As Malaysia’s biggest content creator, Astro Malaysia Holdings Berhad (Astro) reaches more than 5.4 million homes regionally, as well as more than 20 million unique users across digital platforms. The company’s distinct video services include NJOI, delivered via satellite direct-to-home (DTH), Astro Ultra connected TV boxes, and sooka, made available over-the-top (OTT), with each featuring local programming bundled with live sports and global streaming services. To augment its offerings, Astro recently began adding free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels to its growing DTH, connected IP boxes, and OTT lineup, using AWS Elemental MediaTailor from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to assemble channels quickly and deploy them with personalized ad insertion.

For Astro, launching traditional linear channels is a complex, time consuming, and expensive process, so they explored FAST channels instead. They deployed their first channels with a partner, but then decided to see if they could do it on their own. By using AWS Elemental MediaTailor, they became more flexible and cost-efficient in how they launched channels, while also reducing their carbon footprint. 

Launched in 2021, components such as EC2, WAF, CDN, Cloud Watch for sooka linear channels was built on AWS, so creating FAST channels for it was and continues to be easy with MediaTailor. However, architecting an efficient workflow to deliver FAST channels to both sooka and NJOI required some creative engineering and robust tools.

FAST spin up on OTT and DTH

As a first step, Astro’s video platform team automated the internal process of curating and packaging existing video-on-demand (VOD) content. They also paired the relevant electronic program guide (EPG) information. As a result, users are able to easily identify and select content that is sent from Astro’s data lake to AWS Elemental MediaConvert, where .mov VOD files are reformatted to HLS (HTTP live stream) and DASH. From there, content moves to MediaTailor for channel assembly, advertising-based VOD playlist creation, and server-side ad insertion (SSAI). Streams are then simultaneously sent to the Amazon CloudFront content delivery network (CDN) for distribution on sooka, and to AWS Elemental MediaConnect, which converts the HLS feed to MPEG-TS over RTP and SRT (secure reliable transport). It is then received on premises via AWS Direct Connect, compressed locally at Astro, and fed to a satellite for broadcast into a set-top boxes or through companion devices as OTT at home.

Astro preferred MediaTailor because it made channel assembly simple. The service makes it easy to curate and schedule a program and load it in for multiple platforms with the same instance. Not only does it simplify their workflows, but it also reduced internal costs. As a direct to home (DTH) provider, Astro has the flexibility to send their streams from the cloud back to on premises.

The integrated end-to-end workflow is equipped with a dashboard for monitoring metrics, such as KPIs, loads, and abnormalities. While the FAST channel content is the same, the NJOI viewers are only served in-house ads. sooka, however, is integrated with an ad manager, to expand targeted ad business and inventory to generate new revenue streams for Astro at no cost to viewers.

On track for expansion

To date, Astro has launched 15 FAST channels for sooka, five of which can also be viewed on NJOI, including Filem Mantap, Drama Hebat, Drama Hotpot, Lawak Sentral, and Travel & Taste. With the new workflow powered by AWS Elemental MediaTailor, the video team can easily launch specialized channels, such as one dedicated to Ramadan prayers or another with specific educational goals. While deploying a channel on premises takes time, using AWS they can just open a stack, configure it, and start end-to-end testing.

Though sooka and NJOI are geo-locked, Astro could send relevant FAST channel feeds to video services in other regions, expanding the reach of its content as well as monetization opportunities. Additionally, a new AWS Region launched in Malaysia in 2024, which will ensure more infrastructure that Astro can leverage at greater efficiency. Along with using AWS services for FAST channels, Astro leans on AWS for many other workloads, including archiving on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

While Astro has advanced cloud developers, the AWS support teams helped provide guidance, even going into architecture details. Astro came up with a high-level design for the initial POC and AWS support worked to make sure they were optimized in terms of load and configuration. The main priority of Astro is to make sure everything they build is stable so they can continuously deliver a robust signal to their services, and AWS makes this possible.

Learn more about how to launch personalized FAST channels quickly and efficiently.

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