Coding and Multiplex

ITV and Channel 4’s terrestrial Freeview channels moved to cloud-based processing, in a major step forward for the television industry.

The challenge

ITV and Channel 4’s terrestrial Freeview channels needed to move to cloud processing, and away from legacy hardware.

The channels serve 18 million UK viewers with regionalised TV programmes.

The challenge was to digitise broadcast infrastructure without interruption, migrating to a platform capable of meeting needs of today and tomorrow.

The solution

BT and Digital 3&4 (D3&4), a joint venture by ITV and Channel 4, signed a multi-million-pound contract to switch on start-to-finish cloud processing for regionalised TV content across all of D3&4’s Freeview channels.

The development marks a landmark move away from legacy hardware to Vena, BT Media and Broadcast’s smart broadcast network.

Vena enables broadcasters to benefit from applications that sit on top of a high-grade software-defined media network.

Processing Freeview channels through Vena simplifies content production and distribution for the broadcast industry.

Other benefits of processing digital terrestrial TV via the cloud include:

• Improving overall operational efficiency
• Cutting costs
• Lowering energy consumption
• Scalability and flexibility - from contribution to distribution.

This is the first time cloud processing of digital terrestrial TV channels has been successfully completed at such a large scale.

The result

The move to process Freeview channels via BT’s new smart broadcast network will boost efficiency, reduce energy consumption, cut costs and enhance flexibility.

It will offer more possibilities for broadcasters to connect and interact with their audiences.

The project required meticulous planning and execution but was completed without interruption for the millions who watch Freeview TV.

The service built on Vena is only the start of what’s possible on BT’s smart broadcast network – as they continue to drive digitisation and innovate solutions to support TV delivery in the UK and across the globe.

D3&4 is using Vena to deliver digital coding and multiplexing, essentially combining multiple content streams into one before distribution regionally.

This means taking content from six playout centres and distributing it to nations and regions across the UK securely and reliably, via two of BT’s resilient data centres.

In addition, BT is providing a full end-to-end, round-the-clock monitoring service that automatically resolves issues to provide a perfectly fault-tolerant network.