• Media and Entertainment
  • Case Study

Pyxie evolves thanks to the scalability of the AWS platform

Pyxie is an ambitious and original project. How did it come to be
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Pyxie is an ambitious and original project. How did it come to be?

It stems from years of experience in the fields of television, advertising, and filmmaking. I've always had a passion for 'special effects.' In fact, Pyxie was born to enable everyone to create high-quality multimedia content without technical skills, using common devices like tablets and smartphones. By experiencing it through their own eyes and creativity, every user can contribute to the collective and emotional storytelling of various public and private events.

Usually, winning ideas take shape in the most unexpected moments...

It seems like a century ago: smartphones didn't exist yet, and the internet was still an unknown world. In its initial version, the project was also proposed to Microsoft, which, however, didn't give it a chance. Then, 4 years ago, during a prime-time broadcast of 'L’isola dei famosi,' a window to the future opened up for me: Pyxie!

The transition from idea to implementation is never easy. How did you find the right momentum?

I had the idea, but I couldn't do it all by myself. I assembled a group of old friends and collaborators who were brave and determined enough (or maybe a little crazy like me!) to become a team that took care of the legal, administrative, and commercial aspects of this adventure. We immediately defined the B2C market as our target, but there's another aspect dedicated to professional broadcasting, for which the Pyxie platform serves as the editorial team. By gathering all the material related to an event or program, professional operators have a semi-finished product and can significantly reduce the processing and adaptation time for post-production according to editorial needs. The requests started pouring in.

How does Pyxie actually work in practice?

The concept of Pyxie is to create an event in the sports, music, or entertainment domain, which a geolocated frontend defines in terms of technical specifications (resolution, streaming quality, start and end times, and user locations). Once the event is created with typical editorial work, a coupon is generated and distributed via smartphones to the entire community that you want to involve and engage with. Those who receive the coupon on their consumer app can either record it live or in playback mode and, with the help of user-friendly professional editing tools, actively participate in the event's storytelling.

What was the world of Pyxie like before meeting Var Group and jointly considering an investment in the AWS platform?

Let me give you an example. At the last DJ10 event, the possibility to participate by requesting the link to download and use Pyxie was announced. In just one day, we received 15,000 sign-ups. We were faced with the challenge of managing an unexpectedly large volume of users, and it was only with the Cloud that we could ensure the great success that it turned out to be. This opportunity made us aware that our business was growing, and in collaboration with Var Group, we chose AWS and the benefits of the cloud. Today, we can exercise cost control that is proportional to the evolution of the business, allowing us to focus on usability and the quality of digital content.

So, the collaboration with Var Group isn't over yet? Any future projects in the works?

In the future, we would like to add further components to the scalability of the AWS platform, leveraging the expertise of Zero12/Var Group in image analysis. Through image analysis, we may be able to assess the video quality that is then automatically edited. This would be very important for us, and there is already room for the concrete realization of this project.