Zixi Monthly Newsletter
Story Highlights
Monthly digest of product updates, partner integrations and market trends in the world of live video delivery.
Broadcast Asia 2023 Highlights:
Zixi was excited to return to Asia’s largest conference, Broadcast Asia taking place in Singapore to exhibit the latest developments in broadcast quality live video distribution technology and to meet customers and partners from the region. It was motivating to interact in person with them and hear about their pain points and how Zixi can address them. Asia Pacific is a growing and competitive region where the high cost of satellite and dedicated networks is not always feasible, making IP video delivery over public networks the only practical solution. Zixi showcased its Software Defined Video Platform (SDVP) along with all the advancements made in the past year that fit the needs of these emerging markets. Here is a quick summary of the events that took place at Broadcast Asia:
Zixi Panel:
Charlton Media Group CEO Tim Charlton moderated a panel of industry experts to discuss the innovations in content creation, distribution and monetization. The panel included Zixi’s International Senior Solutions Engineer, Chris Fellows along with The New Channel (TNC) president, Apple Esplana Manansala, and Paul Shutt, Deputy Global Head of Customer Success at Broadcast Asia Stage. Topics included the powerful technologies that are being deployed for optimum user experience, how automation is impacting new revenue opportunities, AI in professional media creation, and success stories and lessons learned in adapting innovations in broadcast media.
Zixi’s Lead Solution Engineer, Raj Nyanasaigran interacts with customers and provides an overview ofthe SDVP. Readily available IP networks paired with reliability of the patented Zixi protocol form a powerful combination making IP video delivery a compelling option for contribution and distribution applications.
Zixi Partner Highlight: Main Concept
MainConcept has integrated Zixi and its SDVP enabling its customers to contribute and distribute high-quality feeds at ultra-low latency by leveraging its global Zixi Enabled Network. MainConcept’s Hybrid HEVC Encoding technology gives customers the best of both hardware and software encoding, including AWS EC2 instances, bridging the gap between high-quality software and fast-performing hardware encoding.
MainConcept’s integration of Zixi allows content creators and distributors to leverage Zixi’s industry-leading video over IP technology proven with over 15+ years of experience and trusted by over 1000+ media customers in 100+ countries to deliver and contribute video to and from global markets via the cloud.
“Our partnership with MainConcept builds on our commitment to provide customers access to best-in-class technologies to onboard content while leveraging the benefits of award-winning SDVP,” says John Wastcoat, SVP Alliances and Marketing, Zixi. “This integration will facilitate exciting new business opportunities for our customers allowing them to save time, reduce cost, minimize risk and future proof their workflows.”
Customer Highlight: Estrella Media
EstrellaTV, has adopted Zixi to move from satellite to primary distribution over IP, broadcasting live linear channels to affiliates across the United States.
“Zixi is the industry leader for the delivery of live IP video, and they showed why in every step of the process,” says Brian Kei, COO/CFO, at Estrella Media. “The Zixi team quickly helped us architect the workflow, test the deployment and rapidly move to production, which will benefit Estrella Media operationally and economically.”
Launched in 2009, EstrellaTV has grown to 15 operated stations and 35 broadcast affiliates with national carriage agreements with major cable and satellite operators.
Zixi was chosen for the deployment because of the telemetry provided by the ZEN Master control plane for monitoring and orchestration, error free ultra-low latency delivery, consultative expertise, and Zixi enablement of Harmonic devices.
Feature Highlight: Zixi Protocol Efficiency
The pandemic and remote work environment boosted the requirement for transporting live video over public networks thanks to its widespread availability and low cost. Today the amount of video traffic over public networks is exponentially more than what it was just a few years ago and is expected to grow continuously over the next few years as more and more content distributors move away from traditional satellite and dedicated fiber networks to adopt low-cost public networks. With the rise of internet traffic came the challenge of transporting the content reliably over lossy public networks as video quality and latency remains a top concern for content and service providers.
Although there are a host of protocols and technologies that make the promise of handling this task, the award-winning Zixi protocol has been the one to deliver on this promise. Zixi is the only protocol that is bandwidth and congestion aware allowing users to transport live video securely and reliably at broadcast quality and ultra-low latency. The Zixi Protocol paired with SDVP is the most sustainable and cost-effective solution available, requiring on average 50% less bandwidth and 60% less compute, all while being 10x more port efficient and saving 50% on egress costs by compressing repetitive and null packets until decoded.
Zixi Staff Spotlight – Paul Shore
Zixi is a vibrant and dynamic place to work, and the key reason is its people. Team members like Paul exemplify this, bridging the gap between customer requirement and technology. Starting his career as a software engineer, Paul brings over two decades of experience in helping design technology and solutions including his time at Signiant as a solutions architect. Paul has been with Zixi since its early years joining in 2012 and has taken on various roles during his tenure. He works closely with the team of solution architects staying close to the customer requirements and constantly reviewing input from others for optimizing and enhancing the ZEN Master user experience and feature set, the cloud orchestration platform he has been managing since its inception. Outside of work you will find Paul skiing in the snowy peaks of California and all over the world. Thanks to Paul’s father who was a ski instructor, he learned to ski before he learned to walk. Starting from the modest hills of Wales, he has competed against world’s best including Olympic gold medalists. Moving to the US introduced him to mountain biking and today he is an avid cyclist, regularly participating in events and raising awareness for various environmental causes including the upcoming climate ride death valley 2023 which he is currently training for. Paul regularly joins us at conventions and conferences and next time you get a chance to stop by our booth, please say hello.
