Matrox Video has developed Matrox ORIGIN, a common development framework for broadcast infrastructure. ORIGIN creates a foundation for Tier 1 live production in the cloud.
Matrox Video has developed Matrox ORIGIN, a common, asynchronous development framework for broadcast infrastructure. ORIGIN creates a foundation for Tier 1 live production in the cloud.
“Tier 1 live production presents unique challenges. It requires frame-accurate, deterministic, low-latency, redundant, responsive interconnected systems at a large scale,” said Francesco Scartozzi, vice president of sales and business development for broadcast and media at Matrox Video.”
Tier 1 networks are the top-level, private networks that allow traffic from other Tier 1 networks to transit their backbones without paying fees – that is, settlement-free interconnection – to exchange traffic in either direction. Examples are British Telecom, Vodafone, AT&T or Verizon.
“So far, there have been no cloud systems that satisfy Tier 1 requirements without compromising quality, latency, reliability and scalability. Unlike many systems, ORIGIN breaks the ‘lift and shift’ approach that prevents organisations from making the cloud work for their particular circumstances, and from realising the economic advantages of cloud migration.”
Asynchronous and Cloud-native
Matrox ORIGIN addresses this situation as a software-only, asynchronous, vendor-agnostic media framework built on a cloud-native architecture that reconciles live production requirements with the capabilities of the cloud, operating IT infrastructure as it was intended to run — asynchronously. This gives users the option, for instance, to deliver a service at the best performance to a large number of dynamic clients that need low-latency interactions, whenever writing to disk is unnecessary.
Alternatively, the service can keep track of registered clients, and remain in place just until all of them have connected. Or, the service could only be aware of time, remaining available as long as the provider specifies.
This framework can achieve very scalable, low-latency, frame-accurate services that are responsive and controllable for broadcast media facilities that want to support Tier 1 live productions both on-premises and in the cloud.
Vendor Agnostic
Matrox ORIGIN also has built-in redundancy that requires no user intervention, giving broadcasters reliable, stable workflows for Tier 1 live broadcasts that make it simpler and faster for broadcasters to deploy their services and channels in the cloud. ORIGIN helps manage the use of resources and control costs by allowing live migration without interruption or frame drops.
Also, unlike end-to-end cloud production solutions that require an organisation to purchase all major cloud production components from one vendor, Matrox ORIGIN aims to be vendor-agnostic. Leaving broadcasters and integrators free to choose preferred components for each part of the chain is a factor that Matrox believes sets ORIGIN apart.
Broadcasters running live tier 1 production workflows on ORIGIN can provision systems on the fly, as needed for each job, while still meeting live broadcast requirements. This approach optimises costs and avoids the need to maintain equipment that may sit idle for long periods. By using ORIGIN as the base, broadcasters can operate, build and scale systems for both cloud and on-prem workflows based on their own style of business.
Focussing Resources
With a cloud-native framework like ORIGIN as the underlying infrastructure, developers can focus their resources on what makes them competitive. They can build products that run equally well on a single host or in distributed systems, on-premises or in the public cloud. Furthermore, they can develop once and deploy many times to adapt to market needs and respect the transition path.
Ultimately, any on-prem development within an organisation could be transferred to the cloud. ORIGIN has HTTPS-based APIs for applications to provision, control and execute media services. Developers can use built-in media services – such as NDI IO, CDI IO, SRT, media reader and writer and video/audio mixer – or they can create their own custom media services that will inherit the characteristics of the ORIGIN infrastructure.
“As an OEM provider to the broadcast industry, Matrox has wide experience, and we’ve seen the need to move live productions out of equipment rooms and to the cloud without making any concessions and without being tied to a single group of vendors,” Francesco said. “Because of our history as a vendor to the vendors, we remain truly neutral, allowing all manufacturers to build systems that run on ORIGIN and pass those advantages on to broadcasters.”
Matrox Video has demonstrated ORIGIN at the 2023 NAB Show in April in Las Vegas. www.matrox.com
