AWS for M&E Blog
Insys keeps the arts alive with Play Kraków
Authored Norbert Kaczmarek, Key Account Manager at Insys Video Technologies. The content and opinions in this post are those of the third-party author and AWS is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this post.
Over the past year, cultural event and festival organizers across the world have had to cancel the majority of their events. This has left artists without an outlet for their work and culture lovers disappointed by the lack of inspiring and engaging entertainment to suit their tastes. Some organizers have turned to digital methods to bring that content to global audiences. In doing so, many cultural events have in fact been able to extend their reach far beyond what would normally be achieved in-person.
One such example is the video service, Play Kraków, developed by Insys Video Technologies and built on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Extending the culture of Cracow
The city of Cracow in Poland has a lively cultural scene and hosts a range of internationally renowned cultural events and festivals in the city. In 2000, Cracow was named the European City of Culture. At that time, Kraków Festival Office (KBF) was established to enrich and develop the city’s cultural standing by organizing cultural events and festivals, as well as offering support for other cultural initiatives throughout the city. KBF was keen to ensure people across the globe could continue to engage with these events via a digital platform.
Play Kraków
Play Kraków is a video service that gives users access to the cultural content normally available during the festivals via mobile phones and web browsers. KBF tasked Insys Video Technologies with delivering Play Kraków using its white-label solution, Insys VOD. As a ready, complete, and flexible solution, Insys VOD allows users to quickly launch full-featured video-on-demand services across multiple platforms. As well as having a modern and engaging user interface, Insys VOD allows recommendation and personalized content promotion.
Izabela Helbin, director of the KBF, commented: “The events organized in our city are open to everyone, but if music, literature, theatre, or movie enthusiasts who are unable to come to Cracow we encourage them to participate digitally in our cultural events through this platform. Viewers everywhere are now able to watch the best events straight from our city.”
Play Kraków contains a mixture of live and on-demand content, including musical and theatrical performances, recitals, discussions with authors, and other material recorded and shared by Cracow’s cultural institutions. KBF is also encouraging other cities to publish their own events on the platform to create an all-encompassing cultural resource.
Cloud-based flexibility
Play Kraków includes API integration with a number of AWS Elemental Media Services to maximize the efficiencies of cloud workflows and enable KBF to scale the service around popular live events or as demand increases. AWS Media Services make it fast and easy to produce, process, and deliver broadcast and over-the-top (OTT) video. These pay-as-you-go services offer the video infrastructure you need to deliver great viewing experiences to any screen.
Once ingested into the platform, AWS Elemental MediaConvert automatically transcodes videos for delivery as on-demand files. Amazon CloudFront securely delivers video content globally to consumers. Amazon CloudFront is a fast content delivery network (CDN) service that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to customers globally with low latency, high transfer speeds, all within a developer-friendly environment.
The service uses AWS Lambda to scale up and down as required, meaning that KBF achieves high availability while only paying for the resources being used. AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the underlying compute resources for you.
Play Kraków service automatically stores the library of videos in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Amazon S3 is an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. KBF keeps videos secure while easily navigating storage to find content whenever required.
Conclusion
Play Kraków is a great example of a cultural institution adapting to a new situation and delivering content in a new and innovative way. Thanks to Insys VOD, KBF was able to launch a fully-featured platform fast. With the combination of Insys VOD and AWS, KBF is able to securely deliver a mixture of live and on-demand video content to consumers, no matter where they are located. Contact us to learn more about our VOD solutions.
About Insys Video Technologies
Insys Video Technologies is a fast-developing video integration company, offering comprehensive implementation of OTT projects from strategy and design through to development, deployment, and maintenance. Learn how more than four million consumers use video services powered by Insys solutions at www.insysvt.com.