VICE Media Becomes One of First News Organizations to Go Pure-IP
Customer Profile

Business Challenge


Technology Solutions
Imagine Communications’ Selenio™ MCP media processors, equipped with Uncompressed-over-IP (UCIP) modules that serve as on- and off-ramps to IP networks, were selected to move media in and out of the IP domain, encapsulating legacy SDI signals into the IP network based on the SMPTE 2022-6 and AES67 standards, coordinated via VSF TR-04. VICE Media selected Nexio+® AMP™ media servers, running on Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) hardware platforms, for some of its ingest and playout requirements. Nexio+ AMP is UHD- and HDR-ready, and its comprehensive range of software-based codecs and formats can be seamlessly expanded through software upgrades, futureproofing VICE News against an aggressive technology curve.
VICE Media’s production infrastructure is monitored through Imagine Communications’ EPIC™ MV multiviewer. Powered by Zenium™, the company’s pure microservices workflow management platform, EPIC MV is capable of scaling to meet the monitoring requirements of the largest and most complex installations. Each EPIC MV deployed in VICE News Tonight’s infrastructure supports 36 unique PIPs of SMPTE 2022-6 traffic. VICE technologists and Imagine worked closely with New Hampshire-based systems integrator Little Bay Broadcast Services, which staged the initial deployment at its facilities, significantly speeding the completion of the installation and reducing disruption at VICE’s headquarters.
Business Value
By leveraging the distributed nature of IP and taking advantage of quickly solidifying industry standards, VICE Media was able to construct what is essentially a greenfield and futureproof production center, including production and audio control rooms and a master control suite, in an existing, space-constrained facility. In addition, the resulting solution, which relies on COTS IP equipment for signal routing and management, provides VICE with a technology foundation that delivers the agility and versatility the media company requires to maintain its cutting-edge reputation and serve the current and future needs of its tech-savvy and millennial-heavy customer base. The forward-looking and best-of-breed solution also positions VICE Media to expand and evolve its existing operations quickly, primarily through software, without constraints associated with the use of proprietary equipment.
Interoperability is assured through compliance with current standards for the transport of media over IP among participating vendors. In the space of just a few months, VICE Media was able to construct a new production facility to air news programming that currently runs on HBO in the U.S. and on VICELAND in international markets. With a new all-IP, standards-based and state-of-the-art production center at its Brooklyn headquarters, the media company is now strongly positioned to evolve and expand its operations without wholesale equipment replacement for years to come – allowing it to reside on the cutting-edge of video-based journalism for the foreseeable future.
Choose your own path and pace to IP. Here’s how.
