The $44,000 Bargain: Elemental’s Live Encoding Appliance

In the world of live streaming, more is more. As a rule, the more bandwidth capacity, processing cores and time one has, the better the quality of the streaming image. Yet what if there’s a way to do more with less? Would that shake up the live streaming industry?

I think we’re about to find out. At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show, which will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, next week, there are a number of “less is more” products hitting the market that we’ll cover.

The first one has its roots in the gaming industry, although some would argue that gaming followed the lead of oil and gas exploration and computer animators. The graphics processor cards that come in most high-end gaming systems—also known as GPUs —have been steadily growing in processing power. And while multi-core CPU processors (which power the everyday complex computer problems such as number crunching) are on the rise, the number of processor cores in a GPU far outstrips those in a CPU.

So what? Well it turns out that the GPU, which is ideal for displaying those 50-60 frame per second MMORPG games or playing back Flash or DVD video full-screen on your computer’s monitor, is also ideal for crunching the numbers on video compression.

To put all of this in context, Intel recently announced a 6-core Xeon processor. In the same week, Nvidia announced a 480-core GPU based on its Fermi architecture. Not all cores are created equal, but there is no dispute that the 480-core GPU, when used for parallel processing on a single GPU, far exceeds the computational power of a multi-core CPU.

If only someone could tap into all this extra horsepower, most of which sits idle between gaming or movie-watching sessions.

Turns out someone did: a company called Elemental Technologies, focused on massively parallel transcoding solutions using off-the-shelf Graphics Processor Units (GPUs), first tapped this market two years ago with a product called Accelerator, which accelerated timeline rendering for Adobe’s Premiere Pro product.

At last September’s IBC international broadcast show, Elemental launched Elemental Live, a transcoding appliance made for four off-the-shelf NVIDIA GPUs. The product could transcode multiple 1080p HD files in to dozens of standard definition (SD) or mobile files.  And it could do this all at the same time using the benefits of parallel processing within and between GPUs in a single rack unit space (1U or 1.75″).

At NAB this week, the company will unveil a live version of its GPU solution, and this is where “less is more” comes fully into play. Elemental Live, a 1U live encoding appliance that the company claims will do the work of multiple boxes from competitors.  Elemental claims it can do four 1080p live streams, eight 720p or sixteen 480p streams simultaneously, mixed and matched between HD and SD outputs.

“We welcome potential customers to examine our claim in depth,” said Sam Blackman, Elemental’s CEO and chairman, at the time Elemental Server was launched. My consulting firm will be benchmarking, over the next two months, as part of a shoot-out between relevant CPU, DSP, and GPU appliances, the Elemental Server—and we hope to do the same with the Elemental Live when it ships.

The company provided an interesting breakdown of its claim through a typical live encoding use case. Using suggested retail prices (MSRP) for Elemental’s products and potential competitors, the use case assumes adaptive bitrate streaming of 9 streams with 4 archive files including editing.

“We figured a typical editing file for a 1080p source would require one 1080p archive, with the rest of the streams split between 720p HD, Standard Definition (SD) and CIF (for mobile),” said Blackman. “So 9 streams with 4 archive files including editing, 1x 1080p, 3x 720p, 6x SD, 3x CIF.”

Based on this use case model, Elemental can accomplish everything in a single box, while it claims its competitors require three or four boxes to accomplish the same number of live streaming outputs. The need for more boxes also means the need for additional outboard gear, such as SDI splitters and timecode master clock synchronization.

“One competitor’s solution requires three boxes,” said Blackman. “So three units at approximately $92,000 total, including support, plus $2000 for 3x SDI splitters and the timecode box. Another competitor’s solution requires four boxes, at approximately $82,000 total MSRP and $3000 for 4x SDI splitters and the timecode box.”

Elemental says Elemental Live has an MSRP of $44,000, with no need for an SDI splitter or timecode box, since all synchronization is handled internal to the box across the four GPUs. In other words, Elemental’s claiming half the price—and no outboard gear—to accomplish a significant live HD and SD streaming feat.

“Based on the fact that we can do this many encodes on a single box,” said Blackman, “we stand by the claim of  four times the performance at half the price.”

Tim Siglin (tims [at] braintrustdigital.com) is chairman of Braintrust Digital, a digital media production company specializing in training, corporate communication, government, historical preservation, documentary, and business marketing and development. He is a contributing editor to EventDV and Streaming Media.