Browser-Based Switching in Real-Time Production Is M&E Game-changer

The M&E industry’s accelerating transition to cloud-based operations has brought producers to a turning point where it’s now possible to exploit the full cost-saving potential of location-independent collaboration in any type of A/V production workflow.

For the first time, whether producers are involved in live or episodic program productions, they can put highly scalable browser-based switching to use with real-time multiview renderings of inputs from dispersed sources on conventional computer screens. At any point in a distributed workflow, editors can work with an unlimited array of feeds from cameras, archives, ad servers and other sources to format what audiences will see from one moment to the next.

These landmark capabilities are enabled by Red5’s new TrueTime Studio for Production toolset, one of a growing number of TrueTime applications employing pre-structured combinations of open-source protocols and Red5 innovations. As demonstrated by Red5 in partnership with Zixi, Blackbird and Osprey Video at the 2024 IBC trade show in Amsterdam, TrueTime Studio for Production can be used in any public, private or hybrid cloud environment to provide turnkey browser-enabled support for leveraging multi screen displays of real-time input from all sources.

This is especially important in sports, news and other live content operations where cost-saving centralization of production, sometimes referred to as REMI (remote image model) production, depends on whether producers can sort through inputs from remote camera feeds, dispersed commentators and archived files of ancillary content unimpeded by latencies incurred over long distances. With the ability to instantly switch output across any number of options simultaneously displayed on a single computer screen, producers can deliver far richer viewing experiences without spending on dedicated switch appliances while significantly reducing the costs of remote production equipment and personnel. 

At the same time, TrueTime Studio for Production adds much-needed time- and cost-saving efficiencies in other production environments by enabling input from any number of dispersed collaborators and archived resources to be displayed simultaneously for further editing on any screen in the workflow. This is essential to reducing the time it takes in remotely distributed production and postproduction scenarios to go through frame-by-frame orchestration of content elements and adjustments in color, luminance, camera angles and other parameters on the way to final job completion.

Until now, anything approaching these capabilities has required investment in expensive multiviewer appliances running proprietary apps at editing stations in production workflows. Adding to their limitations, these solutions typically set low ceilings on the number of inputs viewable at any one time, preventing producers from exploiting the full range of inputs that can be delivered from remote sources to enliven output to end users. 

Worst of all, when it comes to REMI production in sports, news and other live event scenarios, the absence of real-time connectivity to those sources is a stifling drawback. Even when users employ proprietary transport systems to cut latencies in distributed production scenarios, the results fall short of the real-time transfer speeds attained with Red5 technology. 

With reliance on the Red5 real-time Experience Delivery Network (XDN) architecture for production-related transport, users experience no perceptible latencies with end-to-end interactive video communications occurring over any distance at sub-250ms speeds. This is why Zixi, the leading provider of low-latency transport in TV production, has partnered with Red5 to offer an integrated ultralow latency option to producers who need to work with input delivered in real time from remote sources.

Trendlines Reshaping Approaches to Production

Before diving deeper into the technologies, features, partnerships and other details relevant to TrueTime Studio for Production, it makes sense to take stock of the trends that are transforming the cost/benefit equation in video production. It all starts with producers’ embrace of the scalability, strategic versatility and silo-collapsing power of running production-related software solutions and workflows on commodity servers in private, public and hybrid cloud scenarios.

Producers’ ability to capitalize on these benefits stems from the nearly universal adoption of technology based on the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) 2110 protocol and its offshoots, which enable seamless interoperability between legacy production facilities linked by the Serial Digital Interface (SDI) standard and facilities that operate in the IP domain. Now that per-port 2110 costs have dropped below SDI costs, producers have every reason to integrate points of collaboration and input through IP connectivity, maximizing opportunities to use the cloud.

This has spurred an outpouring of cloud-based production solutions from startups and long-time leaders across the legacy production supply chain, many with AI support, which reached saturation levels in 2024 at the NAB Show, IBC and other industry events. As a result, with the aid of GPU-accelerated processing, core and ancillary content elements with disparate resolutions, aspect ratios, frame rates, GOP structures and incompatible audio track layouts can now be normalized for on-the-fly assembly into multi-layered deliverables across legacy and OTT distribution outlets. 

The cloud revolution has realigned the interplay between production and playout in new workflow configurations that rely on ultralow latency connectivity for synchronized execution of tasks wherever they occur. Much of this transformation is being driven by the dominance of linear over on-demand streaming, which, as measured by PS Market Research, now accounts for 60% of the streaming market.

NAB and IBC exhibit halls have teamed with cloud production-related solutions aimed at enabling a streamlined, cost-saving approach to launching linear TV channels combining any mix of live and file-based content for any distribution model, whether it be free-to-air broadcast, pay TV, SVOD, AVOD, or FAST. This blended service cloud-production paradigm means any mix of stored and live programming can be spun up with point-and-click efficiency to fit any business model, freeing producers to maximize returns on assets wherever opportunities arise. Notably, the emergence of object-based cloud storage as a way to make stored assets readily accessible has been a big contributor to this transformation, impacting live as well as episodic content production. In fact, cloud storage with the scalability to accommodate surging volumes of archived sports content, has been instrumental to overcoming cloud resistance in the sports world, where the shift to cloud production has lagged other M&E segments. 

The next shoe to drop is REMI as sports and other live content producers grapple with how to capture the immense savings at hand if they can overcome the latency issue. The first major sports league to take the REMI plunge on an all-in basis is the National Hockey League, which in April announced all future games would be broadcast without sending mobile production units to their venues. 

We at Red5 are well aware of how important real-time distributed production connectivity has become for sports producers, not only on the back end but for distribution as well, starting with delivering in-venue mobile viewing experiences that sync with what’s happening on field. But beyond real-time networking in production, there’s growing realization among sports and other live event producers that they could gain much more from REMI production if the cost savings extended to enabling implementation of low-cost multiview-based on-screen orchestration of editing and output at every point in the collaborative workflow. 

With no limit on where collaborators can instantly view and use archived clips from cloud storage as well as live inputs from cameras and commentators, sports producers can assign production responsibilities wherever they choose to ensure they’re getting the best out of their talent pools at the lowest possible costs. Looking under the hood of what we’re demonstrating at IBC, producers worldwide are learning they can now put REMI production to work to do things they never thought were possible.

The Implications of Red5 Mixing and Real-Time Streaming Solutions

One big revelation is the unlimited scalability of simultaneously displayed inputs that can be managed from any production computer screen. This is enabled in the cloud by Red5’s unique Mixer Node technology, which interacts in real-time with each computer in the production workflow via WebRTC to deliver composites of one or more inputs as chosen by the operator from the multiview array for full-screen rendering on the operator’s computer. 

The Mixer Node is a server-based software module used with other Nodes in the Red5 XDN architecture. With WebRTC serving as the primary underlying streaming mode connecting all XDN Nodes and end users in real-time video productions, the local computer renderings in the MultiView process are enabled free of plug-ins by virtue of the support for processing WebRTC that’s baked into all the major browsers, including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari and Opera. 

There’s no limit to the volume of streams technicians can work with. The XDN Mixer architecture can support production operations involving hundreds of streams through a chaining process that overcomes the capacity limitations of individual workstation CPUs. This is accomplished with a layering of Mixers where the Mixer in each layer loads a page that subscribes to multiple live streams, combines them into a custom HTML5 layout, and publishes the resulting blended stream to a Mixer in the next layer. The last Mixer in the chain publishes the composite stream to the XDN Cluster for handoff to whatever transport mechanisms are used to directly connect to audiences or to reach affiliated distributors. 

Of course, the cross-cloud platform XDN architecture can also be used to orchestrate nodes comprising distribution infrastructure that’s built to stream content to any number of end users over any distance in real time. As explained at length in blog posts and white papers on the Red5 website, XDN architecture enables a wide range of use cases that require real-time interactive streaming support, including scenarios calling for simultaneous delivery of linear content streams to millions of end users worldwide. In all instances, the multidirectional real-time XDN platform enables all end points to be senders as well as receivers. 

Red5 customers can take a DIY approach to implementing XDNs with or without Red5 Pro service assistance or they can get underway by engaging the Red5 Cloud service. With recourse to Red5 Cloud, customers can automatically instantiate an XDN infrastructure suited to their needs by simply inputting information about the number of streams to be ingested and their bitrates, the destinations to be served, the scale of the receiving population, the scale of participants that will be generating video, and some other basic parameters. 

For sports producers who are looking for ways to bring enhanced viewing options to end users, it’s important to note that Red5’s support for MultiView for Production is complemented by the TrueTime MultiView for Fans toolset. As demonstrated at the NAB Show in April, MultiView for Fans utilizes XDN infrastructure to deliver multi-camera live sports viewing experiences that are far superior to what can be done over conventional streaming platforms. 

The solution overcomes the three- or four-camera feed limitations imposed by conventional streaming approaches that pack all the viewing options at full resolution into a single stream. With MultiView for Fans when a viewer clicks on one of the viewing options offered in a multi-thumbnail window adjoining the primary viewing space, the TrueTime application leverages intelligent XDN Edge Nodes to instantly unicast the user’s choice from the collection of camera views that are simultaneously but separately streamed over the XDN to each Edge Node. 

Witnessing MultiView for Production in Action at IBC

At IBC Red5 and its partners chose to emphasize the ground-breaking implications for M&E production embodied in MultiView for Production. Mounted at the Zixi stand in Hall 5, the IBC demo showcases live production on the Blackbird cloud-native video editing platform with an end-to-end multicam workflow supporting rapid clip creation from multiple live camera sources connected to a Zixi-enable network. The demo also leverages Red5’s partnership with Osprey Video to perform high-speed encoding on content transmitted to the Blackbird editing system for switching by the Mixer Node.

The TrueTime Studio for Production collaboration has brought to light the true potential of enhanced remote production capabilities in all production scenarios. IBC visitors and anyone else who contacts Red5 to learn what can be done with MultiView for Production are bearing witness to a transformative moment where, for the first time, content output can be formatted in real time for multi-platform distribution in a browser-enabled collaborative workspace. 

They can see it’s now possible to lower switching costs while achieving unlimited scalability in the use of dispersed sources of simultaneous input into the editing process on conventional computer screens positioned anywhere in a distributed production workflow. To learn more about the strategic implications of TrueTime Studio for Production, whether goals are related to REMI or non-live production scenarios contact info@red5.net or schedule a call