Intelligent Encoding Drives Dramatic Cost Savings for Mediaset España
Mediaset España is the audience leader in Spain for digital, linear and live and on-demand content consumption. Mediaset operates seven television channels, with Telecinco being the most popular. Additionally, Mediaset owns Cuatro, Factoráa de Ficción, Energy, Divinity, Boing, and BeMad.
Mediaset España owns the most popular free access internet TV offering, the two official websites for its TV channels, and two content platforms: Mitele, which includes all the Mediaset España offering for live and VOD, and Mtmad, a millennial-focused video channel. In addition, Mediaset España has added pay-per-view content distribution by launching Mitele PLUS in Spain, which includes all Mitele as well as other exclusive content along with Mitele PLUS International, available in almost every country in the world. The global service also includes the digital newspaper NIUS, sports website ElDesmarque, Uppers, a portal for the over 45s, and Yasss, for younger readers.
Through its film subsidiary, Telecinco Cinema, Mediaset is also a major player in movie production in Spain, having released the most successful films in Spain over the latest years. Mediaset España content is constantly expanding and its content reaches more than 190 territories worldwide.
The Challenge: Reducing Complexity and Costs in the Cloud
As part of its ongoing digital transformation process, Mediaset identified the need to improve its digital video platform for delivering on-demand content. The broadcaster currently transcodes over one million minutes of video content every year to adaptive bitrate (ABR) formats suitable for its popular web TV offering. In order to meet the growing demand for its online content while reducing on-premise network costs and complexity, Mediaset decided to migrate its content delivery system to the cloud.
Although adopting a public cloud-based approach would clearly allow for a reliable and scalable on-demand service to viewers, Mediaset was also aware that if not properly planned and executed, the costs associated with transporting video content to and from a cloud-based system including storage, video processing, and CDN delivery could become unmanageable. It’s with the need for efficiency in mind that Mediaset turned to Haivision’s AI-powered encoding solution, Haivision Lightflow Encode.
The Solution: AI Optimized Encoding
With Haivision Lightflow Encode deployed on Mediaset’s Microsoft Azure subscription, the broadcaster has been able to manage its bandwidth usage and significantly reduce costs by transcoding its live-to-VOD assets in the cloud. Once a mezzanine file is uploaded to Microsoft Azure, Haivision Lightflow Encode automatically transcodes it to an ABR cascade for OTT packaging in HLS and MPEG-DASH for delivery via the Akamai CDN.
Lightflow Encode leverages the Lightflow Quality Index (LQI), a video quality metric which represents how the human visual system perceives video quality at different bitrates and resolutions. By leveraging LQI metrics and advanced machine learning algorithms, Lightflow Encode ensures that each video is transcoded at the optimal bitrate, per ABR profile, resulting in greater bandwidth efficiencies and CDN usage optimization.
With Lightflow Encode deployed on Microsoft Azure, Mediaset also benefits from the cloud service provider’s tight integration with Akamai’s CDN enabling efficient egress of transcoded content from the cloud to CDN delivery.
Results: Optimizing Quality, Driving Down Costs
With its video quality metrics, Lightflow Encode has been able to enhance the viewing experience, and increase user engagement, all the while reducing Mediaset’s transcoding and CDN (delivery and storage) costs. Mediaset chose Haivision, not only for the quality of its intelligent encoding platform but also for its flexible approach and the team’s ability to tailor the solution to meet their specific requirements.
Haivision’s combined technology expertise in video processing, AI, and cloud architecture has enabled Mediaset to deploy its new on-demand video platform without disruption to services, while immediately reducing operating costs and streamlining its on-premise infrastructure.
Within just a few months, the Lightflow Encode cloud transcoding implementation has proven to be a success. Mediaset is already starting to see the benefits in terms of cost savings while its viewers benefit from access to more content, faster.
“We chose to work with Haivision as the flexibility offered around the solution deployment was really critical and it was very easy to collaborate with the team.”
Manuel Guisado, CTO Multiplatform, Mediaset España
