In Broadcast - January 2022 - 49

TM
www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 12 - Issue 1 | January 2022
49
InForm
Bringing visibility to
the cost of cloud
By Ian McDonough, CEO, Blackbird...
he move to the cloud has been an
imperative for many companies
this past year. But adoption of cloud
was always about more than survival.
It brings the prospect of flexible
working,
T
scalability,
collaboration,
efficient upgrading, deeper analytics,
lower carbon emissions and lower cost.
That's the mantra anyway - but as we
emerge from the pandemic it is on all
of us to substantiate these claims.
The cost of cloud, in particular, can
be a minefield. Among other things,
costs vary based on where the physical
data centres are geographically
located. Fees include monthly access,
retention time and storage volume.
There are even costs for simply
deleting
content
providers.
We want to highlight the hidden
factors that significantly increase
the cost of running traditional video
editing platforms in the cloud.
Hidden costs to the light
It is possible to find the market
costs of traditional video editing
platforms that have been adapted
for the cloud. However, there are
multiple background costs associated
with these platforms that are not
immediately apparent.
For example, moving desktop
applications to the cloud means
virtualizing the systems they run
on to provide remote access to that
machine for users. Virtualized systems
accessed through virtual desktops
from some cloud
require high bandwidth for acceptable
video performance. They also require
expensive
high-end
workstation
infrastructure with significant GPU
resources.
Moving media and content to
the cloud is expensive and time
consuming. The same applies to
moving content between different
types of storage and between regions
within the cloud.
Compute costs can be identified
relatively easily but the various hidden
storage, connectivity and egress costs
can be hard to determine. All of this
can spiral when scaling up for a new
project.
These hidden costs make it difficult
for purchasers to understand their
true financial commitment which
leads to 'bill shock' and uncontrolled
expenditure.
Limited bandwidth is the everpresent
bottleneck in the cloud.
With
resolutions,
bit
depths, frame
rates and hence file sizes increasing
all the time, you can't just rely on
technology's tendency to speed up to
solve the problem. Instead, you have
to design a system that doesn't have
the problem in the first place.
Transparency in the Cloud
This is how Blackbird is built. It's
a cloud native video editing system
that enables professional editing in
a browser. It doesn't need to move a
single large video file, ever.
With our patented codec technology,
frame accurate editing is always
available. And because the Blackbird
codec is so efficient (requiring just
2Mb/s bandwidth to operate), you
don't need heavy duty workstations:
any recent computer will work. Nor
do you need monolithic software
applications, because Blackbird gives
full editing in a browser.
Precisely
because
of
the way it
works, we are able to show that the
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is up to
35% lower with Blackbird than with
traditional NLEs.
Indeed infrastructure costs up to
75% lower with Blackbird. The TCO is
lower with Blackbird
across a range of
live sports and news
production scenarios
ranging from 15 to
150 users as verified by independent
research www.blackbird.video/tco.
You don't have to take our word
for it. Our customers are the world's
leading sports, news, entertainment
and government organizations
including CBS Sports, NHL, Univision,
Cheddar News, BT and the US
Department of State.
We have engineered Blackbird so
that efficiency, sustainability and low
TCO go hand in hand.
It's a virtuous circle that's good
for speed of production, good for
sustainability and good for your
budget too.
https://www.blackbird.video
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.blackbird.video https://www.blackbird.video https://www.blackbird.video/tco/ https://www.blackbird.video/solution http://www.blackbird.video/tco https://www.blackbird.video
In Broadcast - January 2022

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