Intelligence for harmonizing cloud-based and on-premises workflows in standards conversion

Cloud computing offers significant benefits to broadcasters including the ability to scale up processing to meet peak or unexpected demands. Many broadcasters experience instances where material suddenly arrives in the wrong format for a given project or distribution network. Keeping a standards converter on standby for such situations is expensive and uses up valuable assets. In this paper, we describe a system that enables broadcasters to use in-house resources for regular operations, with intelligent offloading of critical or irregular processing demands into the cloud when required. Content arriving is analyzed and directed into the appropriate workflow path, for example, transcoding-only on-premise. Where a frame rate, format, or aspect ratio conversion is needed, the content can be directed to a cloud-based, motion-compensated, standards converter, where resources are allocated to meet the requirements of the job. We conclude with results from the evaluation of this system by a major German broadcaster. © 2002 Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Inc.