SPE Comments on BCG Cloud Study
Scope
This document analyzes the BCG cloud computing presentation but does so only in the context Sony’s
professional film and video products and uses the term “B2B” to refer only to that vertical market. There
is no discussion of signage or video surveillance.
Summary
If a large number of occurrences to the word “cloud” were to be replaced with the word “network” the
presentation would make a lot more sense. To say that a camera should cloud enabled is facile,
understanding what the means in the context of the sphere of application is complex. Sony must build
network connected devices regardless of whether they are connected to local or remote computing
resources. The danger in confusing the two concepts is that Sony’s product strategies will miss.
What is Cloud Computing?
The BCG presentation refers to the Cloud (with a capital ‘c’) but this is misleading because it implies that
there is a single overarching cloud of computing resources. Cloud computing is the network based
hosting of resources such as storage and application processing. The resources are typically remote but
a key aspect of cloud computing is that the user neither knows nor cares where resources are.
The most common use of the term cloud computing refers to services such as email, documents, search,
CRM and other applications hosted by a third party on the Internet and accessed by a web browser. This
model is generally referred to as a public cloud.
However cloud computing use-cases can be far more complex than this basic model derived from classic
client-server architectures. While Internet access to cloud services is a crucial use-case there are more
types of endpoints than browsers, and there are more networking technologies than the Internet.
Cloud computing is not new. Cloud services have been on offer since the 1990s. What has changed is the
reduction in the cost of network connections needed to access the cloud coupled with a significant
increase in network speed making it feasible to off load services. Cloud computing offers a spectrum of
options. In between the dedicated local data center and the pure cloud of Internet accessible resources
are, both figuratively and literally, private clouds.
Understanding these different implementations is important when considering how cloud computing
can be applied to Sony’s film and television production product lines. Broad metrics, such as the
statement that 10% of storage in the cloud in 2010 is expected to grow to 30% in 2015, oversimplify the
analysis to the point where it has no meaning. Taken out of context and without definitions of “the
cloud” this statement does not take into consideration that for some applications a 100% of the data
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may end up in cloud storage whereas for other applications 0% could end up in cloud storage. Nor does
it consider the case where data is replicated into cloud storage to provide disaster recovery.
The important take away is that network enabled devices can connect to anything – other products, IT
infrastructures as well as cloud resources.
How Sony’s B2B ecosystems are being impacted
A sea change is affecting Sony’s B2B products and it is centered on the shift from 35mm film and video
tape to file storage, from manual data transfer to networks. These factors have much more impact than
any considerations as to where the files are stored (i.e. whether local or in cloud storage).
Characterizing Sony’s B2B products
In characterizing Sony’s B2B products the BCG document fails to look at the characteristics of these
products and in so doing reduces the problem to banal simplicity leading to several incorrect
conclusions. The fields of application of Sony’s B2B products can be useful compartmentalized as:
1. Broadcast/live production
2. Recorded production
Live TV Production
Live production includes news, sports and talk shows that are either broadcast live to air or are recorded
a short time before broadcast. It is extremely unlikely that there will be any driver in the mid-term to
cause the live production flow to move to cloud based computing. The drivers for live TV to transition to
any form of cloud computing architecture are in three areas: post production, archiving and store-andforward distribution.
The live production vertical is characterized by real time processing of the video and there is little or no
time for post production. Shows in this category typically use multiple cameras fed into a production
switcher (also known as a video switcher or vision mixer) where content is cut on the fly. The output of
the switcher, the line cut, is either sent live to air or is stored along with the individual camera feeds so
that a minimal amount of post production work can be done.
As is the case with other use cases, storage is transitioning from tape to files, whether video servers for
playing out content to air or storage for non-linear editing (NLE) system and archiving. However, the
primary transport is still HD-SDI isochronous connections. It is unlikely that the industry will move away
from HD-SDI for this real-time application for some time - almost the entire broadcast infrastructure,
including new deployments, is built around HD-SDI capable products. HD-SDI is a 1.5-3Gbps data link
with extremely low latency and jitter. It is not readily transported over non-deterministic IP networks.
Sony should look to build network (i.e. IP) enabled products to replace HD-SDI for the mid- to long-term.
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Recorded Production
Like live production the opportunity for improving the workflow through the deployment of cloud
systems is in the post production stage however in this vertical less traditional infrastructure needs to
stand between the camera and a cloud based ecosystem.
The class of cloud architecture that works for film and television production is not the same as is used
for other applications even when the volume of data and aggregate data rates are comparable. A full
explanation is outside of the scope of this document but suffice to say that the deployment of IT storage
technology locally has been challenging for several major storage vendors including HP and IBM, so that
building the tiered cloud architecture of the SPE production backbone means pushing the limits of the
technology.
With recorded production, such episodic TV shows or motion pictures, post production is a critical part
of the workflow. Images are recorded with little or no processing directly from the lens, historically onto
video tape or film but more often now as data recorded on HDD, solid state or optical storage.
Recorded TV content is produced to broadcast standards and camera data is typically reduced through
chroma sub-sampling and compression. A hierarchical cloud solution for both storage and processing
makes a lot of sense in this environment.
In film production very little, if any, data reduction takes place and data is recorded at 2k or 4k
resolution typically with one file per frame. As a point of reference a 4k frame is about 50Mbytes. A
camera produces 24 frames per second and at 4k this is 1.2GBytes per second to a single storage
volume.
The BCG presentation refers to a cloud enabled camera. This is misleading, what is important is to build
a network enabled camera with a minimal amount of real time processing makes a lot of sense. An
example of such a camera is the Silicon Imaging 2k camera which consists of a very small camera head
connected by a GigE network to a computer which captures the raw image. Importantly in this
configuration processing power migrates from purpose built hardware attached to the camera to
software running on IT grade computers. The camera would mount network storage and write directly
to it.
Once the data is ingested – either directly from the camera or from intermediate storage like video tape
– it can be processed in a hierarchical cloud system that offers both storage and processing capabilities.
The best example of this hierarchy is the aforementioned SPE production backbone.
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Figure 1. SPE Production Backbone
IaaS players may have a role in providing the public cloud tier offering archive and disaster recovery but
the exacting technical requirements for the lower tiers make them at best long term candidates.
Cloud Computing vs. Cloud Storage
Primarily the discussion in this document refers to cloud storage however post production uses a lot of
computing resources to render images. For the purposes of this discussion we assume that computing
resources are best kept close to the storage and for that reason no distinction is drawn between the
location of one versus the other. A complete analysis of this assumption is outside of the scope of this
document.
Cloud-enabling Factors
There is more than inadequate bandwidth standing in the way of connecting production systems and
public cloud resources. Even given adequate network bandwidth general purpose public cloud storage
architectures are unlikely to be suitable for post production. For example, the majority of cloud
applications do not require the data rates at the spindle that production does, nor do fast networks
necessarily have the latency and jitter characteristics required by video and film.
A trend in production is the aggregation of processing resources to specialized cloud resources within
the campus or metro area. This trend centralizes the operation spreading fixed costs across more
productions.
Ironically overcoming security concerns is probably one of the simpler problems to address, and
placating those concerns is easier to do with a private cloud architecture.
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Bandwidth Requirements
In the table below are some bandwidth requirements in Mbps for various types of content. Other than
HD-SDI, network bandwidth has to exceed payload bandwidth to accommodate transmission overhead
and other network activity. The HD-SDI data rates include transmission overhead.
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
HD-SDI 1.5Gbps
HD-SDI 3Gbos
Compressed
1080i*
2k*
4k*
* = Payload only
Oddly, the BCG presentation refers to 1080p SD. “SD” generally means Standard Definition. 1080p is a
high definition format. Therefore 1080p SD is an oxymoron.
Cloud Computing Cost Savings and Value Chains
These two slides inadvertently illustrate the point that IT metrics cannot be applied to TV and film
production.
None of the references in this section refer to video and film production and therefore the charts
presented cannot be applied to this vertical. Further research is required to determine cost savings.
Simplification of the workflow, implied by the value chain diagram, comes from managing network
connected resources with a service-orientated architecture. The location of the computing resources is
largely irrelevant to the workflow.
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Content Creation
(This section addresses slides 15-17)
Dividing the vertical into low-end and high-end production misses a critical point. Much of the content
production industry is served by external production houses. Even the large players, for example motion
picture studios, turn to external post houses. This is where the CapEx vs. OpEx trade off comes into play.
At the low end we have production facilities for non-commercial content like corporate videos or short
subject (10 minutes or less) for distribution on YouTube and similar sites. These facilities are modest;
perhaps a couple of cameras and an edit bay that likely uses Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Running FCP on a Mac
is a modest investment and doesn’t need cloud services. Further research is needed to understand what
segment of the low end market, if any, is likely to migrate to cloud services.
It is also worth noting that the difference from a data point of view between a full studio picture and a
low budget movie is in the volume of data, not the data rates. Film still runs at 24fps regardless of how
much it cost to produce, therefore the data rate required to play it out remains the same. Claims that
independent movie production requires less bandwidth misses that point.
Therefore it is difficult to understand the claim that public cloud computing will gain significant market
penetration because no examples are given. Perhaps a clue to the confusion here is the reference to
end-to-end solutions. Typically this phrase is applied to a lens to screen system like the SPE digital
backbone stating with production and ending with distribution. There is no doubt that cloud resources
play an important role in content distribution and SPE is already building cloud distribution. The
architecture is shown in the figure below.
Figure 2. SPE Distribution Backbone
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However, so far, Sony has few products in the distribution segment. Is BCG recommending that Sony
enter this vertical?
Cloud impacting on downstream hardware and software
Emerging cloud offerings
Panvidea
Panvidea’s offering does not appear, from their website and white paper, to address professional
production or post production. Recommend a meeting with them to discuss what they are offering in
this space.
Red
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