Video Progetti redesigned and implemented Mediaset’s OTT headend, creating a future‑proof platform that delivers native 1080p/50 streaming with integrated disaster recovery, advanced monitoring, and DRM support.
Mediaset is the largest Italian private broadcaster. Currently the company is owned and controlled by its holding company, MFE (Media For Europe). Mediaset currently runs 13 FTA channels and an on-demand streaming platform “Mediaset Infinity” through an advertising-based business model. Mediaset has a long tradition of being an early adopter of new technologies and remains constantly up to date with the latest advancements in the broadcasting industry.
Mediaset is the first Italian publisher for non-linear consumption: almost 4.4 billion videos viewed. Compared to last year, the certified increase is +40.6% in time dedicated to viewing Mediaset content. Therefore it is no surprise the broadcaster has dedicated significant effort to their OTT Headend development, requesting Video Progetti to evolve it to the next level.
Challenge
Since its inception in 2007, Mediaset Infinity has been the home of the non-linear and streaming offerings of Mediaset, providing a tier-1 service, in line with other major broadcasters in terms of quality.
Video Progetti was originally engaged to create a first implementation of an OTT headend system fully Cloud based, initially envisaged for disaster recovery but later becoming the production solution for certain live streams on the Infinity platform.
However, the acquisition of Champion League triggered the desire to increase the quality of the service and add the ability to deliver native 1080p/50 video to a variety of end-user devices. This required the redesign of the entire main on-premise platform from the ground up to achieve, not just the highest quality but also top tier operational flexibility and reliability while, at the same time, including Disaster Recovery. Last but not least, the design needed to be future-proof and compatible with the IP2110 infrastructure that Mediaset is planning to implement during the course of 2024.
Solution
The solution has been put in place through a joint team consisting of the broadcaster’s members and Video Progetti’s technical design team. Video Progetti proposed a solution by integrating the best brands currently available in the market in their respective areas.
The architecture of the solution includes Grass Valley Sirius 830 SDI router with integrated Multiviewer capabilities, with Elemental AWS taking care of all processing and compression, Unified Streaming Origin (USP) taking care of the packetizing of the streams in the format required by the end device using just-in-time approach and a battery of NGINIX web servers for caching. On top of this robust architecture, Video Progetti deployed Telelestream’s Surveyor monitoring solution to have a constant check of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) of the OTT headend.
One important aspect is that the Unified Streaming Origin takes care also of the DRM and encryption, which is a crucial requirement to handle and deliver the platform’s services to end users. A variety of DRM schemas are supported, providing the solution with additional flexibility and future-proofing.
Listen customer experience
L’INNOVATIVO HEADEND OTT DI MEDIASET – FRANCESCO STRUZZI
L’INNOVATIVO HEADEND OTT DI MEDIASET – INTERVISTA A MARCO GORNI
L’INNOVATIVO HEADEND OTT DI MEDIASET – INTERVISTA A MARIO AILANO
L’INNOVATIVO HEADEND OTT DI MEDIASET – INTERVISTA A STEFANO BOSSI
L’INNOVATIVO HEADEND OTT DI MEDIASET – MAURIZIO RAFFAELI
L’INNOVATIVO HEADEND OTT DI MEDIASET – LUCA POLONI
L’INNOVATIVO HEADEND OTT DI MEDIASET – INTERVISTA A PAOLO SCHILLACI
The new OTT service is live and it has fully achieved and exceeded all targets requested by the client’s tender. We at Video Progetti are proud to include this as one further success story in our portfolio.
The overall final result is clearly depicted in the words of Francesco Struzzi, Sales Director of Video Progetti:
“A fantastic collaborative experience has been developed between the Video Progetti working group and that of Mediaset. Excellent results were achieved and the collaboration has allowed us to move on to the next step. […]
Collaboration was certainly one of the fundamental factors in achieving the best result.
[…] We are very satisfied with the result because the project has been completed within the defined timescales, with the full satisfaction of Mediaset who achieved their quality objectives. Furthermore, Mediaset has now has a future-proof system at its disposal, capable of adopting and integrating future technologies, without having to revamp the system. We are happy with the work done and we hope that we can continue with this fruitful collaboration.”
