From playout to delivery, on-prem or in the cloud
October 26, 2026 | 3 min readGetting a channel to the screen has traditionally meant a chain of siloed systems. MediaKind’s playout-to-delivery solution brings ingest, playout, graphics, audio/video processing and delivery into one workflow, and runs it where the customer prefers: on-prem with XOS, or in the cloud with VOS360.
When you watch a channel on TV, there is a lot happening behind the scenes. Content has to come in, graphics and branding have to be added, everything has to be processed, and then the channel has to be prepared for broadcast or streaming. Each step was traditionally a separate system with separate operations.
MediaKind brings those steps together. A live or file-based source goes in, and a channel ready for broadcast and streaming comes out. You choose where that workflow runs: on-prem with XOS, or in the cloud with VOS360. It is the same workflow either way.
- Up to 25 HD playout channels in a box
- ~2x less infrastructure across an end-to-end on-prem workflow, playout to delivery
- 1 operation across the entire channel workflow, either on-prem or in the cloud
The silos behind every channel
Building a channel the traditional way means stitching several systems together: one for ingest, another for playout and graphics, another for encoding and media processing, and more for broadcast or streaming delivery. Each does its job, but together they mean more infrastructure to deploy, more systems to manage and more complexity.
That gets harder to justify as server and memory prices rise, and that isn’t expected to change anytime soon. Vendors have to deliver more with less infrastructure.
“We have to do better. We have to do more in terms of features, in terms of applications, with less in terms of infrastructure.”
Stephane Cloirec
VP Product Management, Appliances and Software, MediaKind
One workflow, from ingest to delivery
The playout-to-delivery approach changes that model. A source comes in, moves through each stage and goes out to broadcast networks or straight to streaming services, without a separate system for every step. That covers ingest, playout and graphics, transcoding, encoding, packaging, encryption, origin and delivery. It also scales to the job, from one focused workflow like premium encoding to a complete broadcast headend on a single on-prem system.
XOS Playout fits the infrastructure you already have: SDI, ASI, TS over IP, SRT, SMPTE-2110. On the way out, it prepares channels for satellite, cable, terrestrial and IPTV, as well as streaming formats like HLS, DASH and CMAF. Teams run playout from an onboard automation using web interface.
Fewer boxes, lower cost
Bringing the steps together changes the cost of the whole workflow. MediaKind calls the approach feature collapse: XOS goes beyond encoding and transcoding to also handle packaging and origin for streaming, and playout, advanced graphics, convergence, SDR, HDR and audio for production. It all runs as microservices orchestrated with Kubernetes; the same stack MediaKind uses in the cloud, which is also what connects XOS to VOS360.
“We can divide by two the amount of infrastructure, which is required from an end-to-end workflow, playout to delivery.”
Stephane Cloirec
VP Product Management, Appliances and Software, MediaKind
One software stack also makes operations easier, and less infrastructure means less rack space, cooling and power. Density helps too, as a single XOS appliance can run up to 25 HD playout channels, which means fewer boxes to buy, host and manage.
The right workflow in the right place
One system doesn’t mean one location. The cloud is clearly the best option for event-based streaming and anything that needs elasticity. But for channels that run 24/7, on-prem still has a cost advantage. Stephane says customers have moved past the cloud hype and are now doing the maths on total cost of ownership. This is the hybrid world MediaKind has advocated for a while, and it now resonates with customers.
“It makes sense to have the right workflow running in the right deployment environment.”
Stephane Cloirec
VP Product Management, Appliances and Software, MediaKind
This is where XOS and VOS360 work together. XOS is the on-prem side of playout to delivery, and VOS360 is the SaaS and cloud side. In practice, that looks like channel tiering: a customer runs its main channels on-prem, with second-tier channels and disaster recovery copies in the cloud on VOS360, mirroring what runs on-prem in case of emergency.
What makes it work is that both sit under one automation system. A single system can control the on-prem channels and the playout channels in the cloud together, all from a single pane of glass.
“From an operator perspective, there is absolutely no difference whether the channel sits on-prem or the channel sits in the cloud.”
Stephane Cloirec
VP Product Management, Appliances and Software, MediaKind
For the operator, a channel on XOS and a channel on VOS360 are run the same way. Everything has its place, and MediaKind can provide both.
Want to learn more? Explore MediaKind XOS and MediaKind VOS360.
