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Not publicly documented, but CNN's ingest scheduling system (basically the backend that says "at this time, record this incoming feed, on this encoder, associat

Not publicly documented, but CNN's ingest scheduling system (basically the backend that says "at this time, record this incoming feed, on this encoder, associate it with this metadata", and all the ensuing complexity that comes with finding a free encoder, responding in the event of hardware failure, allowing users to plan recordings that there isn't space for, etc) is in Erlang. Because it needed to be bullet proof; if it goes down, CNN doesn't record incoming video. Had Elixir been mature at the time, we would have used it instead.

forgottenpass 8y ago
That's interesting. Do you guys have to build a lot of custom tooling in TV? Are CNN's requirements particularly novel compared to other stations with live programming and remote feeds?
- lostcolony 8y ago
  I've since left, but yes and no. Video at that scale requires some unique hardware, which in turn requires some unique software. But for broadcasters of that scale, many of the problems are the same. We actually had, prior to this system, been relying on one built by a French company, that cost hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, per year in licensing. Updates were infrequent, often included regressions, but it mostly worked. This started as a way to get some of the smaller bureaus to have some basic functionality, and grew into a system that was deployed to every bureau, eventually replacing what we had in Atlanta (that previously mentioned system). It was extremely popular, and the business stakeholders even characterized it as the biggest success they've had from our department. One of our group's VPs showed it at an industry trade show, just offhandedly, and an exec from another broadcaster indicated regret of having just signed a deal to purchase the aforementioned system above, rather than attempting to roll their own (seeing the success CNN had). It's not a key differentiator for CNN, but they also don't have software sales as a core competency. So they have basically best of breed software sitting there unnoticed. shrug C'est la vie. It also has the benefit of, since it's Erlang, largely just working without issue. There's not many there still with Erlang knowledge, but that isn't really much issue for another 20 years if it continues just working without issue.

forgottenpass 8y ago

That's interesting. Do you guys have to build a lot of custom tooling in TV? Are CNN's requirements particularly novel compared to other stations with live programming and remote feeds?

lostcolony 8y ago
I've since left, but yes and no. Video at that scale requires some unique hardware, which in turn requires some unique software. But for broadcasters of that scale, many of the problems are the same. We actually had, prior to this system, been relying on one built by a French company, that cost hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, per year in licensing. Updates were infrequent, often included regressions, but it mostly worked. This started as a way to get some of the smaller bureaus to have some basic functionality, and grew into a system that was deployed to every bureau, eventually replacing what we had in Atlanta (that previously mentioned system). It was extremely popular, and the business stakeholders even characterized it as the biggest success they've had from our department. One of our group's VPs showed it at an industry trade show, just offhandedly, and an exec from another broadcaster indicated regret of having just signed a deal to purchase the aforementioned system above, rather than attempting to roll their own (seeing the success CNN had). It's not a key differentiator for CNN, but they also don't have software sales as a core competency. So they have basically best of breed software sitting there unnoticed. shrug C'est la vie. It also has the benefit of, since it's Erlang, largely just working without issue. There's not many there still with Erlang knowledge, but that isn't really much issue for another 20 years if it continues just working without issue.