Introduction to Zixi Edge Computer (ZEC)

Owned by Elisa Diel (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 19 Dec 2022 by Alon Men
7 min read

Zixi Edge Compute (ZEC) is an Edge video streaming system that is installed on-premises as a Zixi endpoint, replacing the Zixi Feeder (contribution) or Zixi Receiver (distribution). ZEC offers a more robust feature set and protocol support than the Zixi Feeder/Receiver. After its installation, ZEC can be configured to function as a Feeder (Contribution), as a Receiver (distribution) or as both Feeder and Receiver.

Main Features

  • Robust content delivery over IP - communicates with a Zixi Broadcaster over UDP-based, video-optimized protocols on private and public IP networks for maximal quality at a predictable latency

  • Adaptive Bit Rate - Dynamically adjusts stream rate to adapt to changing network conditions, using unicast or multicast, to meet specific application requirements.

  • Recording - store streams as MPEG-TS files.

  • Time-shifting - records the stream to delay its broadcasting.

  • Secure and rapid file transfer - accelerated and secure file transfers delivered at wire speed and accelerated HTTP delivery including optimized playback of HLS over UDP.

  • Clustering and load balancing - supports cluster architectures to provide continuous uptime.

  • TR-101 Transport Stream Analyzer - MPEG-TS ETSI TR 101-290 analyzer (priorities 1 and 2)

  • Content Analysis - analysis of the stream's audio and video content, including audio levels, audio silence detection, frozen video detection, and more.

  • Monitoring - captures network and content specific statistical information in real-time.

  • Network bonding with hitless failover - reunites divided streams coming from multiple network channels into a single stream, enabling simultaneous load balancing between multiple networks and ensuring high availability of the stream.

  • Hitless failover - hitless failover for inputs enables undisrupted streaming when switching from one source to another. Zixi's new hitless failover feature is based on the SMPTE 2022-7 standard, which specifies “seamless” or hitless failover between binary-identical streams with synchronized RTP headers.

  • PID Mapping - PID mapping ensures that the PIDs will have the desired values when they arrive from the Source downstream to the Target. PIDs can be specified for processing by specific PID numbers or they can be identified by category or type (i.e. codec). PIDS can be also designated to be nulled or removed completely from the stream.

  • AES stream encryption and decryption - UDP, File and RTMP input streams can be encrypted by ZEC using a fixed key (AES 128, AES 192, AES 256), which can be entered into the input settings or automatically generated. ZEC can also decrypt contribution streams using a matching key, or securely forward encrypted streams to another ZEC instance, without being able to see or analyze the traffic.

  • MPTS demuxing - MPTS streams can be demuxed into single SPTS input streams for specific programs.

  • SCTE-35 - SCTE-35 markers found in the source input will be used to segment the stream and the #EXT-X-CUE-IN/#EXT-X-CUE-OUT tags will be added to the manifest.

  • Low-latency HLS - ZEC supports low latency HLS delivery using chunked transfer encoding, which starts sending an HTTP response as chunks of data when they are ready before the complete response is available. Chunked transfer encoding can be use with transport stream (TS) segments and with fragmented MP4 (fMP4), which is also called Common Media Application Format (CMAF).

Zixi Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP)

Zixi’s proprietary Software-Defined Video Platform or SDVP is the tight integration of components that enable broadcast-quality live video workflows to be intelligently and centrally provisioned, deployed, managed, and monitored using software and integrated devices, regardless of the underlying network infrastructure. Employed by traditional broadcasters, OTT broadcast services, service providers to source, manage, and distribute live events and 24/7 live linear channels over any IP network, protocol, cloud provider, and/or edge device.

  • Protocols & Containers – The SDVP accepts over 17 industry protocols and containers, advancing the market leading Zixi protocol while adding additional value to tangential offerings from other vendors, standards, and open-sourced initiatives. Most customers rely on the Zixi protocol for transport as it is congestion and network-aware and can dynamically adjust to varying network conditions and employ forward error correction techniques for error-free video delivery.

  • Video Solutions Stack – Zixi’s Video Solutions Stack provides essential tools and core media processing functions for broadcast-quality transport that corrects for packet loss and jitter. Patented Hitless Failover techniques provide 99.9999%+ reliable transport between sources and receivers. The Video Solutions Stack also provides broadcasters with enhanced tools to streamline workflows including protocol switching, analytics, live 4K transcoding and repackaging, recording, time shifted delivery, and auto-slating. 

  • Intelligent Data Platform – Zixi is constantly incorporating analytics, event correlation, AI and Machine Learning tools in its platform to aggregate a user’s historical and real-time metadata and present it back to them to help better predict downtime, content quality, trends, and more in the form of alerts, notifications, and background monitoring. 

  • ZEN Master – With Zixi’s ZEN Master control plane, cost-effectively manage and monitor complex deployments at scale and configure and orchestrate live broadcast channels across protocols and the Zixi Enabled Network. ZEN Master allows for control of the edge, network, and cloud with full telemetry visualization of network streams. It offers essential monitoring and management tools like workflow visualization, alerting, history, automation, scheduling, reporting, and root cause analysis across complex media supply chains. 

Hitless failover and analytics and bonding

Users can take advantage of its Video Solutions Stack capabilities such as analytics, hitless failover and bonding across diverse ISPs to ensure high reliability and encrypt content with AES 256 encryption and DTLS for best-in-class security. The Video Solutions Stack’s unique patented hitless failover techniques ensure reliability, and its robust analytics suite provides atomic-level telemetry on stream health that allows users to address any issues impacting QoS before the consumer’s QoE is affected. The analytics solution employs machine learning techniques to provide a real-time estimated PSNR (ePSNR) with no reference video required, helping the user determine if content providers are meeting SLAs for contribution stream quality.

ZEN Master control plane

ZEN Master integration allows remote access to the UIs of Zixi-integrated devices and software across the Zixi Enabled Network for optimal monitoring and control from one centralized control plane. With the ZEN Master control plane, users have extensive visibility into and control over workflows that go across Zixi-enabled multi-party supply chains, with the ability to leverage alerting, extensive history graphs, automated toolsets, and scheduling and reporting capabilities that abstract complexity to reduce engineering requirements and allow media organizations to leverage operational resources, providing democratized access with geographic agility.

Zixi Transport Stream Protocol

Zixi’s transport stream protocol is a content and network-aware protocol that dynamically adjusts to varying network conditions and employs error correction techniques for error-free video streaming over IP. With minimum overhead to physical bandwidth, this dynamic mechanism provides low end-to-end latency, removes jitter, recovers and re-orders packets, smooths video delivery and regenerates video to its original form, all in real-time.
Zixi delivers outstanding performance (at low predictable latency), superior reliability (no packet loss) and broadcast-grade video quality (SD, HD, and UHD) with no tradeoffs to delay, resolution or stutter.

Streaming from one Zixi-enabled device/server to another Zixi-enabled device/server protects the stream from quality degradations along the path. It enables the streaming of high-quality video over any distance, while overcoming the varying network conditions of the public Internet, where the amount of network errors, packet loss, jitter and out-of-order packets fluctuate "every second".

The Zixi transport stream protocol can be also deployed on part of the path. For example, from a ZEC to a Zixi Broadcaster (Zixi protected path) and on to another ZEC and to the end user through UDP or RTMP. In this case, the path that has challenging conditions (e.g., long distance or unstable wireless conditions) will be protected by Zixi and then delivered on to the end-user on a standard UDP or RTMP protocol.

Zixi’s transport stream technology includes the following features for ultimate quality and security:

  • Network sensing

  • Dynamic de-jitter

  • MPEG specific optimizations

  • Z-ARQ error recovery

  • Z-FEC - Dynamic content aware forward error correction

  • Active multi-path error recovery

  • Adaptive bitrate over UDP, unicast or multicast

  • Rate control and congestion avoidance

  • 256 bit AES transport encryption

Supported Protocols

Input:

  • Zixi pull

  • MPEG-TS over UDP and/or RTP

  • RTMP pull

  • RTMP push

  • RTSP input

  • RIST (TR-06-1)

  • NDI

  • SRT

Output:

  • Zixi push

  • MPEG-TS over UDP and/or RTP

  • RTMP and RTMPS push

  • NDI

  • SRT

  • RIST (TR-06-1)

Recording Options

Live stream inputs can be stored as MPEG-TS files to a local disk drive or mounted drive.

Multicast Options

Multicast streams can be received or be sent by the ZEC. ZEC serves as a gateway between Unicast and Multicast streams, while allowing reliable streaming over multicast.

Adaptive Options

ZEC can create an adaptive group, subsequently editing, recording, or playing it in conjunction with DASH, HLS, HDS or Zixi. You can also set a Pre-roll video/screen that will be played before the live streaming begins.

VOD Options

ZEC supports VOD (Video on Demand) playback of stored files in multiple formats such as TS, MP4, HLS, FLV

Latency Considerations

Latency defines the delay in which the video stream will be delivered to the endpoint. This delay is essentially a buffer that is used for additional processing, thereby improving the quality of video stream. The latency should be considered based on the importance of immediacy. For example, if the video requires interaction (e.g., between a reporter in the field and an anchor in the studio), the latency should be set to a minimum so that the interaction does not suffer from any delay.

Latency can vary from tens of milliseconds to several seconds.

Zixi protocol can start providing benefit from one frame (30ms), while increasing the latency will provide more robustness for the error-recovery.

Billing Codes

Billing codes are used to identify and differentiate traffic on a ZEC. When a billing code is added to a Source or Target, Zixi can track the traffic on that ZEC input or output separately from other inputs and outputs on the same ZEC.

Typical use-cases for using billing codes are:

  • Differentiating Between Clients - If you are receiving video content from different contributing clients or sending video content to multiple external organizations, you can designate distinct billing codes for each of your clients. You can then assign the client’s billing code to each Source or Target associated with that client. Your organization will then be able to bill each of their clients according to their usage. 

  • Charging only for Billable Usage - When Zixi traffic is sent between distinct organizations, situations may arise in which the usage of only one of those organizations is billable. For example, if the contributor is using a Zixi Broadcaster to send outputs as if it were a ZEC, then only the receiving organization should be billed for that traffic. In that case, the receiving organization can request a billing code and assign it to their Targets. They can then ask the contributor to assign the identical billing code to each of the Sources that they are sending. In this way, Zixi will know to bill only the organization that is receiving the traffic.  

Billing codes are created by Zixi personnel on the Zixi Customer Portal for a particular organization. Zixi can create multiple Billing codes for an organization, enabling them to apply different codes to different traffic. All billing codes are password protected. If you would like to use billing codes in your workflows, please discuss it with your Zixi representative.