nxtedition argues private cloud beats public for live broadcast playout

The private-vs-public cloud debate directly impacts broadcast infrastructure spending and live production latency. nxtedition's position reflects a broader industry pattern: broadcasters with geographic constraints and 24/7 playout requirements prioritize speed and predictable costs over elastic scalability, reserving public cloud for burst workloads like transcoding and CDN distribution. Multiple vendors — including Grass Valley, Pebble, and Pixel Power — have validated this hybrid approach, with Pebble noting that broadcasters still tend to keep primary 24/7 playout on-prem. Watch whether nxtedition's 2021 launch of nxt|cloud, a fully containerized public cloud deployment, signals a shift in its private-cloud-first philosophy or remains primarily a disaster-recovery tool for existing on-prem clients.

nxtedition's July 2020 article positioned private cloud as the clear winner for playout, but the company subsequently launched nxt|cloud in November 2021 — a fully containerized public cloud deployment of its platform. Per TV Technology (November 2021), nxtedition developed a Linux-based, containerized version of CasparCG to deliver identical playout functionality in the public cloud. Adam Leah framed nxt|cloud primarily as a disaster-recovery solution for existing on-prem clients, stating that "private cloud on premise is the pragmatic choice for most broadcasters" but acknowledging that on-prem systems remain vulnerable to localized failures like widespread power outages.

The broader industry has moved toward hybrid models. In a November 2024 article on virtualized playout, Grass Valley's Steve Hassan described how its AMPP platform supports edge-compute architectures enabling hybrid geographic deployments, with an "AMPP Local" option for on-prem orchestration in regions with unreliable internet. Pebble's Neil Maycock noted that broadcasters still favor on-prem virtualized systems for 24/7 channels but increasingly adopt cloud for variable-use channels, creating true hybrid environments. Pixel Power's James Gilbert confirmed that customers split between private and public cloud deployments, with the vendor taking an agnostic position.

TVBEurope has reported that the hybrid approach — high-value linear channels on-prem, cloud for DR, FAST channels, and occasional use — has become a practical standard for cost optimization. Imagine Communications' Andy Warman observed that cloud pricing has stabilized rather than declined over the past decade, pushing broadcasters toward hybrid models that avoid paying public cloud rates for steady-state 24/7 workloads. The cost calculus remains: for channels running continuously, on-prem infrastructure amortized over five to seven years is typically cheaper than metered public cloud pricing.