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Delivering multiple channels to Nordics for a media conglomerate

How Amagi delivered multiple channels with varying audio, commercial, and subtitle requirements across three countries in Europe.

CASE STUDY

Channels ported to centralized playout

06 03Platform for multiple audio, and video profiles

01Locations in the Nordics region

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© 2018 Amagi Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Case study | Delivering multiple channels to Nordics for a media conglomerate

Amagi’s customer is one of the largest media conglomerates, with presence in North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The company currently owns some of the most watched GEC, News, and Kids entertainment media brands.

About the customer



Business requirementsAmagi’s customer wanted to centralize operations for six of their channels in the Nordic region. Given below were the specific requirements from Amagi’s customer.

The challenge

For six channels across three countries, the requirements for audio and subtitles would have been too complicated to manage using a traditional playout system. Additionally, integrating the commercial workflow into the main playout would have required further adjustments to the workflow, increasing the complexity. This could have had an adverse impact on timelines and SLAs.

1. Broadcast-grade linear channel playout for six channels, and distribution to Teracom.

2. Intelligently manage varying audio and subtitles requirement for individual feeds.

3. Enabling Kantar watermarking to ensure accurate viewership and reach for the customer.

4. Integrating third-party commercials workflow from four ad agency partners.

Broadcast-grade playout

Audio & subtitle shuffling

Kantar watermarking

Third-party ad agency collaboration

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System architecture

Amagi deployed CLOUDPORT, its award-winning cloud playout platform to move content, graphics, audio, and subtitles for all six channels to cloud. From cloud, all assets were downlinked on to the playout servers installed at Amagi’s delivery partner’s facility. From the facility, all six channels were played out and delivered to Teracom for further distribution.

Transcode &transport

server

Content archive

Customer premises Partner facility in Estonia

Schedulingsystem

Amagi Cloud

Playout for six channels

Redundent output

Fiber link

Satellite downlink of a single channel

Further distribution of channels to operators &

distribution partners

TERACOM

MUX



CLOUDPORT workflow: Ingest and QC

Easy and secure content ingest All media content and playlists are ingested on cloud storage and downlinked directly on CLOUDPORT server installed at Amagi’s delivery partner’s facility in Estonia.

Error-free scheduling process Customer’s team sends playlist for each day in three phases with a timeline of 4 weeks prior to TX, a minimum of 1 week prior to TX, and 1 day prior to the broadcast. Amagi’s support team publishes the final playlist, and issues error warning for missing assets. Amagi also automatically saves AsRun files in respective folders on cloud.

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Advanced automation for simplified QC and format conversion All six channels have a fixed aspect ratio. HD and SD assets are shared across feeds, and ingested in MXF format and transcoded on cloud as per playout requirements. Metadata information is also automatically picked up from MXF. Multiple automated checks are performed on each asset to ensure correct start times, segment duration etc, or to detect errors such as absent segment, duration mismatch, freeze/silent/black frames, and failed subtitles.



© 2018 Amagi Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Page 6

CLOUDPORT workflow: Subtitles & Kantar Watermarking

Commercials workflowAmagi allowed collaboration with four different ad agencies for delivery of commercials.

1. Commercials and meta XML were dropped by agencies using a unique FTP login two days prior to the TX deadline.

2. Amagi enabled the customer to continue playing legacy commercials using the cloud storage bucket, and ensured the same could be identified on cloud interface.

3. The FTP pushed assets to cloud from where they were delivered to the playout server.

4. With cloud, Amagi supported urgent change requests by ad agencies by resending the final schedules with the changed commercial.

Multiple subtitle combinations & audio shufflingAmagi’s system efficiently ingests all subtitles as STL files and handles the complex subtitles requirement without the need of separate systems. For example, Danish subtitles are being played burnt-in on the Denmark feed while the Norway feed plays out teletext. Similarly, for most promos subtitles are burnt in. For the audio, multiple audios were required for multiple countries. For each country, specific audio was to be enabled. Amagi managed this using metadata information provided by the customer.

Kantar Watermarking for audience measurement To help the broadcasters accurately track performance of the content, Amagi supports Kantar watermarking for audience measurement. Once the licenses were obtained from the customer for Kantar, Amagi’s team stored them on secure cloud and integrated the watermark for specific channels.

Content assets

Audience measurement

data

Amagi Cloud Playout services

Channeldistribution

Detectionof watermark

Customer premises

Channel ID+ timecode

Cloudstorage

Legacy adsvia internet

Urgent requestsAmagi NOC

FTPCustomer premises

Adpartners

Ad partners

Amagi Cloud



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Benefits for the customer

• Scalable infrastructure with enterprise-grade security

• Centralized management of content, playlist, graphics, and subtitles

• Accurate audience measurement with support for Kantar watermarking

• Automatically perform QC, validate assets, and get metadata

• Supporting a mix of HD & SD content with asset normalization

• Country-specific, automated audio shuffling using metadata information only

• Efficient handling of country-specific subtitles requirement

The cloud advantage

Accurate audience measurement

Playout automation

Superior audio and subtitle support

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