Encompass Digital Media and Grass Valley have launched Altitude Playout Plus, a software-defined channel origination platform designed for complex live programming. Channel 4 has signed a multi-year agreement to adopt the platform starting in 2027, with operations managed from facilities in London and Riga.
The adoption of this platform by a second major UK public broadcaster signals a shift toward software-defined architectures for high-stakes live television. By combining media supply chain tools with dynamic cloud infrastructure, broadcasters gain the agility to modify schedules instantly without sacrificing the reliability of traditional hardware. This move reflects a broader industry trend where managed service providers are consolidating disparate playout and event management functions into unified, location-agnostic environments. As legacy hardware reaches end-of-life, the success of this deployment will serve as a benchmark for other national broadcasters evaluating the transition to hybrid cloud origination. Watch for further adoption announcements from other European public service broadcasters following the 2027 rollout.
Grass Valley has been steadily building its cloud-native playout portfolio around the AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform) architecture, which underpins Altitude Playout Plus. In early 2026, Ericsson and Nokia diverged sharply on AI-RAN strategy, with Nokia committing its entire Layer 1 RAN to Nvidia GPUs and Ericsson keeping its stack portable across hardware options, a contrast that mirrors the broader tension in broadcast infrastructure between vendor-locked GPU acceleration and hardware-agnostic software design. Grass Valley has positioned AMPP as the latter: a platform that abstracts processing from specific silicon, allowing broadcasters like Channel 4 to migrate workloads between on-premises and cloud environments without re-architecting their playout chains. Encompass Digital Media, which already operates playout services for multiple UK and European broadcasters, brings the managed-service layer that lets rights holders and channels avoid building internal cloud-origination expertise.
The business case for software-defined playout is being reinforced by operator-level economics across the media supply chain. A cluster of announcements in June 2026 signaled a real shift from AI research to commercial AI-driven network automation, with telcos transitioning from isolated pilots to production-grade operations, and a parallel consolidation is underway in broadcast playout where managed-service contracts are replacing capital-intensive hardware refreshes. Encompass's multi-year agreement with Channel 4 follows that pattern: operational expenditure shifts from hardware depreciation to subscription-based platform fees, with Encompass absorbing the infrastructure risk. Nokia and Google Cloud announced at DTW IGNITE 2026 a partnership deploying six Gemini-powered AI agents for network troubleshooting, claiming 50% to 80% reductions in problem-solving times, and similar AI-assisted operations tooling is beginning to appear in broadcast playout stacks, where automated schedule conflict resolution and real-time QC are becoming table-stakes features for platforms competing against Altitude Playout Plus.
On the technical side, Grass Valley's Altitude ecosystem already includes Playout Director for automated event management and Playout X for simpler linear channels, giving Encompass a tiered product range that can address everything from 24/7 news to complex live sports origination. , and that distributed-compute philosophy aligns with how Altitude Playout Plus distributes playout processing across geographically separated facilities, such as Encompass's London and Riga sites. , and the same logic applies to broadcasters: software-defined playout allows Channel 4 to push feature updates and format changes without waiting for hardware procurement cycles, a critical advantage as live sports and event programming grow in complexity and volume.
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