Harmonic centralises management for hybrid streaming, and brings new geo-redundancy, fan engagement, anti-piracy and in-stream ad innovations to live sports streaming.
Harmonic has developed centralised, intelligent management for its users’ hybrid streaming systems to simplify workflow operations across cloud and on-premises environments. Harmonic’s hybrid streaming powers varied video use cases, including linear channel and VOD streaming, time-shift, catch-up TV, network PVR as well as server-side ad insertion. Operators can now deploy and configure their video workflows as needed, accessing the advantages and cost efficiencies of hybrid streaming architecture.
“Hybrid streaming is rapidly becoming the standard as it lowers the total cost of ownership of almost any type of streaming platform, and can temporarily use the public cloud to handle peak demand for specific events, such as high-profile live sports,” said Eric Gallier, vice president, video customer solutions at Harmonic. “With the new central management system, operators can easily control streaming services no matter where they are located — whether on-premises, in the cloud or across both.”
Harmonic identifies several advantages to their new approach to managing hybrid set-ups. For instance, once operators have created and configured the linear channels they need, they can use the central management system to monitor any of those channels on the streaming platform through a single user interface, with the flexibility to run it only on-premises or not.
Harmonic’s hybrid system also optimizes storage and egress costs by keeping the fresher, high-demand VOD, nPVR and live-to-VOD assets on-premises while shifting less sought-after or less current content to the cloud. The central management system feeds into this process by automating continuous content migration from on-premises to the cloud based on rules such as age and popularity of the content. Migration is transparent to the content management system [CMS], coordinating the user’s operations.
The central management system enhances operational resilience and disaster recovery in hybrid environments as well. It means that service providers can access the cloud for built-in redundancy, geographic diversity and robust failover options to back up the entire on-premises infrastructure in case of failure.
Live Sports Streaming
For live sports streaming, Harmonic has developed a series of new innovations that enhance fan engagement, protect sports content against piracy and extend monetization for service providers and sports broadcasters. Harmonic’s service-based software, VOS360 Media SaaS and VOS360 Ad SaaS, are cloud-native and specialised for sports streaming and viewing. Its features include geo-synced low latency, interactive multiview, real-time AI-driven highlight creation, anti-piracy safeguards and in-stream advertising. Harmonic showed the full solution at IBC2025.
Harmonic VOS360 SaaS applications
The updates to Harmonic’s media and ad services will make it possible for sports service providers and broadcasters to deliver low-latency streams while maintaining a geo-redundant architecture – that is, replicating data and applications across a number of geographically dispersed locations – that supports undetectable failover.
It overcomes the recognised technical barriers to synchronising delivery of low-latency streams from two redundant VOS360 platforms. Harmonic regards this as a significant step forward for the video industry, enabling latency of less than 5 seconds without affecting reliability.
Fans, Anti-Piracy, In-stream Advertising
To increase its fan engagement options, Harmonic is partnering with two industry providers, Skreens and VisualOn, that have the expertise required to allow fans to watch and interact with multiple live games on the same screen. Skreens specialises in services for content providers that want to build their own multiviewing platforms, and VisualOn develops universal content-adaptive encoding and specialist media players.
Harmonic’s live sports streaming solution has real-time highlight creation tools as well, which include automatic scene detection and analysis, and AI-driven sports clipping.
The integration of anti-piracy features, including forensic watermarking and geo-blocking, into Harmonic’s services gives users a way to combat sports piracy during streaming events. Because geo-blocking restricts access to content based on the location of the user-system seeking access, the solution features CDN-level authentication and access control services, and its watermarking services are dynamic, supplied through recognised technology vendors. These can be used to identify piracy sources quickly and take measures to stop content restreaming.
Harmonic’s in-stream advertising for live sports is now supplied through server-side insertion of new addressable ad formats, such as double-box and dynamic L-bars. The in-stream ads can be placed strategically at high- and low-action moments of the game. This is achieved through automated triggering from external data feeds, via manual operation or with AI-enhanced automatic ad triggering. Dynamic integration of in-stream ads within live programming is a way to keep viewers engaged, and also emphasises brand awareness for sports publishers.
Working with channel partners
OSN and Harmonic Delivers Personalised Ads at Scale
A recent partnership between Orbit Showtime Network [OSN] in the MENA region and Harmonic to monetize its video streaming channels highlights the ability of VOS360 Ad SaaS to deliver personalized ads at scale. Melvin Saldanha, senior vice president, technology at OSN said, “Within just a few months, we’ve been able to launch personalized, revenue-driving ad experiences, marking a major advancement in our monetization strategy and our ability to deliver more relevant content to audiences.”
As a cloud-native, stand-alone SSAI service, VOS360 delivers personalized ads to viewers with the same quality and reliability as broadcast content, and has a straightforward interface and APIs for developers, dashboards and analytics.
OSN now have a complete workflow for creative processing, delivery and manifest manipulation with frame-accurate insertion. Harmonic’s placement opportunity information service and scheduler allows OSN to include the ad duration on ad insertion markers – a critical requirement for ad signalling and monetization.
VOS360 Ad is pre-integrated with advertising technology partners, which helps speed up deployment and improve viewing experiences. OSN has so far integrated VOS360 Ad with various third-party tools and systems including content management systems, ad decision servers, digital rights management, playout systems and client-side apps. www.harmonicinc.com
