First virtualization and now the cloud for Envivio video processing

Back in November 2011 at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo show, Envivio announced that its Muse transcoding software, traditionally married to the company’s range of 4Caster hardware processing appliances for multiscreen TV deployments, was being made available on HP BladeSystem and ProLiant servers. This virtualization was designed to meet the needs “of service providers with large-scale operations who wish to increase scalability and simplify hardware management by combining the IT and headend infrastructure.” The new combination was immediately deployed with an unnamed U.S. Tier 1 carrier for the delivery of multiscreen TV.

Fast-forward three years and the virtualization of video processing software on general hardware platforms is one of the big trends in our industry. This year Envivio has gone beyond datacentre virtualization and into the cloud ‘proper’, announcing that the Envivio Muse encoding software and Envivio Halo network media processing software were being integrated into OpenStack cloud software.  The company also revealed that Muse has been deployed with a major U.S. cable operator for over a year in a fully virtualized scenario, where it is used to process over 10,000 live linear TV channels for multiscreen TV adaptive bit rate streaming.

Envivio’s President and CEO, Julien Signes, told Videonet recently: “The trajectory we are on is natural. Three years ago we applied software on [general] hardware and started working with HP in standard datacentres. Now we have people using our software in virtual environments and we are moving in the direction of the cloud.”

Even before the spring 2014 announcements that Envivio software could be used in OpenStack and VMWare virtualized/cloud environments, the company was arguing that software-based encoding running on general hardware can equal the performance of dedicated software/appliance solutions, even for the most demanding broadcast TV requirements. This was part of a wider argument that the time is right to unify multiscreen and broadcast TV encoding into a common headend.

Whether you accept that argument or not (Signes admits that people still need convincing, although his company sees a growing number of Request for Proposals calling for unified headends and this invariably means the use of software-based processing across all platforms), there seems to be a consensus that virtualized software processing increases flexibility and scalability.  

Envivio lists two of the benefits of virtualization as faster deployment of multiple headends by avoiding cabling, staging and testing, and reduced costs thanks to converged management for different applications like video, email and web portals. The company adds: “Media and IT operations are now converging thanks to software-based video processing. Service providers can reduce their operational costs by unifying their infrastructure and managing video operations as another application in their cloud.”

Envivio software can be used in private or public cloud environments. Signes says the dominant model for virtualized video processing today is the on-premise private cloud but in future we will see more use of public cloud in combination with private cloud. “More of our customers are interested in the flexibility and elasticity, and the time-to-market advantages that the cloud is expected to provide,” he adds.

Two weeks ago Envivio took the cloud message to the small and mid-sized independent cable operators who are members of the National Cable Telecom Cooperative at the association’s NCTC Independent Show in Kansas City. Envivio was demonstrating its turnkey, virtualized end-to-end video software service, claiming that it features all the components needed to quickly launch and scale multiscreen services with minimal CapEx investment. Features include virtualized encoding, packaging, digital rights management (DRM), ad mediation, Content Delivery Network (CDN), app creation and billing.
 
“Time is of the essence for the independent video provider,” Arnaud Perrier, VP of Strategy and Corporate Development at Envivio, declared. “With our cloud-based SaaS [Software as a Service] platform, customers can go from zero to service launch in less than a month. Our fully integrated video delivery service employs a pay-as-you-grow OpEx model that allows them to scale the service based on usage while maintaining the highest-level of video quality and reliability.”

In April Envivio and 1 Mainstream said they were collaborating to offer a turnkey end-to-end offering covering video delivery for devices like Apple TV, XBox, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, iOS/Android tablets and Samsung Smart TVs. 1 Mainstream CEO Rajeev Raman has said the integration of Envivio products with its cloud video platform will unlock extraordinary opportunities for Pay TV operators, broadcasters and networks that have previously been constrained by cost, speed and scale issues.