Agile Live: An Innovative GPU- and Cloud-Based Workflow

Agile Content has announced within the framework of IBC 2023 the launch of Agile Live, its new GPU-based and cloud-based production solution. First tested as a proof of concept last year by SVT, Agile Live went live for the first time in the real world for the live remote production of this summer's Royal Scandinavia Rally.

This technology makes it possible to significantly reduce both production costs and environmental impact. Agile Live takes advantage of technologies already available, a innovative use of GPU and a new transport protocol to offer a transformative solution to television networks.

Not only does it produce top-quality programming for broadcast or streaming (including for emerging online services and platforms), it also provides a substantial cost savings. Additionally, Agile Content's analysis of the solution's CO2 emissions revealed that it can reduce the environmental footprint of a production by up to 90%.

Use standard Internet connections to produce and deliver content in real time from any live broadcast camera or consumer device. However, Agile Live does not depend on the cloud at allHey can be deployed in COTS, in private data centers or in public clouds.

GPU-based, cloud-based solution includes web-based proxy editing for fast live post-production, HTML graphics (which can be recorded or delivered separately), 3D video effects y interactive graphics or custom visuals. All of this comes together to allow broadcasters and content producers to expand their reach by more easily facilitating viewer-centric formats on platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Kick or TikTok.

“Agile Live has been designed to address three of the biggest challenges facing broadcasters today: environmental impact, production costs and growing competition from new online platforms,” he explains. Johan Bolin, business director of media and broadcasting at Agile Content. “We are delighted to bring this product to market to offer content producers more options that truly leverage the cloud to deliver such substantial benefits.”

Agile Live en SVT

Swedish public broadcaster SVT has been working with Agile Content for several years. Already in 2021, SVT partnered with Agile Content to address the challenges of meeting the ambitious climate goals set by the Paris Agreement and Sweden's own green initiatives.

SVT was looking for an environmentally friendly and cost-effective solution that existing products did not meet. So the two companies partnered on a series of tests and proof-of-concept projects that led to July 7, 2023, when SVT successfully broadcast its first live remote sporting event totally based in the cloud using Agile Live.

He Rally Real de Scandinavia is a new test of 16 stages and 185 km that is added to the 2023 season of the European Rally Championship and for which SVT had the broadcasting rights. Thanks to an architecture designed to bridge production and distribution workflows, Agile Live's ability to reduce production costs allowed SVT to cover the entire three-day event on a significantly reduced budget.

Not only that, but an in-depth analysis of production after the event showed that SVT and Agile Content's collaboration on the rally significantly reduced the environmental footprint of production compared to deploying standard solutions.

Add Granberg, Technical Director of SVT, comments that "as a television network, SVT has always looked for ways to improve its programming by deploying innovative and emerging production technologies. But, as a public body, we are also under pressure to keep operating costs at a reasonable level and reduce our environmental expenditure. This is what we were trying to achieve when we started working with Agile Content to create this new cloud-based production, and the results surprised even us."

A key innovation that contributed to the realization of Agile Live and the success of the first deployment of the solution for SVT was the development of an open source transport protocol: EFP (Elastic Frame Protocol). EFP not only ensures quality adjustment based on bandwidth and preferences, but also achieves perfect synchronization of the cameras. This enables seamless integration of various video sources on the fly, allowing any connected device to contribute to the production process.

While synchronizing, mixing and editing live content has traditionally been limited to the local domain of high-bit-rate SDI, Agile Live's Internet-based infrastructure allows a wide range of sources to be configured, working with low latency and low bit rate, for mixing, graphics and audio, with action commands sent to the high-quality delivery source in the cloud for seamless playback.

Finally, note that Agile Live allows you to dynamically transform productions in real time. For example, you can create fully synchronized versions of curated programming elements on TikTok with vertical-style videos and other platform-specific tweaks.