A national multiplex moved without going off air.

The challenge

Three constraints had to be managed at once, inside a compressed delivery window. The relocation was mandatory and the date was not moveable. The legacy SDI environment was expensive to run, difficult to scale and heavily manual. And Comux needed the move to reduce cost and complexity rather than simply reproduce what already existed somewhere else.

The system had to move - but it couldn’t go down.

• Mark Couto, Technology Lead, 444Video

Phase 1 · Migration and consolidation

Rather than replicate the existing estate, 444Video re-engineered it against Comux’s operational and financial objectives, then executed a carefully staged cutover across three months.

Ten racks became three in a new managed facility. The architecture moved from SDI-based to fully IP-native, and the compressed transport streams were optimised in the process. The secondary site was fully integrated and broadcasting before the original was decommissioned, which is what made a zero-disruption migration possible.

That, together with coordination across the stakeholders and network providers involved, delivered the migration inside three months - a record for a project of this complexity involving live broadcast systems.

They handled everything from network design through to software development.

• Michael Lever, CEO, Comux UK

Phase 2 · Automation and visibility

With the physical migration complete, the focus shifted to how the estate would be run. The legacy environment depended on someone watching a screen.

444Video deployed a remote Network Operations Centre built on clustered monitoring and real-time telemetry, with Slack-integrated alerts and a single-pane operational view. Automated alerting with intelligent triggers replaced manual observation, so problems are detected proactively and responded to faster.

A full audit of the legacy estate ran alongside it, which let redundant hardware be decommissioned and sold rather than moved, migrated and paid for twice.

Phase 3 · Remote operations and resilience

A fully remote management model lets engineers monitor and manage the systems from any location, supported by proactive Slack alerting, automated phone escalation for critical incidents, and direct access to specialist engineers. A hot-spares strategy keeps pre-configured critical hardware ready for immediate failover.

Over time the relationship became ongoing technical oversight: network health monitoring, incident response, service improvements and new channel launches.

It meant I didn’t have to be heavily involved in the technical detail.

• Michael Lever, CEO, Comux UK

The results

Manual monitoring became automated. Fixed infrastructure became scalable architecture. Site-based operations became remote management. The estate is leaner, cheaper and simpler to run, and none of it cost a second of live broadcast.

It’s made the operation much leaner and simpler to manage, which reduces complexity across the business.

• Michael Lever, CEO, Comux UK

Why they picked us, in their words

444Video were brilliant - organised, thorough, detailed, and highly communicative. They allowed us to step back from the project’s technical complexity, which was invaluable for a small organisation managing multiple priorities. I have absolutely no reservations in recommending them to any organisation requiring their technical expertise. Their innovation and problem-solving capability were exceptional.

• Michael Lever, CEO, Comux UK