ORS and Insys look to grow international footprint for streaming and broadcast solutions
ORS Group, the Austrian national broadcast network operator, wants to compete at a global level for the provision of cloud-native streaming platforms and associated professional services, building on its broadcasting and streaming heritage in its home market.
The company, which is 60% owned by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF), took a stake in Polish streaming specialist Insys Video Technologies in 2023 and in May increased its share to 75%.
ORS and Insys remain separate legal entities (and currently retain their existing names and websites) but have created a sub-brand, Big Blue Marble, to articulate their joint offer, which increasingly looks towards streaming TV for growth opportunities. All products, solutions and services, locally and internationally, will now be offered under Big Blue Marble.
The companies promise broadcast-grade streaming solutions ranging from an end-to-end white-label platform capability (covering broadcast, hybrid and streaming only) to modular components such as cloud-based video-processing and digital rights management (DRM).
Big Blue Marble’s solutions are aimed at broadcasters, cable operators, telecoms companies, sports leagues and sports clubs in Austria and internationally.
The ability to combine broadcast and streaming operations effectively is considered one of the key strengths for the new entity, along with the ability to deploy solutions in weeks rather than months. 5G Broadcast expertise is another potential differentiator for customers looking to utilise hybrid broadcast/streaming to mobile phones.
‘Another dimension for scalability’
ORS operates the SimpliTV television platform in Austria that combines broadcast multichannel linear TV with streamed on-demand and includes a streaming-only version available via smart TV apps. Michael Wagenhofer, CEO of ORS (pictured above, right), says this has given his company deep experience in business-to-consumer operations. “That is a real differentiator from most of our competitors in Europe,” he suggests.
Insys is a respected tech vendor whose flagship product, InsysGo, is a white-label platform solution for live streaming with user interface (including electronic programme guide), VOD, network recordings and more. It supports delivery to smart TVs, web browsers and mobile devices, allowing for subscription, ad support and pay-per-view monetisation.
The company helped ORS evolve SimpliTV from a broadcast-centric service in 2013 to a viable digital alternative to terrestrial and satellite reception in homes interested in streaming only.
Insys and ORS customers include ARD (the joint association of Germany’s regional public-service broadcasters), Portuguese football club Benfica (for a direct-to-consumer streaming offer) and the German Football Association for its DFB Play direct-to-consumer service.
Krzysztof Bartkowski (pictured above, left), CEO of Insys, says the companies have been offering a joint solution to the market, with a shared roadmap, for two years but now want to present this under a standalone brand.
He is confident that the combined companies can stand out in a crowded market: “We understand the needs of broadcasters and other tier-one customers. We are focused on what we call broadcast-grade streaming, which means exceptional performance, reliability, quality and scalability.
“We are addressing the whole streaming market, democratising access to really high-grade products. With ORS, we have broadcast and IP, cloud workflow and on premise.”
Bartkowski continued: “We wanted ORS to invest in Insys because of our shared innovation focus. ORS has invested heavily in 5G Broadcast R&D, which gives Big Blue Marble a comprehensive delivery ecosystem. Our streaming back end scales to millions of concurrent users and, if that is combined with 5G Broadcast, we move into another dimension for scalability.”
Opening doors
5G Broadcast is an application defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) that unites seven telecoms standards development organisations to develop mobile specifications. It broadcasts video to mobile phones using high-power transmitters and the same UHF frequencies as digital terrestrial TV. As this is not mobile broadband, it bypasses streaming infrastructure like content delivery networks (CDNs).
The tech can be used to complement streaming to mobile devices. One likely use case is during live events, when the number of users either stresses the CDN streaming capacity or makes it expensive to deliver millions of unicast streams. With 5G Broadcast, unicast streamers can be switched seamlessly to the 5G Broadcast (one-to-many) stream instead.
ORS is a pioneer in 5G Broadcast and its Nakolos product line supports automatic switching between a mobile stream and a mobile broadcast. The company established a 5G Broadcast test bed in Vienna in 2020 and has since run two notable live tests.
One of these — for the Vienna Donauinselfest music festival — included work on how 5G Broadcast can be integrated into existing broadcaster back ends (working with ORF). Insys set up the distribution paths for both the CDN streaming and 5G Broadcast from the event.
Wagenhofer points to 5G Broadcast as an example of where combined expertise across streaming and broadcasting will benefit Big Blue Marble customers. “Together with other European partners, we are one of the driving forces in the development of the 3GPP standards,” he notes.
5G Broadcast is part of a wider effort to support greater scale and lower costs for live TV that at least partially uses streaming infrastructure. “Live is one of the drivers for the rapid growth in streaming and more events are addressing large streaming audiences. Reliability is key,” Wagenhofer points out.
Bartkowski says Big Blue Marble is focused on reducing the cost of streaming, including for live. This is achieved by optimising delivery networks while also helping customers establish their workflows (including video processing, DRM and platforms) without breaking the bank. He believes the merger will open more doors for Insys products.
For Wagenhofer, a key focus for Big Blue Marble is helping broadcasters master their digital transformations: “That is a challenging process, with lots of legacy operations and the need for parallel processes that increase cost. We understand how to run broadcast and streaming in parallel and get the best from these two worlds.”
He emphasises the ambition to support large-scale, cloud-enabled streaming operations internationally. “We aim to be a frontrunner that shapes the media landscape,” he declares. “We have the perfect match with ORS and Insys. We harness long-standing broadcaster expertise and pioneering streaming expertise to take streaming services to a new level.”