Scaling Video at the Edge: A Practical Roadmap

Viewers won’t wait for your pipeline to catch up. This episode breaks down a practical roadmap for scaling video at the edge - where power limits, bandwidth costs, and live latency collide. With Advantech’s rugged, modular platforms (https://www.advantech.com/) paired with NETINT’s low-power, high-density ASIC encoders (https://netint.com/), we show how to move the heavy lifting closer to the camera and away from cloud bottlenecks - without compromising quality or operational control. Based on insights shared in Voices of Video Episode 72.

We detail the true cost of pushing raw feeds to the cloud for encoding and how 4K demand multiplies those bills. Then we shift to a hybrid edge model that cuts backhaul, stabilizes egress, and reduces end-to-end delay for live events. At the center is the Quadra Mini Server (https://netint.com/products/quadra/): a compact half-rack unit built for OB vans and remote rooms that can deliver up to twenty 1080p streams from a low-power, edge-ready footprint. It’s fast to deploy, easy to replicate, and engineered for environments where space, power, and uptime are non-negotiable.

What makes this approach different is co-design - aligning hardware, firmware, and partner integrations with real workflows. We explain how Advantech collaborates across CPUs, memory, and ASIC vendors to create platforms with long lifecycles, predictable performance, and clean integration paths. The payoff: multi-4K delivery without extra racks, greener operations through lower watts per channel, and workflows that scale with audience demand. If you’re battling OPEX creep, unpredictable latency, or integration friction, this episode maps a clear, actionable path forward.

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We lay out a clear plan to scale video at the edge using low-power ASIC encoders inside rugged, modular servers. From cutting bandwidth and latency to deploying the Quadra Mini in OB vans, we show how to grow without building new data centers.

• why video demand continues to outpace infrastructure
 • bandwidth and cloud encoding cost pressures
 • latency risks for live and interactive viewing
 • ASIC-based encoding for power and density gains
 • Quadra Mini Server capabilities and use cases
 • hybrid edge workflows for predictable OPEX
 • co-design with partners for longevity and fit
 • greener operations through lower watts per channel
 • next steps and where to learn more

Learn More:

• Download Advantech's Presentation → https://info.netint.com/hubfs/downloads/Enabling-Video-at-The-Edge.pdf

• NETINT Case Studies → https://netint.com/resources/case-studies/
• Advantech Edge Platforms → https://www.advantech.com/en/servers
• NETINT VPU Technology Overview → https://netint.com/technology/

Stay tuned for more in-depth insights on video technology, trends, and practical applications. Subscribe to Voices of Video: Inside the Tech for exclusive, hands-on knowledge from the experts. For more resources, visit Voices of Video.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Topic Setup
• 0:22 Why Video At The Edge
• 1:31 Cost, Bandwidth, And Latency Challenges
• 3:18 Advantech’s Approach And Ecosystem
• 3:46 NetInt ASICs Meet Edge Servers
• 4:10 Quadra Mini Server Overview
• 4:49 Outcomes: Scale, Power, And Greener Ops
• 6:04 Co-Design Model And Next Steps
• 7:41 Closing Notes And Sponsor

Transcript

Voices of Video: 0:07

Voices of video. Voices of video. The voices of video. Voices of video.

Dom Mrakuzic, Advantech: 0:18

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining. My name is Dom from Advantec, and today I'll be talking about enabling scalable scalable video at the edge. And I'm gonna explain what that means. So, first thing, let's see why do we need video at the edge? So, in general, the infrastructure for video is not as scaling as fast as the demand, right? The multi forking streams, the edge workflows, the cloud workflows are demanding in a much higher rate than actually we see the solutions being deployed. And then the second part is if we have more demand, we're trying to use the same budgets to build it up. So the costs and power consumption and ease of integration to build edge video workflows is getting complex. So the the last part, integration, kind of follows as how do we do it? And that's what we want to try to do today. Now, before I talk about how do we do it, let me give a short introduction to Advantec. So Advantec has been building mission critical systems for over 40 years. You can find Advantec in hospitals, in factories, and in broadcast vans. Um how we differentiate Advanc builds purpose-built devices. So when we build systems, we look at the ecosystem partners needed, we look at the applications, and then we make changes to make sure the product fits and has the longevity to sustain the workflows. Uh, these are some of the examples, uh, but I'll at the end of this presentation I'll I'll give you a clear path how you can learn more about the existing solutions from Advantage. Now going back to edge workflows, what do we hear from our customers? First of all, the the operational and capital expenditures are increasing, right? So when we have more demand for 4K streams, that means, and we're doing traditional traditional cloud um encoding, it means we're taking a lot of raw video and and we need a lot of bandwidth to bring it to the cloud to be encoded. So a lot of bandwidth obviously means a lot of costs. Now, to do this, um to encode uh uh large scale scale uh videos, we'll need to bring more equipment, right? So more traditional servers or data centers, more racks, um, more uh cooling, more more power consumption. And then what all all of that also is affecting is latency, right? So if we have all of our encoding done in the cloud uh for some, let's say live events, the latency is or or or zero latency is very important. So we're we're seeing customers trying to tackle all of these points uh to go to go to a more hybrid edge workflow. And then, all right, we have we know what we want, we want an edge video, we know Advantic provides servers. How do we provide a scalable edge solution? So this is uh why we're here today with NetInt, because our solutions are part of uh an ecosystem that actually sustains this um this value of of edge video. So what NetIn brings is low power, high density, ASIC encoding, and what Advantage brings is rugged modular edge platforms, and this spans from 1U, 2U, 4U servers to another example I'm gonna highlight today is a half-rack short depth edge server. So welcome Quadra Mini server. We have one here today. If you haven't already heard about it, um you can check it out in the booth. So Quadra Mini server is a perfect example of when you bring the ASIC low power encoding into an edge server, what can be done? So Quadra Mini Server is a compact half-rack one use server. Uh it's ideal for Obi-Vans or any remote broadcast workflows, and it's very easy and fast to deploy. So, with that, we are tackling all of the challenges that customers tell us. First of all, it has a very low power draw. Second of all, it can encode 20, 10, 80 streams. And third of all, it's part of a system that allows us to be deployed anywhere uh very easily. So we don't require a lot of hand holding and integrated integration. So this example, we we can talk about it more. It's it's displayed here today, but it shows you what you can do if you want to deploy your video at the edge and you want to cost scale down your costs and power consumption. What's the outcome? So we can do multi-k multi-4k streaming without having massive data center racks. Uh, we obviously consume way less way uh way less power. We can we can sell it as a greener operation. Um, and it's edge ready. So when we say advantec is edge ready, we are VPU edge ready devices. So if you want to deploy a VPU in an ecosystem, come to Advantec. We'll help you build your appliance. And maybe one more point why why we why we work uh differently than maybe uh your typical server manufacturers is Advantec actually helps design platforms based on customer requirements, customer ecosystems. So we are not your typical box builder and then we're trying to fit it in a requirement. We we take live feedback from our customers, what they're trying to achieve. We do have some products that we design off the shelf as a starting point, but we like to bring them to life based on the actual workflows. And that's the model of how how Advantec works. We'll help you design a sample, test it out, go through a stage of making sure it hits your requirements from a performance to a cost standpoint, and will allow you to integrate with your ecosystem. So we'll bring NetInt to the table, we'll bring our CPU, our memory partners to the table, make sure that whatever you're designing for your workflow is scalable and it has longevity. The last point I want to make is I've talked about how we enable it. We have Advanc building the hardware, we're building the car, we have we have NetInc building the ASIC, the engine that helps to drive it. So we do have off-the-shelf products. We have some great case studies. If you want to learn about them, join us tomorrow at uh 2 and 10 a.m. here on the at the eco um stage where our PD Thomas Ian will talk about advantage products that we design. And this may be actually a great starting point for you to see what is there, maybe what you can use for your application, but also what we can take to the further or next step to bring your solution to life. That's my presentation, so thank you all for joining.

Voices of Video: 7:41

This episode of Voices of Video is brought to you by NetInt Technologies. If you are looking for cutting edge video encoding solutions, check out Netint's products at netint.com.