"Olympics on the Cloud" with 5 billion viewers, the power of digital intelligence behind top media

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics is about to close. Due to the epidemic restrictions, the Tokyo regional events will be held in empty venues without spectators. For the first time, global spectators will watch the Olympics in the “cloud” mode without being able to visit the scene in person.

How can the "Olympics on the Cloud" ensure the liveliness and liveliness of the event, shorten the distance between the audience and the stadium, and capture the exciting moments of the event anytime, anywhere? As the highest-level global partner of this Olympic Games, Alibaba Cloud supports the first global cloud broadcast of the Olympic Games for use by major broadcasters. At the same time, Cloud supports domestic top media to verify the overall process of "collecting, editing, publishing" on the cloud, providing valuable practical experience for media cross-regional collaborative reporting .

Xinhua News Agency as China's national news agency and a worldwide news agency, is one of the only six world-class media in the world that is qualified to showcase the highlights of the Olympics in the main news center. The Tokyo Olympics is also the first time that Xinhua News Agency reported the Olympics as an international news agency. Xinhua News Agency sent a 133-member Olympic reporting team to cover the Olympic scene in all directions. Through cloud technology, front reporters and rear teams can cooperate closely to make the report content possible. Complete more efficiently.

Aiming at the technical assistance provided by Alibaba Cloud to Xinhua News Agency’s “cloud production and broadcasting”, specifically to the realization, exploration, and verification of the cross-regional “collection, editing and distribution” collaborative production and broadcasting process, it is divided into the following steps:

Remote collaboration, network first

Network security is the key to whether media material content can be efficiently transmitted back. As early as the beginning of this year, Xinhua News Agency applied for a 100Mbps broadband link in consideration of various needs for signal and video content transmission. When the reporter arrived in Tokyo in July for on-site bandwidth speed measurement, the results were very unsatisfactory. The 100M network accesses domestic services, and the bandwidth has only reached the KB/s level, which is like returning to the era of dial-up Internet access.

On-site bandwidth speed measurement

How to solve the problem of cross-regional network transmission?

The reporter in front took out the "artifact" prepared in advance: Cloud's one-stop fast cloud SDWAN access product (Smart Access Gateway, SAG) .

Since it has been configured and tested in China, at the reporting site, the reporter directly plugs the reserved Ethernet into the WAN port of the SAG product, and then connects the equipment that needs to be connected to the SAG LAN port to automatically obtain the IP Address, the equipment at the Tokyo report site and the computing, storage and other resources that have been configured in advance by the domestic cloud form an encrypted and secure intranet environment. Of course, the form of APP installed on terminals such as PCs and mobile phones can also be used to meet the point-to-site quick access of various mobile terminals.

At the beginning of this year, Xinhua News Agency and Alibaba Cloud and Youku conducted multiple tests and verifications. The SAG gateway can maximize the optimization of network transmission quality, reduce system access delay, and meet various application scenarios such as remote production and cloud production.

Related test screenshots under 5 channels of NDI stream reception

Full NDI case push to the cloud delay effect

The intelligent access gateway SAG is the CPE terminal equipment of the Alibaba Cloud Hybrid Cloud SD-WAN solution. It can be based on various types of links such as Internet broadband / 4G/5G / dedicated line at the same time, helping enterprises to safely and high-speed access to Alibaba Cloud. Give full play to the advantages of Alibaba Cloud's network resources, encrypt access to POPs nearby, optimize network quality, and complete cross-regional, flexible and efficient branch and offline IDC interconnection and business cloud access in one-stop.

With the development of 5G technology, many companies have explored access to the Internet or cloud resources based on 5G. In domestic tests in the first half of the year, SAG's 5G bandwidth value can reach up to 80Mbps (uplink) and 200Mbps (downlink).

Among the streaming media video transmission protocols, the commonly used streaming media protocols mainly include RTSP, RTMP, UDP, HLS, SRT, NDI, etc. For transmission protocols that only support private networks, such as UDP and NDI, SAG also makes trans-oceanic transmission possible, enabling low-latency cross-border transmission, which can be applied to various scenarios such as remote production and remote introduction.

In addition to network means, speed can also be optimized in other ways. In the actual test, although the content of the Tokyo site is very slow, the speed of the Tokyo site's access to Tokyo resources is good.

Therefore, opening the storage space in the Tokyo area on the cloud can meet the needs of fast uploading of content, and then copy the content stored in the Tokyo area to the domestic storage area through cross-region copying, so as to achieve automatic and asynchronous between Tokyo and different domestic OSS regions Copy files and synchronize the changes (new, overwrite, and delete operations) of files in the source storage space to the target storage space. It not only meets the needs of data replication, but also can be used as a response method for remote disaster recovery.

Of course, due to the existence of some temporary storage content, not all files need to be synchronized. For this, selective synchronization can be performed according to the specified file name prefix to meet various reporting requirements.

Production and broadcast on the cloud, wherever you go

For traditional program production, it is necessary to configure a workstation with a graphics card that supports 4K or HD on demand for editing and production, and achieve synergy through networked storage access. However, for cross-border reports, large-scale networked system deployment is inconvenient to carry and can only meet the needs of local access. Therefore, in this mobile report, a more flexible access experience in multiple regions has been realized through the cloud desktop method.

The business system is deployed in the cloud. For customers in various Internet environments, secure and high-quality access to achieve similar effects to offline business systems is the key.

Cloud Desktop is an easy-to-use, safe, and efficient desktop service on the cloud, which can quickly build and efficiently manage desktop office environments, provide a safe and flexible access system, and users who use cloud desktops can connect to the cloud through the client Desktop, operation and maintenance managers can also remotely perform unified cloud desktop management, including management of workspace, desktop, strategy, mirroring, network, storage, etc.

Because the cloud can provide a wealth of computing resource choices, in the Wuying cloud desktop, you can choose multiple specifications of CPU and GPU, buy it immediately, charge on demand, flexible and flexible, and administrators can implement well-defined applications and resource mirroring. Such as high-definition non-linear editing, 4K non-linear editing, etc., quickly copy and start a new machine. Cloud Desktop can set a variety of security policies according to needs, which can not only open upload and download functions to improve convenience, but also close upload and download, U disk, clipboard, network and other channels according to security requirements to prevent data and IP leakage.

For the terminal, you can flexibly choose software or an integrated form of software and hardware as needed. The hardware terminal provides a unified light space, carries a personal cloud disk to carry data with you, and uses cloud resources according to permissions.

Wuying cloud desktop software terminal form

Cloud Desktop can display cloud site editing effects with low bandwidth, high resolution, and high display quality. It supports a variety of non-linear editing software at home and abroad, and supports up to 9 layers of 500Mbps XAVC video editing.

According to the actual measurement results, low access delay (RTT (Round-Trip Time, total delay) is less than 50ms) can be achieved through various Wifi connection methods such as home broadband, office network, hotel wifi, and the occupied bandwidth is below 10Mbps ( HD/4K resolution for editing operations), you can smoothly perform editing, review, color adjustment and other operations. At the same time, you can also use the external device redirection function to connect to peripheral devices such as color palettes to meet Better user experience.

The overall cloud production and broadcast network architecture is as follows:

This time, in order to ensure simultaneous access to Beijing and Tokyo, Alibaba Cloud has opened a cloud desktop service in the Shanghai area between Beijing and Tokyo. In the network test conditions of the two places, the corresponding RTT values are below 100 milliseconds, which is very good. Meet business needs.

In order to meet the needs of different personnel for the use of different non-linear editing software, a unified CS resource management system is deployed on the cloud to have the ability to co-produce with non-linear editing software such as Adobe Premiere, Final cut Pro, Edius, Dayang, Sobey, and Clipping , The user can directly drag the material or dotted fragments into the non-editor for editing by dragging and dropping. The user's entire editing operation flow is transferred between the material management system and the editing software, avoiding the frequent switching operations of the user in multiple software.

In the material management system, the storage and management of materials is defined as a personal library and a department library. The personal library belongs to the logged-in personal account, and only the user has the right to see and manage its content; the department library belongs to the entire department , The staff in all departments can share the materials, and users can share the materials in the personal library to the department library to achieve the expansion of department library resources.

At the same time, you can also see the collected materials under the included material directory on the left, and the collected materials display video metadata information and can be previewed. The video preview box can realize the function of video recording and dragging to the non-editing software for editing. The content being recorded can be combined with the non-editing software to realize the editing and editing operations.

The resource manager corresponds to different non-linear editing software drag and drop to the board

The resource library can also provide a BS management terminal that combines AI intelligence capabilities to realize smart cover extraction, voice recognition, character recognition, smart stripping, smart cataloging, and fast management of background content, reducing the pressure on material management personnel, and making the content Search is more flexible and convenient.

Not only content production can be carried out through the cloud, but the cloud-directed switching of signals can also realize scheduling, AI processing, and switching of directing and broadcasting through the cloud while maintaining traditional operation methods (switching panels, monitoring habits, etc.), as shown in the following figure:

Smart blessing, one-stop service

On the cloud, through the combination of editing software providers and the basic capabilities of public clouds, more business scenarios can be realized, and the production links of heterogeneous businesses can be streamlined and intelligently connected.

And through the combination with BS editing applications, one-stop business value-added applications can be met, and better business efficiency can be achieved.

This time, in response to the needs of Olympic reporting, combined with the AI capabilities of Alibaba Cloud Video Cloud, further personalization was carried out: a library of Olympic athletes was created before the game, and video analysis and content presentation were performed immediately after the front report was stored. Provide services to business systems better and faster.

At the same time, in the entire media business process of "planning, editing, publishing and reviewing", AI capabilities can be used to realize the collaborative production of mobile + PC editing, complete the unified preparation and distribution of large and small screen content, and achieve business closed loop , It can also quickly cut into the release link, with a unified BS interface, to achieve a one-stop service of various business processes and intelligent tools.

For the Olympic Games, templates for various sports reports were made in advance before the games, which can be quickly combined with shooting videos to achieve rapid production and distribution of content.

Sports new media posters

AI editorial department , created by Alibaba Cloud Video Cloud for the media industry, is committed to implementing Alibaba Cloud's AI capabilities in different scenarios in the media industry, improving the production efficiency of content production and production, and reducing labor costs.

In the era of production and broadcasting on the cloud, the AI editorial department has been facing the market with the ability to process ultra-high-definition content at double speeds based on a distributed media processing engine. In addition, it also has new capabilities such as multi-mode search, character translation, video fingerprinting, and digital watermarking. Various production scenarios in the era of content production on the cloud provide capacity support and provide more products and solutions for the continuous development of the industry.

The future of cloud production and broadcasting

The global Olympic Games on the cloud brings a new concept of "production and broadcasting on the cloud", the essence of which is the full cloudification of the complete business process of the media’s "strategy, acquisition, editing, distribution, tracking, and evaluation". The core lies in the impact of the cloud environment on business Support and realize and push the cloud into the end through Wuying Cloud Desktop.

Through cloud-based production and broadcasting, Alibaba Cloud has realized the full cloud-based media core business, completed the cloud-based replacement of traditional professional equipment, and solved the space constraints and equipment dependence of practitioners in content collection, production, review, and release.

For the media industry, in the actual production process, because most of the historical data content is stored in the offline system, it needs to frequently involve the import and upload of the original materials, and the use of the Internet is time-consuming and affects the actual experience. At present, services such as acquisition, editing, distribution, and storage are distributed on the cloud and under the cloud, which will be a relatively long transitional stage. Therefore, the import and integration of original content and the construction of dedicated line links are very urgent and important. problem.

With the development of cloud technology and network infrastructure, production on the cloud will be more widely used. In the joint test of Alibaba Cloud and Youku, the following scenarios have also been verified:

Low-latency remote monitoring

Cloud content enhancement production and broadcasting

By deploying the Alibaba Cloud Video Enhancement System on Youku Production Network, 4K enhancement and color optimization of high-definition material can be used for live broadcast signal processing, and it can also be applied to video file processing, realizing low-cost 4K content production and alleviating native industry The high production cost of 4K content and the lack of original content fill the gap between HD production and native 4K production. It can also be used for real-time optimization of content with low source quality.

Intelligent cloud broadcasting program

The 5G + 4K + AI + cloud cloud-based OB van solution, which aims to give existing TV OB vans the ability to produce on the cloud through cloud production technology, improve content production efficiency, reduce production costs, and incubate new content forms.

Through the intelligent access gateway to open up local equipment and resources on the cloud, realize the full-link cloud of local multi-channel camera signal to the cloud, cloud guidance, subtitle packaging, encoding and streaming, multi-channel distribution, cloud collection, AI analysis, and smart editing Provide solutions and implement details in existing Youku self-made programs.

It is suitable for high-definition HD live broadcast scenes of new media such as network media, OGC, radio and television media, etc. Compared with the traditional EFP production process, it has the characteristics of convenience, stability and low cost. It can also complete smart keying and animation through intelligent means. , Multi-subject segmentation and other bright applications.

Through the practice and verification of the Olympic report on the cloud, we can feel that the production on the cloud can greatly meet the demands of the existing production business. At the same time, it has greater advantages in terms of operation and maintenance, flexibility, cross-regional collaboration, and intelligent assistance. It has deeply reconstructed the business process of “procurement, editing, and distribution” and created new application models. The production of video content on the cloud can be disseminated in all media and play a greater value in the journey of traditional media organizations entering the main battlefield of the Internet.

With the help of the actual production and broadcasting of the Tokyo Olympic Games on the cloud, Alibaba Cloud has also accumulated more forward-looking actual combat experience for the upcoming National Games and Winter Olympics. In the era of production and broadcasting on the cloud, let us look forward to a better experience. And a brand new picture on the cloud.

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