Grass Valley's GV Alyve Brings Cloud Mixing to the Browser
As more live video is produced remotely and broadcast back to a central location over the internet there's an increased demand for the ability to mix the incoming feeds in the cloud and distribute them to multiple social media platforms and other targets. Recently, Grass Valley, a manufacturer of live production switchers and related hardware and software, launched a service called GV Alyve that does just that.
GV Alyve is cloud-based mixer that you access from your browser with its interface shown above. On the bottom right are the sources, which can be input streams from I/O channels in GV STRATUS/GV STRATUS One or from any device that can generate an RTMP output stream. On the upper left are graphics, which are files uploaded into the system where they can be resized and positioned in the video window. On the upper right is the preview window with the live view in the center.
You hover your pointer over any source to preview it or take it live. While in preview, you can also preview any graphic type. Once you're ready to broadcast you can take the stream live to multiple locations, including Facebook Timelines, Pages, Groups, and Events; YouTube; Twitter; or any RTMP address. Once live, you can switch to any other incoming source via a single click, with or without a transition. Or, you can upload a VOD file like an interstitial ad or other messages for inserting into the live feed.
Before going live, you can post a countdown time in a waiting room to help maintain viewer interest. During a broadcast, GV Alyve can aggregate comments from different Facebook pages for moderation and/or placement into the live feed. You can also record the streams and segment them into VOD clips for later distribution.
Alyve is available on a subscription basis with prices ranging from $1,999 to $6,999 per month. The different plans offer different publishing resolutions (HD or SD) and increasing hours of publishing per month to increasing numbers of targets. The high-end plan also offers features unavailable in other plans, like advertising insertion and the aforementioned VOD playout, and transitions are not available in the lowest end package. All plans include access to Alyve mobile apps and analytics but require custom setup.
These prices put Alyve in the high upper range of similar services like those offered by Easylive.io and Switchboard Live. This makes the service primarily of interest to Grass Valley customers who benefit from the integration with Grass Valley's other products and services and third-party products like the output of products from graphics providers Ross and Vizrt.
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