From on-prem footage to a live FAST TV channel — how Kaster turns one video into a channel
Four stages, edge-first architecture — inventory & capture, AI cataloging & search, scheduling, and distribution — all handled automatically, with your original footage staying in your facility the entire time.
Kaster runs through four automated stages: inventory & capture, AI cataloging & search, scheduling, and distribution. The Edge Agent deploys on your existing NAS or an x86 machine (Docker); your archive is never moved or re-encoded. Only audio summaries, keyframes, and semantic embeddings — roughly 1–5% derivatives — are encrypted and sent to the cloud for analysis over an outbound-only HTTPS (443) connection, and cloud-side temporary data is auto-deleted under a 30-day lifecycle policy.
The actual path a new video takes
Edge Agent scans your on-prem library
Automatically detects new NAS files, deduplicates via fingerprinting, and extracts keyframes and audio summaries — the original footage is never moved or re-encoded.
Semantic index and transcripts
A VLM builds a shot-level semantic index, and Whisper generates multilingual transcripts and captions — so a single sentence finds the exact shot in seconds.
Build a playlist and EPG
Pick your clips to build a channel playlist and set Break Rules; the system auto-generates the program schedule — no manual calendar work required.
Push to major platforms at once
The EPG and stream publish simultaneously to Samsung TV Plus, LG Channels, Pluto TV, Roku, and more, and the channel goes live.
Why not just compare similarity scores?
Vector similarity (cosine similarity) can't tell the difference between "this is in the shot" and "this isn't in the shot" — search for "on the phone" versus "taking off a jacket" and the similarity scores often land too close together to reliably separate what's actually relevant. Kaster instead scores each shot with a VLM across five separate dimensions — people, objects, scenes, actions, emotion — and only compares on the dimensions relevant to your query. The people dimension is cross-checked against a face database, so what comes back is an actual match, not just something that "looks kind of similar." See the full range of this multi-dimensional search in action in the AI semantic video search solution.
What runs on-prem, what runs in the cloud, and how data actually moves
No GPU purchase, no new server room required. The Edge Agent installs directly on your existing NAS or a low-spec x86 machine (containerized via Docker), and only encrypts and sends 1–5% derivatives to the cloud — your archive stays on-prem the entire time.
HWHardware
Your existing NAS or a low-spec x86 machine, containerized via Docker — no GPU purchase, no new server room. Your current equipment is enough for continuous monitoring and sampled analysis.
EDGEEdge Agent
File monitoring and dedup (fingerprint matching) → keyframe extraction → audio summary (16kHz FLAC) → semantic embedding computation — all done on-prem.
EDGEOn-Prem Playout Engine
Scheduling logic and stream output run independently on-site with no cloud round-trip; even if the network drops, the channel keeps playing without a gap. See ad insertion details in the SSAI ad integration solution.
CLOUDIngest & Authorization
A Presigned URL, valid for a single use and expiring after 1 hour, with one key mapped to one purpose — only accepting derivatives actively uploaded by the Edge Agent.
CLOUDAI Analysis
VLM visual understanding, Whisper transcription, and vector indexing run in one pass — processing only the derivatives, and never seeing the complete original video.
CLOUDLifecycle Governance
Temporary analysis data is auto-deleted under a 30-day lifecycle policy — used once, then destroyed, with no residual copies retained.
Analysis results like indexes and captions sync back to the on-prem web console to power MAM search and scheduling; this return path also carries only derivatives and analysis results — the original video itself is never transmitted over this path.
- Preview transcode
- H.264 codec, MP4 container (faststart), for fast online preview
- Ad-insertion stream
- HLS, server-side insertion (SSAI) per SCTE-35 cue specification
Architecture-level security specs: exposure risk eliminated at the source
- Connection Direction (Outbound Only)
- The Edge Agent only ever initiates outbound HTTPS (443) requests — your firewall never needs to open a single inbound port. External scanning is blocked at the physical network layer, closing off a malicious entry point and satisfying zero-trust architecture requirements.
- Dynamic Derivative Transfer Authorization
- Uploads use a Presigned URL mechanism — one key per single transfer, with a hard 60-minute expiration. Both the physical time limit and the narrow scope of use eliminate the risk of a leaked static link or unauthorized access.
- Cloud Data Lifecycle Management
- Once non-sensitive derivatives (audio summaries, keyframes, semantic embeddings) finish cloud analysis, they follow a strict 30-day auto-destruction lifecycle policy, ensuring the cloud environment never retains a redundant copy — a fully stateless design.
- Control of Original Physical Files
- Original high-resolution master footage is stored only, statically, on your own on-prem equipment (NAS/server); the system never backs it up, duplicates it, or uploads it to the cloud. Physical ownership and control of the data stays 100% inside your facility.
- No-Trust-Boundary Design
- Because the original footage never crosses your on-prem network boundary at all, data-leak risk is eliminated at the architecture-design stage, with no reliance on any additional trust mechanism or manual safeguard.
- Access Permission Granularity
- Permissions bind at three levels — user, role, and program (channel/content) — so authorization can be scoped by team function and content sensitivity, rather than a single all-or-nothing account.