BBC iPlayer: bigger, better, faster (and shorter)

BBC Media Services

Rachel Evans

rachel.evans@bbc.co.uk

bigger, better, faster

@rvedotrc

(and shorter)

BBC iPlayer: bigger, better, faster A year ago, BBC iPlayer could have died - but it didn’t. Instead, we built a bigger, better, faster iPlayer that provides a foundation for the future. Find out how this was achieved, what part AWS plays in iPlayer’s success, and what’s next for BBC online media.”

On October 1st, 2013, iPlayer didn’t die

“On October 1st 2013, iPlayer didn’t die. But it could have. The reason iPlayer is still alive is Video Factory, and Amazon Web Services play a big part in Video Factory’s success. My name’s Rachel Evans. I’m a Principal Software Engineer in BBC Media Services. We created Video Factory.”

“For the next 20 minutes or so, I’d like to tell you some of the Video Factory story. How it came to exist; what it is; how we made it; and a glimpse into Video Factory’s future. And of course, what part Amazon plays in the whole story.”

What is BBC Media Services?

(full name: BBC Future Media Platform Media Services)

Video Factory was created by BBC Media Services.

Who are we? Here’s our mission statement:

“Publish all BBC AV media produced for IP platforms”

“AV” means audio and video, includes radio and TV Includes iPlayer, iPlayer Radio, News, Sport Both live and on-demand

✓✓✓

⬅ ☹

The shiny new system

2008 - Hosted in-house; used contracted 3rd party services for storage and transcode.

Limited capacity. Bad architecture. Bad engineering. Ageing badly. Didn’t scale well. This system did not have a long-term future.

The legacy system

2008 - Hosted in-house; used contracted 3rd party services for storage and transcode.

Limited capacity. Bad architecture. Bad engineering. Ageing badly. Didn’t scale well. This system did not have a long-term future.

Why 1st October 2013?

In May 2012, the BBC decided not to renew that 3rd party contract. It was to be allowed to lapse, at the end of September 2013. So this system, and therefore iPlayer, will die. “By the time the London 2012 Olympics was out of the way, we had just over 12 months to build a replacement.”

Why the cloud?

Elasticity etc

June 2012: First steps into the cloud

“At this point, there is no BBC Amazon account yet. There are no BBC FM projects in the cloud. We’re taking a step into the unknown.” We choose Amazon. June 2012: AWS accounts created.

Starting small, thinking big

- First BBC FM project in the cloud: Sky (no Cosmos)

- Second BBC FM project in the cloud: Video Factory (early Cosmos)

- prove we can transcode video in the cloud Both of these things are key to what we’re going to need for Video Factory.

The origin of Video Factory

“By this point you might be wondering: What does Video Factory actually do?”

Video Factory in a nutshell

Two things drive Video Factory

(source video + metadata => transcode)

source video+

programme data

programme data: - what programme is this; - where and when is it broadcast; - which platforms do we publication rights for

source video+

programme data

transcode, distribute, and publish

=

programme data: - what programme is this; - where and when is it broadcast; - which platforms do we publication rights for

PrerecordedLive

Transcode

Distribute

Publish

Once we’ve got the video, the rest of the chain is the same.

“So let’s talk about live. Most iPlayer content is stuff that’s been on TV, so if we can capture and publish that, then iPlayer won’t die. So, we built what I like to think of as …”

The world’s largest public-service video recorder

“… which we call ‘Mezz-to-VOD’, and here’s a quick overview of how it works.”

Mezz-to-VOD:

“In a secure location somewhere is part of the BBC’s TV broadcast chain.” Playout; Thomson Video Networks; RTP video over multicast UDP; includes timecodes. Capture and chunk. Mustn’t miss a single packet. Upload chunks to S3. click - Playout; broadcast end SNS message; find relevant chunks and join click - Transcode with trim; distribute; publish. click - talk about inaccurate trims and “Resilient broadcast-grade system”.

Mezz-to-VOD:

“In a secure location somewhere is part of the BBC’s TV broadcast chain.” Playout; Thomson Video Networks; RTP video over multicast UDP; includes timecodes. Capture and chunk. Mustn’t miss a single packet. Upload chunks to S3. click - Playout; broadcast end SNS message; find relevant chunks and join click - Transcode with trim; distribute; publish. click - talk about inaccurate trims and “Resilient broadcast-grade system”.

Mezz-to-VOD:

“In a secure location somewhere is part of the BBC’s TV broadcast chain.” Playout; Thomson Video Networks; RTP video over multicast UDP; includes timecodes. Capture and chunk. Mustn’t miss a single packet. Upload chunks to S3. click - Playout; broadcast end SNS message; find relevant chunks and join click - Transcode with trim; distribute; publish. click - talk about inaccurate trims and “Resilient broadcast-grade system”.

Mezz-to-VOD:

Broadcast-grade resilient system

Mezz-to-VOD:

“In a secure location somewhere is part of the BBC’s TV broadcast chain.” Playout; Thomson Video Networks; RTP video over multicast UDP; includes timecodes. Capture and chunk. Mustn’t miss a single packet. Upload chunks to S3. click - Playout; broadcast end SNS message; find relevant chunks and join click - Transcode with trim; distribute; publish. click - talk about inaccurate trims and “Resilient broadcast-grade system”.

What bits of AWS do we use?

For legal reasons, it’s all in the EU, hence eu-west-1. EC2 compute, VPC, ELB, Autoscaling S3, SQS, SNS, SimpleDB Cloudwatch, Cloudformation

What bits of AWS do we use?

(nothing too exciting, actually)

For legal reasons, it’s all in the EU, hence eu-west-1. EC2 compute, VPC, ELB, Autoscaling S3, SQS, SNS, SimpleDB Cloudwatch, Cloudformation

but here’s the fun part…

video is big

SD video

mpeg-ts / avc 720 x 576 9.4Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

SD video1.3MB/sec/channel

mpeg-ts / avc 720 x 576 9.4Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

SD video1.3MB/sec/channel

= 109 GB/day/channel

mpeg-ts / avc 720 x 576 9.4Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

SD video1.3MB/sec/channel

= 109 GB/day/channel

x 21 channels

mpeg-ts / avc 720 x 576 9.4Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

SD video1.3MB/sec/channel

= 109 GB/day/channel

x 21 channels

= 2.3 TB/day

mpeg-ts / avc 720 x 576 9.4Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

HD video

mpeg-ts / avc 1920 x 1080 ~38Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

HD video4.2MB/sec/channel

mpeg-ts / avc 1920 x 1080 ~38Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

HD video4.2MB/sec/channel

= 365 GB/day/channel

mpeg-ts / avc 1920 x 1080 ~38Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

HD video4.2MB/sec/channel

= 365 GB/day/channel

x 8 channels

mpeg-ts / avc 1920 x 1080 ~38Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

HD video4.2MB/sec/channel

= 365 GB/day/channel

x 8 channels

= 2.9 TB/day

mpeg-ts / avc 1920 x 1080 ~38Mbps 25fps / mpeg audio 256Kbps

+ 2.9 TB/day

2.3 TB/day

5.2 TB/day

5.2 TB/day/copy

x 2 locations

“each channel is captured in 2 physical locations” “at each location we capture 2 copies"

5.2 TB/day/copy

x 2 locations

x 2 copies

“each channel is captured in 2 physical locations” “at each location we capture 2 copies"

21TB per day

“… for a total of 21TB per day. (maybe mention “bigger” now? 40hrs=>250hrs, 4TB=>20TB) Handling this much data wouldn’t have been possible on our previous platform, but with Amazon Web Services, Video Factory is able to handle this much data, all day, every day.”

The origin of Video Factory

The world’s biggest public service video recorder

“I’d like to talk now about the practices and tooling we have in place that make this possible.”

Continuous Integration

Continuous Integrationcommit ↓

build and unit tests ↓

component tests ↓

build into a Cosmos release ↓

deploy to int via Cosmos

Small components Loosely coupled

Lots of small deployments Microservices

Design for failure

use Chaos Monkey lose your fear of failure

Continuous Delivery

(describe CD first…) “Building Video Factory on Amazon, using Continuous Delivery was a success; and to a large extent this formed the basis of what then became the BBC Continuous Delivery pilot, that just recently ended.”

Deployment weekly averages

(total for 10 weeks, divided by 10)

int: test: live:

Deployment weekly averages

(total for 10 weeks, divided by 10)

int: test: live:

120

Deployment weekly averages

(total for 10 weeks, divided by 10)

int: test: live:

12025

Deployment weekly averages

(total for 10 weeks, divided by 10)

int: test: live:

1202521

0

1

2

3

4

5

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Live deployments by day of week (total for 10 weeks, divided by 10)

3.5 deployment days per week vs 5 days per week No live deployments on Sunday :-) System as a whole is more reliable (“better”)

“So, with Mezz-to-VOD in place, iPlayer is saved. We record whatever was broadcast on TV, and we publish it. So now at the click of a button you can enjoy world-class content like this…”

We’re saved!

“So, with Mezz-to-VOD in place, iPlayer is saved. We record whatever was broadcast on TV, and we publish it. So now at the click of a button you can enjoy world-class content like this…”

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

Channel logo

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

Channel logoSubtitles indicator

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

Fade between channel ident and programme

Channel logoSubtitles indicator

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

Channel logo

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

Channel logo

Credit squeeze

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

Continuityvoice-over

Channel logo

Credit squeeze

Examples of things that appear on TV, that we don’t want to publish on iPlayer.

File-Based Delivery

What is FBD - e.g. EastEnders Better than M2V: * cleaner signal * higher bit rate * available sooner Build up an archive

The Video Factory Archive

size of archive (“hours” figure is an estimate)

38453 files

The Video Factory Archive

size of archive (“hours” figure is an estimate)

38453 files20902 hours

The Video Factory Archive

size of archive (“hours” figure is an estimate)

38453 files20902 hours

599 TB(Data accurate as of 2.30pm 11/11/2014)

The Video Factory Archive

size of archive (“hours” figure is an estimate)

Simulcast (“Watch Live”)

Bring the handling of live IP audio and video in-house Build on the success of Video Factory VOD Mostly not in the cloud, so only a very brief overview…

Simulcast

Only the packager is in the cloud Explain what HLS (Apple) is Explain what HDS (Adobe) and Smooth (Microsoft) are Provides rewind window

Simulcast

Only the packager is in the cloud Explain what HLS (Apple) is Explain what HDS (Adobe) and Smooth (Microsoft) are Provides rewind window

Simulcast

Only the packager is in the cloud Explain what HLS (Apple) is Explain what HDS (Adobe) and Smooth (Microsoft) are Provides rewind window

Simulcast

Only the packager is in the cloud Explain what HLS (Apple) is Explain what HDS (Adobe) and Smooth (Microsoft) are Provides rewind window

Simulcast

Only the packager is in the cloud Explain what HLS (Apple) is Explain what HDS (Adobe) and Smooth (Microsoft) are Provides rewind window

Simulcast

Only the packager is in the cloud Explain what HLS (Apple) is Explain what HDS (Adobe) and Smooth (Microsoft) are Provides rewind window

Converging Live and

On-Demand

Here’s the latter half of the Simulcast chain.

And here’s the Mezz-to-VOD chain, fed from exactly the same video feed. But we’re transcoding again, and always late. We can do better…

L2V is triggered by the same event as Mezz-to-VOD. L2V is an order of magnitude faster. The 6.30pm news: ideal: 7pm; old system: maybe 11pm, midnight; with mezz-to-vod: ~ 8pm; with live-to-vod: ~ 7.05pm

However L2V only does some formats (albeit they’re important ones), and doesn’t trim accurately. So we deliberately allow L2V and M2V to run in parallel; L2V will win, M2V is better.

The origin of Video Factory

The world’s biggest public service video recorder

Live and Live-to-VOD

“At BBC Media Services we have to handle audio - that is, radio - as well as video, so we’re creating Audio Factory.”

Audio Factory

“How does Audio Factory work?” (click twice to reveal obvious description)

Audio Factory

like Video Factory,

“How does Audio Factory work?” (click twice to reveal obvious description)

Audio Factory

like Video Factory,but without the pictures

“How does Audio Factory work?” (click twice to reveal obvious description)

“Publish all BBC AV media produced for IP platforms”

“So as well as video on demand; there’s the simulcast chain providing live video; and live-to-VOD bridging the two together, so that programmes are playable as soon as possible. Audio - including BBC Radio - can be handled almost identically to video,

… and so that the system works together.

“Publish all BBC AV media produced for IP platforms”

“so at last we can handle audio and video, live and ondemand, all in-house, using a consistent, proven set of technologies that work together.”

“It took us just over a year to build the basic video-on-demand features of Video Factory that we had to build, to prevent iPlayer from dying. It was a completely new solution: new architecture, new code, new platform. We chose the cloud because it was more flexible, more reliable, more scalable. We chose Amazon because it was a mature cloud platform that provided the right technical and support services that we needed.”

MMXIV

“It took us just over a year to build the basic video-on-demand features of Video Factory that we had to build, to prevent iPlayer from dying. It was a completely new solution: new architecture, new code, new platform. We chose the cloud because it was more flexible, more reliable, more scalable. We chose Amazon because it was a mature cloud platform that provided the right technical and support services that we needed.”

MMXIV

“We moved to Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery with a Microservices architecture, so that the benefits of higher quality and faster turnaround could be enjoyed by everyone - by our engineers, by the product stakeholders, by the licence-fee-paying audience. Building Mezz-to-VOD to avoid killing iPlayer was just the beginning. I’m very excited about seeing the future of Video Factory unfold on Amazon, and I hope you enjoy using iPlayer even more now that you’ve heard the story behind it. Thank you.”