M+E Connections

Zixi and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elemental senior product managers, during a webinar on March 28, explained how their solutions work together to solve complex problems for broadcasters.

The Zixi ZEN Master live video orchestration and telemetry control plane that Zixi customers use to take operational control of AWS MediaConnect to orchestrate and monitor uncompressed flows in the cloud, according to the companies.

ZEN Master is a live video orchestration and telemetry control plane that Zixi said enables its customers to manage large-scale configuration and monitoring of the Zixi Enabled Network, its live streaming platform, devices and appliances.

With Zen Master, media organizations are able to extend their reach, boost production speed and significantly lower operational costs, the company says at its website.

During the webinar, “Zixi ZEN Master Control Plane for AWS MediaConnect,” the senior product managers said purpose-built, operational dashboards and global visibility provide media organizations with the “agility, security and quality needed for dynamic video production and delivery.”

“MediaConnect has a pretty deep integration with Zixi, allowing customers to both use the Zixi protocol on MediaConnect and with Zen Master for Orchestration,” Lena Tanaomi, senior product manager for AWS Elemental MediaConnect, pointed out at the start of the webinar.

“MediaConnect is a managed AWS service [that] can securely contribute, transport, and distribute live video using the AWS cloud,” she said. “It can transmit content both within the cloud and out to the public internet.”

She explained: “When we look at the different types of video transport that we’re really hitting the sweet spot with, MediaConnect for mezzanine-type video – so this is your video where the bit rate is under 100 megabits per second – you’re looking for latency for less than two seconds.”

Despite the deep integration with the Zixi protocol, she noted that AWS also supports common industry standard protocols.

Use cases for the AWS/Zixi solution include “cloud contribution,” such as from the public internet to contribute live video to AWS, she noted.

Paul Shore, Zixi senior product manager, went on to provide an overview of Zixi, saying the software company offers a “software-defined video platform … used by broadcasters and global media companies and sports leagues for live events … [and] over-the-top broadcasters and other service providers.”

He added: “To more efficiently and effectively source, aggregate, manage [and] distribute live events and 24/7 live linear channel it works over any IP network, any protocol and any edge device.”

The Zixi network “encompasses hundreds of thousands of global software nodes, thousands of media companies and over 500 technology partners now that have integrated or interoperate with our protocol [and] the ZEN Master system.”

The Zixi protocol is so robust and data rich, it is “used for delivering broadcast quality streams,” he went on to say, adding it’s also “ultra scalable.”