Redefining the Viewing Experience in 4K quality
Customer Benefit
Globo handles a massive VOD library of over a million titles, and with 12 variants in their HEVC bitrate stack — encoding demands are high. Bitmovin’s VOD Encoder deployed on the Google Cloud gave Globo the capability to encode a 90-minute video asset in 14 minutes across the entire HEVC ladder. This is a real-time factor of 6.4 times, which resulted in a quantifiable impact on time to market. Globo saw the business need for fast turnaround time in encodes and chose Bitmovin as the clear front-runner in this regard.
Who Is Globo
When it comes to large content libraries and audience reach, Globo is at par with Hollywood and the big US broadcasters. Its studios produce 3,000 hours of entertainment content annually, compared to around 600 movies created in the US every year.
The viewership numbers are equally impressive. Forty-nine million Brazilians watch the daily, one-hour newscast. By comparison, 33 million viewers tuned in for the Oscars telecast in the U.S. The digital hub of Globo is in no way inferior. It attracts eight in ten Brazilians with internet access. They can consume content from a vast library of news, sports, and entertainment videos to live events such as the Olympics, Carnival, and the Soccer World Cup. Beyond digital content distribution, Globo’s Digital Hub serves as a strategic technology provider and technical support for Globo’s businesses.
Globo Standard of Quality
This ties right back into the overarching “Globo Standard of Quality” that the company is known for. The optimal viewing experience consists of award-winning content, delivered in stunning visual quality. To deliver on that standard, Globo was one of the first mainstream broadcasters outside of the US to offer content in 4K, adopting it as a new standard across its platforms and devices. It has already produced more than two hundred hours of 4K content (including HDR) with over a thousand hours of encoding output with its soap operas and original series.
The early adoption of 4K is even more impressive for Globo as Brazil is ranking 79th on the list of countries by Internet connection speed. In order to deliver high-quality video, operators cannot just work with higher bitrates
but rather have to find the optimal encoder that achieves both quality, speed, and cost efficiency at the same time.
In the past, 4K encoding was accomplished with on-premises hardware encoders. As the next update cycle of the appliances was fast approaching, Igor Macaubas, Director of Digital Products, Product & Engineering, and Lucas Stephanou, Video Platform Product Owner at Globo, decided to conduct a thorough evaluation of vendors, including Bitmovin with its integration on the Google Cloud Platform.
Partnership
Globo handles a massive VOD library of over a million titles, and with 12 variants in their HEVC bitrate stack — encoding demands are high. Bitmovin’s cloud encoding service on the Google Cloud Platform, gave Globo the capability to encode a 90-minute video asset in 14 minutes across the entire HEVC ladder. This is a real time factor of 6.4 times, which resulted in a quantifiable impact on time-to-market. Globo saw the business need for fast turnaround time in encodes and chose Bitmovin and Google’s Cloud Platform as the clear front runners in this regard. Considering Globo produces over 3,000 hours of entertainment content per year, this was no small feat.
“As equally important to speed, are Globo’s visual quality standards”, Lucas Stephanou, Globo’s Video Platform Product Owner pointed out. “We are not willing to compromise the visual integrity of our content and we hold ourselves to strict perception-quality standards. Bitmovin’s renowned 3-Pass Encoding exceeded our expectations and is ensuring that high perceptual quality can still be delivered while streaming at optimal bandwidth levels.”
Bitmovin’s 3-Pass Encoding algorithm analyzes the elements of a video three different times to optimize intra-frame and inter-frame compression. The process compensates and optimizes motion, spatial and temporal compression for quality control all while minimizing bitrates. Globo assured the visual elements their media is comprised of were not degraded in the encoding process, and the Bitmovin encoder showed the best results across the board with the ability to scale seamlessly by utilizing the Google Cloud Platform.
Aside from leveraging Bitmovin’s VOD Encoder and the Google Cloud Platform for faster and higher-quality file processing, Globo also valued their expertise in video workflow. With their expert team, they ensured a seamless deployment and collaborated to identify any workflow issues and determine the most effective solutions for optimal results, efficiently reducing Globo’s time-to-market and enabling them to launch faster.
Customer Testimonial
“We are not willing to compromise the visual integrity of our content and we hold ourselves to strict perception-quality standards. Bitmovin’s renowned 3-Pass encoding exceeded our expectations and is ensuring that high perceptual quality can still be delivered while streaming at optimal bandwidth levels.”
— Lucas Stephanou Video Platform Product Owner, Globo