport costs

Once data is in the media and entertainment cloud, it pays to leave it there. There is a common misconception that when content is digital, moving it around is essentially free. This belief may be a reasonable assumption for small datasets, but it is certainly not the case for terabyte-scale media files. It takes almost 23 hours to move a 10-terabyte dataset over a Gigabit Ethernet link. A good way to understand the value that the private media cloud offers for data transport is to imagine a factory. A traditional factory has fixed machines, and materials are moved around the factory floor (or even through multiple factories). In cloud computing, the materials and work-in-process stays put, and the machines “come to the data,” minimizing data transport latency and costs.

Increased innovation and collaboration

The media and entertainment value chain has historically been predicated upon effective collaboration. However, the industry is only just beginning to take advantage of the kinds of networked collaboration services that can increase the quality of results, reduce cycle times, and optimize end-to-end costs. A private media cloud can and should offer a rich set of such collaboration services. When combined with open interfaces, these services can spur innovation by providing a rich palette of media-tuned services (i.e., metadata extraction, annotations and approvals, and content packaging) that can be quickly extended to cross-function and cross-enterprise collaborative networked processes.

Improved utilization of “media manufacturing capacity”

The digital manufacturing capacity required to support media and entertainment applications can fluctuate wildly. Demand for a particular customer is project- and deal-driven, and prone to spikes that may not be easy to predict. In such environments, building for peak capacity for each customer is simply not a cost-effective option. Instead, a viable “pay-as-you-use” model can be realized through aggregating and smoothing demand, and matching the supply of machines in the “virtual factory” against this smoother demand curve.

Automation of distribution and business-to-business (B2B) syndication of content and metadata throughout the supply chain

The emergence of interoperable masters across multiple feature films and TV episodes from multiple studios can enable an unprecedented degree of automation. Distribution servicing, or the creation of specific entertainment products in the right formats with the correct “digital packaging,” can increasingly be automated. A private media cloud can provide automated distribution services that provide coverage for the majority of distribution targets.

A private cloud that offered these types of capabilities could benefit multiple content providers, service providers, and distributors. To deliver these benefits, however, the private media cloud must be tuned specifically for the media and entertainment industry, and must be transparent, virtual, and open. Customers must be able to transparently observe their resident data, all operations that are performed within the cloud, and their status and associated costs. Customers should also be able to reasonably implement standalone operations on their own premises that interact and interoperate with the media and entertainment cloud in a transparent, virtual whole. Finally, customers should be able to provide and retrieve data, order work, and observe status in an open and nonproprietary manner, using interfaces that allow them to connect transparently to a variety of their own business and production systems.

Private Cloud Benefits for Broadcasters

In addition to the benefits described above, the IMF services available in a private media cloud would also offer specific benefits for broadcasters. A private media cloud can help broadcasters:

Reduce operational costs

A common consequence of the isolation and disconnection of business and infrastructure work centers prevalent today is that the same work is done at multiple places along the value chain, often increasing operational costs for broadcasters. For example, important metadata available earlier in the value chain is not maintained or made available to broadcasters, forcing multiple downstream distributors to recreate the metadata and manipulate the content. A private media cloud can provide broadcasters with a broad array of services, including access to required upstream metadata, as well as various content formats.

Utilize staff more effectively

A private media cloud can help broadcasters to better rationalize their staff by enabling them to use applications, collaborative processes, and services that “come to the data.” As a result, a single staff member or team could potentially serve multiple geographies or facilities.

Reduce development costs and time-to-market

In many cases, broadcasters must augment traditional playout services with multiplatform publishing capabilities in order to remain competitive. The many back-end services required to prepare and deliver content for different consumer-facing platforms (transcoding for mobile or PC, DRM-packaging, download, streaming, license management, and serving) can be made available within the cloud. This capability eliminates the need for each broadcaster to develop, maintain, and manage such complementary services themselves. When data is consolidated, there are also significant opportunities to optimize peering and connectivity to consumer-facing content distribution networks, allowing broadcasters to join forces and enjoy economies of scale.

Summary

Today’s media and entertainment companies are facing fundamental disruption in their business models, technologies, and techniques for provisioning required services. These disruptions are profound, yet they also offer proactive firms an opportunity to enact strategies to harness change, lead the competition, and thrive in the new world order. Cisco and Ascent are working with leading media companies to take advantage of this industry transition. Cisco and Ascent take an architectural approach, in which different aspects of the business are viewed as discrete services. These services can be selectively exposed as a common fabric to employees, partners, and customers throughout the media value chain to lower operational costs and unleash new innovation and collaboration. The “private media cloud” advanced by Cisco and Ascent represents a first step in that direction.

About Cisco and Ascent Media

Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate, and collaborate. Since 1984, Cisco has led in the innovation of IP-based networking technologies, including routing, switching, security, TelePresence systems, unified communications, video, and wireless. The company’s responsible business practices help ensure accountability, business sustainability, and environmentally conscious operations and products. Learn more at www.cisco.com.

Santa Monica, California-based Ascent Media Group, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ascent Media Corporation (NASDAQ: ASCMA), which provides creative and technical services to the media and entertainment industries. Through more than 40 facilities in regions of Southern California, New York, Atlanta, London, and Singapore, Ascent Media provides effective solutions for the creation, management, and distribution of content to major motion picture studios, independent producers, broadcast networks, cable channels, advertising agencies, and other companies that produce, own, and/or distribute entertainment, news, sports, corporate, educational, industrial, and advertising content.

1 Swisher, Kara. “What’s On – and Where?: NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker on why he believes television is still paramount.” The Wall Street Journal. June 2, 2009. Retrieved August 3, 2009.