Imagine Communications’ new XVR scalable playout engines help launch and manage broadcast-quality linear and live streaming channels across on-prem, hybrid and cloud systems.
The new XVR playout engine dashboard
Imagine Communications’ XVR is a new line of scalable playout engines designed to help service providers launch and manage broadcast-quality linear and live streaming channels across on-premises, hybrid and cloud environments. Optimised per deployment, the XVR engines are suitable for ingest, playout and unified origination environments of any scale, especially in SMPTE ST 2110 or cloud-hosted scenarios.
Though built on Imagine’s long-standing expertise in broadcast operations, the new playout engines run on modern Linux foundations and use data centre processes to enable rapid, repeatable, very secure deployment.
Imagine’s Playout Portfolio
Currently, the company’s high-performance Nexio+ AMP SDI media servers, made for production, preparation and distribution facilities, are in use at over 50,000 channels worldwide, having proven their efficiency in fast-turnaround news and sports. However, they need to work with the Selenio Network Processor for ST 2110 streams.
The Versio integrated playout platform is ST 2110-native and produces television channels with graphics, branding and finishing suitable for direct-to-air applications, serving in turnkey channel origination systems. But it is hardware based with no facility for virtualisation.
XVR now adds cloud and bespoke deployment capabilities to Imagine’s lineup, with 2110 compatibility, and is delivered containerised as software. “XVR is built for scalable, cloud-optimized deployments to support media companies navigating hybrid environments,” said John Mailhot, senior vice president, product management, at Imagine Communications. “These may include SDI, IP or cloud elements.”
Making Playout Dynamic
XVR playout engines are designed to meet the demands of media companies facing pressure to increase channel count without increasing costs. XVR scales dynamically to match evolving system sizes, while finding ways to control costs through high channel density on-prem and lower per-instance cloud costs. Users can also take advantage of usage-based subscription pricing and high-availability shared storage.
Imagine’s XVR playout engines will support the range of interface requirements typically found in modern facilities, including SDI, 12G SDI, ST 2110, TS and SRT. This means users have a consistent set of features regardless of deployment model, resulting in operational continuity, simplified training and lower total cost of ownership. The XVR engines also play the commonest industry video file formats natively, including XAVC, ProRes, DNxHD and so on, avoiding the expense and delay of transcoding.
In other parts of the Imagine workflow, the new XVR playout engines are deployed by Aviator Orchestrator for agility and speed – resources are accessed on demand, including bursting to the cloud when needed. XVR is also compatible with Imagine’s Aviator Automation and ADC on-prem playout automation.
Integrations and Industry Collaboration
Interestingly, XVR is among the first playout engines to utilise the Intel Ethernet E810 Network Adapter hardware for Ethernet connectivity, in conjunction with components from the Intel Tiber Broadcast Suite, a video production pipeline that achieves robust ST 2110 connectivity on all-COTS platforms. Software-based, the modular Broadcast Suite was designed to create high-performance systems to use in live production. The pipelines are built using an Intel-optimised version of Ffmpeg, and combine ST 2110-compliant media transport protocols, JPEG XS encoding/decoding and GPU media processing and rendering.
Regarding industry collaboration, XVR supports open APIs allowing direct integration with users’ DevOps tools and systems, as well as third-party automation systems including Aveco, Crispin and Florical, to automate the XVR engines. Like Nexio and Versio, XVR playout engines integrate with Imagine’s high-bandwidth, scale-out IOX storage platform.
“No two media operations are the same – and our approach to playout reflects that,” John said. “XVR gives operators a new option for scalable, data centre-native playout, while our existing solutions like Versio and Nexio+ AMP continue to deliver reliability and performance in SDI and hybrid workflows.” www.imaginecommunications.com
