MediaHub chose Akamai’s cloud computing platform due to its high performance, scalability, affordability, and ease of use to help the organisation successfully distribute workloads and applications and improve overall customer experience.

The deployment of Akamai’s cloud computing platform ensured that MediaHub’s external, online presence enhanced its standing amongst peers and stakeholders as it transitioned from an external web management environment to an in-house setting.

“Akamai’s cloud and security solutions have allowed us to continue growing our business in an extremely challenging and technologically advancing industry. Our growth would have been limited without these products, which have assisted MediaHub in winning new business by underwriting the quality of our overall service offering,” said Alan Sweeney, CEO at MediaHub. “Being able to easily and efficiently manage our web presence has provided a strong sense of security and reassurance of service for our clients. The future is all about tailoring the right solutions for our clients, and we are on track, delivering continually improved performance across our teams and for our customers.”

With MediaHub operating in a dynamic area of technology and broadcasting that serves millions of viewers, it is critical to ensure the right security tools and measures are utilised. The organisation selected Akamai’s Enterprise Application Access, a Zero Trust Network Access solution, for secure, real-time identity-based access to enterprise applications.

Akamai’s technology has helped MediaHub ensure secure, virtual access to applications for approximately 300 users, which include both clients and staff. The ongoing security deployments and integrations mean that remote work has become a reality for staff through a secure platform, building on the 100 percent uptime achieved during the pandemic.

“The pandemic forced us to change the way we worked. We had to find a solution quickly where we would be able to work from home while requiring intensive internet resources and bandwidth. It was because of Akamai that we were able to achieve it. We were the only broadcast services provider in Australia able to fully work from home – a feat that would have been impossible without Akamai’s help. We can confidently say now that wherever we are, we can work securely regardless of the situation,” said Simon Scott, Chief Digital and Information Officer at MediaHub.

MediaHub also uses Akamai’s Enterprise Threat Protector to proactively identify and block targeted threats such as ransomware and malware.

“As a prominent Australian broadcast services provider, it is vital for MediaHub to offer the latest broadcasting solutions to customers, with security and reliability at the forefront,” said James Richmond, Regional Director ANZ at Akamai. “We’re pleased that Akamai’s cloud and security offerings have empowered MediaHub to meet the challenges of cost, performance, and scale while delivering consistent, high-quality services to all users.”

MediaHub offers more than 400 channels of playout and services, including live streaming, terrestrial broadcast services, archive storage, connectivity, media asset management, and content and commercial delivery to leading local and international broadcasters.

Visit https://www.akamai.com

As MediaHub Australia CEO Alan Sweeney explained, “GB News released a playout RFP to the market and MediaHub’s response to the RFP won the tender process. After contract signing, MHA had just two months to bring and make the full television service operational for GB News, which I’m very pleased to say we did.”

This win for MediaHub is particularly significant for the company and for all broadcasters and content providers around the world as it proves that playout can now be seamlessly managed from Australia no matter where they are based across the globe.

Sweeney continued, “We had been discussing the technical possibilities of managing GB News’ playout with their CEO Angelos Frangopoulos for some time. Angelos was keen to recreate the playout solution we provided him with when he was Sky News Australia chief and we just had to prove it was possible.”

Frangopoulos’ and GB News’ requirements were for three linear channels – FTA, OTT and radio – to be delivered to various third parties. This included automated commercial insertion driven by the GB News studio in London.

MediaHub Australia chief digital and information officer Simon Scott added, “GB News has very high production values and is one of the UK’s premier news channels. With this in mind the playout solution we provided them had to be 100% efficient and seamless. MediaHub fulfilled all of GB News’ requirements by using our extensive experience in managing live linear channels to build a new set of infrastructure for them. All the live video feeds are SRT encrypted streams on-passed by GB News’ telco partner Arqiva, these feeds are then sent over discreet public internet and private cloud connections for ultimate efficiency, reliability and security.”

MHA takes all of GB News’ content including live-to-camera, pre-recorded, TVCs and promos and uses their proven workflow including MediaHub’s FibreHub Webconnect managed connectivity, ArkHub storage and archive and PresHub 24×7 multi-channel linear broadcast playout services to distribute the content back to the UK as a linear channel.

Scott continued, “The GB News studio is fed to MHA via redundant SRT IP streams and all promo and commercial content is delivered to MHA’s ArkHub storage. MHA’s playout system then generates the channel, including overlaying a live ticker (Vizrt Flowics) and other elements. SCTE triggers are inserted for the various providers downstream of MHA. The playout outputs then go to our Ateme Titan Edge encoding platform and that generates a number of renditions for the various GB News destinations, as well as return feeds back to GB News for confidence monitoring.”

When asked how MHA manages to execute this global workflow and keep the latency down, Scott explained, “MediaHub has been providing these types of services to many clients for many years. What may appear complex to others has been refined by MHA into a very efficient workflow and operation. That and the incredible progression of the power of the internet combined with low latency encoding and decoding using SRT connections enables the overall latency of feeds between the UK and Australia to remain ultra-low for any live presentation environment.”

As a result of their many years’ experience in developing and providing high level playout solutions, MediaHub has delivered a complex set of requirements in an extremely tight deadline for GB News.

Alan Sweeney concluded, “This workflow and playout solution we have provided GB News with is a global gamechanger. It is a culmination of MediaHub’s ten-year vision that has resulted in any content anywhere in the world now being able to be fully managed and played out from MediaHub’s HQ and data centres in Australia. As we did for Angelos at Sky News Australia and we continue to do for all of our clients across the world MediaHub provides all of our services with a guarantee of up to 99.999% reliability. We use the very latest cloud and data technology to provide any broadcaster across the globe with the most reliable and robust playout service possible. In short and in the world of playout, the tyranny of distance no longer exists as MediaHub has replaced it with a low-cost, seamless, reliable and ultra-efficient solution.”

Visit https://www.mediahubaustralia.com.au/

As MediaHub Australia Chief Digital & Information Officer Simon Scott explained, “WIN were seeking a full outsource of their headend and looking for a ‘headend-as-a-service’ offering. Their requirements were substantial, for 158 channels of compression encoding, Statmux, and Muxing from SMPTE 2022-6 IP source playout streams. They also wanted a fully redundant system included that has the backup system hosted in another datacentre.”

MediaHub partnered with Ateme to provide a solution that met all of WIN’s requirements. This includes using Ateme Titan Live and Ateme Titan Mux software running on Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) compute servers.

MediaHub CEO Alan Sweeney said, “We have been using Ateme’s technology for a number of years, as the foundation for the Imparja channel and SCA VAST News systems and have seen them come on leaps and bounds to meet the needs of the largest broadcasters in Australia. Ateme and MediaHub work extremely well together as both organisations continue to push the latest technologies to allow our clients to meet changing consumer demands.”

As well as the Ateme Titan Live and Ateme Titan Mux software running on COTS equipment, the solution MediaHub provided for the new WIN TV headend includes using MediaHub’s FibreHub services for inter-datacentre connectivity of over 200Gbps, to connect both the main and backup system across the two datacentres.

In addition, Nvidia, Dell, EVS Neurons, Worldcast Kybio, Packetlight, Meinberg, Birddog, Barrowa, AppearTV, Actus and TAGVS products were used in the project and Ateme’s local team were involved in the custom design and implementation of the solution.

Full SI services were provided by Magna Systems for the physical deployment across the two sites.

WIN TV’s GM Television Operations Stevan Djokic said, “The WIN network transitioned onto its new Ateme headend and we have been very impressed with the ease with which we have been able to change transmission formats. The industry is pushing hard to move to full MPEG4 with a mix of HD and SD and more focus on having as many channels as possible in HD. So far, we are very happy with the picture output and look forward to pushing boundaries further in order to give regional Australia even higher quality pictures by using our new MediaHub Ateme headend to its full capabilities.”

Ateme’s software underpins the overall headend solution, providing an industry-leading compression system with high picture quality to deliver services for WIN and ultimately the viewer at home.

Technology such as AI-assisted encoding and Statmux assists in getting the highest quality in the final encode. In addition, Ateme’s flexible licensing model allows WIN to pick and choose the codecs and formats they want as required, which further assists in the migration of SD services across to HD.

Scott added, “MediaHub and WIN had a number of key performance requirements for the new headend system, including low power usage, and reduced equipment footprint, both of which Ateme’s solution met and exceeded.”

The Ateme compression system has been on-air for several months with no issues despite running 24×7 across all of the markets that WIN TV broadcasts into.

Djokic added, “We are able to switch seamlessly between main and backup compression systems across datacentres at multiple levels such as input, encode and mux with no impact to air, which has drastically simplified testing and maintenance.”

WIN’s 158 Channels are ingested as SMPTE 2022-6 IP streams by Ateme Titan Live and compressed into the various renditions needed for each market as MPEG or h264. This is done using the latest Dell/AMD server technology where the system can encode over 60 channels in a single CPU server regardless of HD or SD. These compressed streams are then picked up by Ateme Titan Mux servers, that create the various MPTS for each market and these are then on passed to the rest of the equipment in the transmission path as MPTS IP Streams (2022-2) for delivery by the distribution network to the transmitters around Australia.

Since the system has gone live, WIN has migrated WIN GEM from SD to HD with quick and simple software configuration changes performed by MediaHub’s Digital Services Team.

Alan Sweeney concluded, “Ateme’s system provided the opportunity to leap WIN to the next generation of technology powered by AMD servers and Ateme’s unique software product line. MediaHub ran the project and delivered the solution within a tight budget, despite the problematic IT supply chain issues of recent years. Critically MediaHub also leveraged our close relationships with vendors such as Magna Systems, Dell, Nvidia and Ateme to be able to deliver the system before the required deadline. As a result, the new system is housed in just one single IT rack, which provides not only a footprint reduction, but also savings and efficiencies in power and cooling. Whilst improving the quality and flexibility we can offer WIN going forward. Ateme’s advanced technology and unparalleled solution also helps exceed MediaHub Australia’s internal sustainability targets and this in turn ultimately leads to lower costs for WIN TV.”

Visit https://www.mediahubaustralia.com.au and https://www.ateme.com

Find out what ArkHub can do for your business, get technical specifications and explore more benefits here.

MediaHub is a long-time user of HPE servers and storage. This history, Alan Sweeney (CEO) said, plus trusted support and HPE’s collaboration with Scality (a recognised leader in scalable object storage), led to the decision to select HPE and Scality to develop ArkHub.

HPE collaborated with partner Orro Group on the MediaHub solution, helping the broadcast services provider on its journey to expand its services to customers.

“It was clear we had two great professional businesses working together to deliver a very robust, technologically-advanced solution. This would allow us to develop a storage solution that would meet all the data storage requirements of the industry and our clients,” Sweeney said.

The launch also opens up opportunities in new industries too. MediaHub is pursuing data-heavy industries, including healthcare, education, and finance, where secure access to historical data is critical. The HPE solution is easily expandable, meaning MediaHub can add capacity as required.

Learn More from HPe at https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a50004689enw

MediaHub Chief Digital and Information Officer, Simon Scott, explained, “MediaHub were looking for specific technical requirements in terms of device footprint, sustainability and feature set. Magna’s product range offered these key features and more. In addition, MediaHub engaged Magna’s excellent SI services for the system build.”

The new WIN headend is used to deliver all of the company’s channels to viewers at home. It is already on-air in various parts of Australia, with the remainder of markets going live during February and March 2023.

All signals are processed in the IP domain, either SMPTE 2022-6 uncompressed as the input to the compression system or SMPTE 2022-2 Transport Stream over IP compressed as the internal signals within the headend, then at the final hand off stage converted to ASI for distribution by the transmission provider.

MediaHub’s requirements were comprehensive and included a small footprint and high-density IP to ASI gateways and SFN devices, an IP monitoring platform, compliance logging platform and the highest quality SI services.

Scott continued, “Magna provided a turnkey offering around various parts of the glue required for the new headend project. Magna’s SI team also performed the physical build of the entire project including the compression system at two different data centres.”

In total Magna provided Dell IT infrastructure and servers, EVS Neuron SDI to IP Gateways, an Appear XC and X10 series platform for SFN MIP insertion and IP to ASI adaption, a TAGVS Multiviewer, BridgeTech monitoring probes, Actus compliance logging, Birddog NDI to HDMI converters and Magna’s full set of professional SI services.

Scott added, “Magna provided a project manager who directed and oversaw various cabling installers. Their SI service included technical CAD drawings for the project, as well as performing various design tweaks to accommodate the different requirements in the two data centres. Magna also held regular progress meetings, managed the install timelines and provided all the required install documentation for the project.”

According to Scott he has had only positive feedback about the results achieved by Magna adding, “Magna’s team was great to deal with. They were able to assist with many parts of the overall solution with their wide product range and able to assist with the project on a holistic level including the SI services. This simplified the process immensely for MediaHub enabling us to deliver many technologies in the best way possible to and for the client.”

Magna’s technology offering aligns closely with MediaHub’s technology vision, providing best of breed solutions that are not only feature rich but low footprint, as either COTS IT or bespoke hardware.

Scott said, “Other solutions offered required multiple racks of 1RU equipment, but with Magna’s assistance we managed to facilitate the same in 2 x 1RU devices. This not only simplified the solution but provides a number of benefits including lower power usage and smaller system footprint. Bearing in mind the solution for 260 channels fits within two IT racks for the whole of the compression headend – previously 12 racks with the last technology generation – it is an amazing achievement for both MediaHub, our compression vendor Ateme and the many Magna product offerings we used.”

The new headend solution is also future-proofed and ready for UHD, HEVC, DVB-T2 and other similar upcoming requirements.

Simon Scott concluded, “Magna’s team ‘just work’. Whether it was Alan, Dave, Tim or Paul, all of them assisted at various stages through the project and all have proven invaluable in assisting the MediaHub team, led by Anthony Colquhoun, to successfully deliver this major project for MediaHub and our client.”

Visit https://magnasys.tv

Actus Digital provides the industry’s most intelligent broadcast media platform for broadcast recording, monitoring, and compliance, live clipping for OTT and social applications and VOD and catch-up TV clipping. Recently, MediaHub Australia had a requirement for a new compliance-based recording and storage solution as part of a new mux-based DTT broadcast headend it will be providing later this year and for that the company turned to Magna Systems and Actus Digital.

As Magna Systems & Engineering Business Development Manager, David Herridge, explained, “Actus is a channel partner of Magna’s and we have deployed several successful Actus solutions within the Asia Pacific region. In consultation with the MediaHub team regarding this refresh project, Magna proposed the Actus solution which met every MediaHub requirement and more.”

MediaHub required its new solution to record native 132 services in 34 muxed transport streams of mixed SD/HD for 7 days. They also required proxy transcoding and storage of the same set of services for 120 days.

MediaHub’s Executive Head of Technology, Simon Scott, said, “The Actus solution is feature rich, meets all of our needs and has additional functionality which we will utilise in the future too. The advanced clipping function as part of the Actus solution is very well developed and surprisingly user friendly. Also having Magna as an on-the-ground resource is invaluable when deploying new technology, systems and solutions. Strong collaboration between MediaHub, Magna and Actus from the outset was key with this new system and everyone worked together closely to ensure all our requirements were met and that the pricing fit our budget. As an added bonus, we get training for MediaHub operational staff as well as remote installation of the Actus solution.”

Using resources from Magna in Sydney and Actus’ HQ the efficiency and effectiveness of the new solution was proven to MediaHub via a Proof of Concept and several online demonstrations.

Herridge added, “We worked through each of the requirements carefully and it was clear, early on, that the feature set was not going to be an issue.
All of MediaHub’s needs were met and we provided them with some futureproofing functionality too.”

MediaHub will be using the Actus solution to record and store 132 proxy channels at 512K per service using the Actus transcoding feature and 34 Native TS totalling 650GB per day. They will also use production solution metrics provided by Actus.

Moving forward and as the Actus system is further integrated into the new broadcast headend, Magna will in turn provide MediaHub with their much-heralded, local and front-line support comprehensively backed by Actus’ 24/7 global support operation.

Simon Scott concluded, “The uniqueness of the Actus solution revolves around its completeness. This solution has been deployed to broadcasting giants in other regions such as Comcast and the BBC where it works flawlessly. The Actus portfolio is small and focussed and it’s evident they spend their R&D time and money on listening to their customers and perfecting the solution to match all use cases. Again, the icing on the cake is having Magna as our local technology partner providing technical support and advice whenever we need it.”

To watch a video on Actus Digital solutions click here

Actus Digital solutions will be demonstrated on Magna Systems’ stand A2 at METexpo 22 from 15-17 March at the ICC Darling Harbour.

Visit https://www.magnasys.tv

MediaHub Australia Executive Head of Operations, Scott Jolly, explained, “SCA and Sky News were keen to partner with MediaHub due to our quality of service and the collaborative relationship we already had with Sky News Australia. After a series of meetings and discussions with SCA we were awarded the contract.”

As a result, Sky News Regional launched offering free-to-air channels to viewers in parts of NSW, VIC, QLD and SA with a focus on live breaking news, weather, national affairs and sport from the Sky News Australia and FOX Sports News teams.

Jolly continued, “SCA required three HD channels for regional Queensland, regional Southern NSW and regional Victoria. The channels are a mix of Sky News Australia and FOX SPORTS News programming. On a technical level they required connectivity via MediaHub’s FibreHub network to and from four live studios including live talkback. They also needed channel branding and graphics capabilities, promo and commercial content aggregation and commercial insertion for each of the three markets. Finally, SCA wanted us to provide programme record, preparation and turnaround for replay and breaking news quick-switching capabilities.”

The requirements were comprehensive, but the timeframe was tight. According to Jolly, this wasn’t an issue for MediaHub Australia.

He continued, “MediaHub provided three free to air, dedicated, live 24-hour news channels within three weeks. This included building workflows for schedule delivery and conversion, graphics requirements, commercial aggregation from suppliers and workflows for promos. Our solution also includes facilitating an exclusive dedicated breakfast show for Sky News Regional viewers.”

Now complete and operational, the new MediaHub Australia solution comprises of fully redundant A and B broadcast chains allowing for high availability delivered from MediaHub’s datacentre in Ingleburn, NSW, including ingest, processing, channel creation, presentation playout and distribution operations.

Sky News Head of Operations and Innovation, Mark McKeown, said, Sky News Head of Operations and Innovation, Mark McKeown, said, “MediaHub is one of our most trusted technology partners. The team is innovative and efficient, and its products and services are flexible, scalable and reliable which is critical for live events and 24/7 channels.”

SCA Head of Engineering, Dan Jackson, added, “SCA was able to take full advantage of the pre-existing relationships between MediaHub and Sky. This relationship clearly allowed MediaHub to provide a quick and efficient solution that meets our needs and was evident with a seamless transition on the night.”

With Mark McKeown and the Sky News team and Dan Jackson and the SCA team clearly impressed, Scott Jolly concluded by acknowledging the fundamentals that made this project such a success by saying, “It was a pleasure to collaborate on this project with both the Sky News and SCA teams and its testament to their skills and determination that we achieved this all so quickly. MediaHub has an excellent and close working relationship with Sky News Australia providing playout for their channels on Foxtel and their OTT platforms and we are delighted to expand on the services we provide for SCA on free to air.”

Visit www.mediahubaustralia.com.au

As MediaHub Australia Executive Head of Technology, Simon Scott, explained, “We needed continuous video service monitoring of uncompressed and compressed audio and video feeds, including captions, triggers, audio at low latency and high quality with API based alarming. We also had specific goals including that the system had to run in a COTS and IP environment. I’m happy to report that the TAG solution does all of the above.”

According to Scott, the TAG solution is not only powerful and flexible but also very timely in today’s market. Working closely with Magna Systems Senior Solutions Specialist, Tim Banner, Scott was reassured that the TAG monitoring solution would meet all of MediaHub’s needs.

He added, “TAG VS seem to have hit the industry at the right time and right place with the tools to fulfil all the needs of a traditional master control monitoring environment whilst also bringing it all up to the COTS and IP technology layer. One of their standout features is their ability to mix and match compressed, uncompressed and CDN-delivered source feeds into a single screen, to be able to monitor he full end-to-end delivery flow. This is a must for broadcasters as we are inevitably delivering to more and more endpoints.”

At MediaHub Australia, video feeds are available as uncompressed multicast streams or CDN delivered feeds to the TAG system, and the TAG software is able to decode the steams at low latency and with high quality. The output from TAG (Mosaics) is sent as SMPTE-2110 uncompressed streams back to the IP video network. On the Network are AJA 2110 to HDMI decoders and these convert the TAG Mosaics back to HDMI to feeding into the monitoring screens in the MCR area. TAG also outputs a compressed stream so MediaHub is able to see the Mosaics on standard PCs on-site or remotely when working from home. This has come in handy during the current COVID situation

Scott continued, “TAG has various alarms and penalty box monitoring configurations that meet the requirements of our MCR. It also has API support, so alarm data is able to be aggregated by our manager of managers for historical trending and AI-based alarm processing and prediction.”

“TAG met the desire of the business to retain all the benefits of a traditional hardware multiviewer but in a software, IP and COTS world. Low latency monitoring was a key requirement, as we didn’t want to go back in performance when moving to IP. As it is all software, TAG are able to build on additional features quickly to meet future new requirements.”

He added “As compute increases we are able to do more on a single server. For example, in 2018 we were able to test just 12 channels running on a single server output. Today we have a single COTS server, at lower purchase cost than a 2018 server that is running 40x uncompressed feeds and 96x compressed feeds with one UHD Mosaic output, one compressed HD Mosaic output, and one uncompressed HD Mosaic output. Today with the new Dell R650 Gen 15 server, which uses the high speed PCI4 bus, one TAG server can monitor over 100 uncompressed sources on multiple UHD mosaic outputs.”

In addition to the TAG solution, Magna Systems provided installation and design assistance, as well as support for the product locally and a key point of contact with TAG VS.

Magna Systems group sales and marketing manager, Paul Maroni, said, “MediaHub is an incredibly forward thinking company when it comes to technology. They only settle for the very best and it’s clear that they enjoy great synergies with the TAG monitoring solution. The TAG monitoring solution is one of the leading IP Monitoring solutions of choice for customers across Australia and the globe. When you’re a company that focuses on one thing, you do it right. Magna Systems and Engineering are proud to partner with such a customer focused manufacturer as TAG.”

The TAG MCM-9000 supplied by Magna gives MediaHub a very scalable solution for monitoring many different broadcast scenarios. TAG also supports API control and alarming, allowing MediaHub to rely more on telemetry data to improve their quality-of-service for their clients as well as the efficiencies of monitoring by exception (penalty box monitoring).

Simon Scott concluded, “The simplicity of the TAG solution Magna provided was a winner. There was no large installation, testing or on-site customisation. It was as simple as plugging in a USB stick, which houses the software and OS and the server booted as a multiviewer. After a few minutes auto-detecting multicast feeds and assigning a layout you’re done, up and running. It is the fastest deployment we have seen of a product. It was literally plug and play.”

Visit www.magnasys.tv