ANNEX V TO THE INVITATION TO TENDER

ANNEX V TO THE INVITATION TO TENDER TENDER SPECIFICATIONS RELATING TO LOT IV STREAMING, COMPRESSION, HOSTING AND CONTENT DELIVERY INTEGRATED AUDIOVISUAL PRODUCTION, DISSEMINATION AND ARCHIVING SERVICES OPEN CALL FOR TENDERS PO/2014-3/A4 Launched by the Audiovisual Services of the European Commission

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION...3 2. SUBJECT OF THE CONTRACT...3 2.1. Services required...3 2.1.1. A live streaming facility...5 2.1.2. A Video on Demand / Download facility...5 2.1.3. A full Content Delivery Network service...6 2.1.4. A continuous user support and quality control...6 2.2. Reports...7 3. TECHNICAL TENDER...9 4. SELECTION CRITERIA...10 4.1. Capacity of the tenderer...10 4.2. Technical and professional capacity for Lot IV...10 4.2.1. Criterion 1...10 4.2.2. Criterion 2...10 4.2.3. Criterion 3...10 5. AWARD CRITERIA...11 5.1. Technical evaluation...11 5.2. Financial evaluation...11 5.3. Award of the contract...12 6. ANNEXES...12 6.1. Complementary information...12 6.2. To attach to the offer...12 2

1. INTRODUCTION The General Specifications attached to Annex I to the invitation to tender describe the principal characteristics of the contract and specify the provisions common to all Lots. The tenderers must refer to those. The present Annex details Lot IV and forms an integral part of the General Specifications. This Annex contains: the detailed subject of the contract; details on the technical and financial tender to be attached to the offer; the technical and professional capacity criteria; the award criteria. All requirements of the General Specifications apply to this document. 2. SUBJECT OF THE CONTRACT The European Commission wishes to have a set of digital services, aiming to stream, compress, host and deliver audiovisual material to internal and external customers of the Audiovisual Services through its corporate audiovisual portal. This audiovisual material is provided courtesy of the European Institutions for the purpose of informing the public about the European Union. 2.1. Services required The European Union's TV information service, Europe by Satellite (EbS), was launched in 1995 and provides EU related audiovisual material via satellite to media professionals. The programming consists of a mix of live events, news items, stock shots on EU policies and issues. In October 2008 a second channel, EbS+, was launched in order to double the broadcasting capacity. This free-to-air satellite service provides live video and multilingual audio feeds. The languages are currently 2 x 25 audio for each channel (EbS and EbS+), but the number of languages may increase in the future depending on the accession of new countries in the EU. In this context, during the execution of the contract, the European Commission reserves the right to use a negotiated procedure, Art 134(f) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) n 1268/2012 of 29 October 2012 on the rules of Application of Regulation (EU, Euratom) n 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council, for new services or works consisting in the repetition of similar services or works entrusted to the economic operator. Information about satellite reception is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/ebs/satellite.cfm?sitelang=en All current production is in 16:9 format but support must also be given to historical material produced in 4:3 format. 3

The Contractor has to receive our video feeds through 2 routes: by satellite: the Contractor must install at their own expense the necessary equipment for satellite reception and must guarantee an uninterrupted service in all weather conditions that could reasonably be expected in its area. The receiver's antenna must be protected against snow/hail accumulation; by internet link: the Contractor should provide at their own expense an internet connection (IP solution) and must guarantee an uninterrupted service (at least 200Mb/sec). Either of the two sources can be used as main and the other one as redundant. They have to be automatically switchable and equally reliable to ensure the continuity and quality of the requested services. No image shooting or audio capture is required by the Contractor as the Commission provides all video production services and these will be delivered to the Contractor, both from its satellite reception and its own IP link. The Contractor has to provide the encoded video and audio signal to the Internet for workstations and mobile devices. A web portal using these services is provided, hosted and managed by Directorate General for Communication (http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/). In 2012, it served more than 7.5 million unique visitors and is used by more than 150.000 registered users who are regularly downloading media files. The portal's section dedicated to EbS (ec.europa.eu/avservices/ebs) will manage and provide all metadata necessary (mainly EPG-Electronic Programme Guide data) for the proper processing of the full services required, communicating with the Contractor by relevant means of exchange (XML, JSON ). An XML example is provided in Annex A. This web portal is using a corporate video player used by the Commission s websites. This player, developed in-house, is using pure Action Script 3 Scripting (Flash coding language), with a Javascript external interface, configurable by external XML file and fully compatible with HTML5 to serve mobile devices. The distribution protocols of the video feeds provided by the Contractor must serve the widest list of configuration used by the customers of the service and must take into account the increasing security measures taken at the level of the proxies, firewalls, operating systems, browsers, servers and Flash players. The target of the services is clearly the users of the portal on a worldwide basis using all kind of platforms. In this respect, HTTP protocol must be part of the solution proposed by the Contractor. The minimum target of users to be served is: desktop users on PC (Windows 7+, XP) and MAC (10.5+); browsers: Internet Explorer version 7+, Firefox version 16+, Chrome version 25+, Safari version 5.3+; smartphones and tablets using IOS (version 6+), Android (version 3+), Windows (version 8). 4

The services requested are divided into four types: 2.1.1. A live streaming facility A live streaming facility must be made available in real time for each channel EbS and EbS+, for preview purpose, on desktop in 25 languages when available, on mobile (IOS, Android and Windows) in 3 languages (Original, English, French) and in audio-only streaming in 2 languages (Original, English) in order to feed tools like web radio. Languages may be added during the contract for mobile and web radio services. The format requested for the live streaming service is MPEG-4 format (H264 codec) bitrate min 500 Kbits/sec to 1.200 Kbits/sec resolution 240p to 720p Flash Player v10 min. 2.1.2. A Video on Demand / Download facility A Video on Demand / Download facility (VoD Service) has to be provided for each item for both channels (EbS and EbS+), on desktop in 25 languages when available and on mobile in 3 languages (Original, English, French), aiming to preview the start of an event even while the event is still broadcast live, at the latest 30 minutes after its start. 30 minutes after the end of broadcast of the event, the delayed playback must allow the full preview of this item without any transition. The format requested for the live streaming service is MPEG-4 format (H264 codec) bitrate min 500 Kbits/sec to 1.200 Kbits/sec resolution 240p to 720p Flash Player v10 min. Each of these individual items for both channels (EbS and EbS+) must also be available for download purpose on desktop in 25 languages when available, on mobile in 3 languages (Original, English, French), and in audio files in 2 languages (Original, English). Any file generated by the Contractor must be placed in the Content Delivery Network (CDN) provided within this Lot and must fit with the naming schema and folder structure (currently modulo20) used by the service. The naming schema will be presented by the European Commission during the first technical meeting with the Contractor. For each video file, the European Commission also needs to get 10 thumbnails, each 10% of the video, for desktop and for mobile use. In order to integrate automatically those files in the Commission's Digital Content Management System, an interface with the CDN system will be provided by the tenderer through API web services. These web services will perform two tasks: manipulation of video files created in VoD in the requested format (video, audio, thumbnail); archiving those media into the CDN by giving a filename and specific path. The occurrence of data delivery by API is 24/7. The parameters give all the details to the command sent to the API. Description of each sub-task: create Media from Stream and copy to Archive folder; 5

rename Media; delete Media; copy/move from folder to folder; get status of the order (completed, error, pending ). 2.1.3. A full Content Delivery Network service The Commission wants to complement its satellite services by publishing broadcast quality files for high speed download purpose through a full Content Delivery Network service. The throughput must be at least of 2 Gigabits/sec, with direct peering to the major European backbones for high speed download. The Commission will provide on digital devices around 30 TB to be uploaded by the Contractor at the start of the contract. The CDN needs are expected to increase by 20% maximum each year. A FTP service is also requested to upload as fast as possible any file generated at the European Commission and ready to be published and distributed. The direct connection mentioned before (see point 2.1) will be used to assure this upload function between the European Commission premises and the server room of the Contractor. At the end of the contract, the Contractor will: furnish the Commission with a digital copy of the full CDN managed until then, in order to eventually transfer the content to the next provider of those services; delete all this content on his premises. 2.1.4. A continuous user support and quality control A continuous user support and quality control on the entire system implemented: quality of satellite reception, quality of the internet links, quality of the video streams, synchronisation of image and sound, availabilities of all languages present during the event, continuity of service of the CDN and FTP service. Any incident occurred must be notified to the Commission in the shortest delay by any means available to Commission's officials in charge (mail, SMS and wiki). A ticketing system will be put in place by the contractor to assure the logging and the follow-up of each problem. A helpdesk must be available by mail and by phone 24/7 on call with a reaction time of 30 minutes during working hours (8am-8pm) and 90 minutes outside this time slot, except for major events taking place outside the time slot. In this case, the Commission will send a prior notice at least 5 calendar days before the event, and the expected reaction time has to be 30 minutes maximum. A local support based in Brussels will be considered as an added value. The mandatory level of monitoring expected by the Commission is the continuous real time test on the availability of the live streams for the four first languages (Original, English, French and German) on the two channels; for desktop, mobile and audio versions. The tenderer must take the following aspects into account in the deployment of his solution: the EbS channels broadcast simultaneously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week; 6

the streaming system implemented can in no way alter the quality of the images, regardless of their source, format, resolution or throughput; the start of the video in live and VoD mode has to be as fast as possible in the video player. Techniques like progressive download and adaptive bitrate have to be applied; the Commission has implemented a specific feature to help mapping the real-time clock with the encoders' PTS/PCR at the transmission site. This feature aims to compensate for the PTS/PCR discontinuities due to redundancy switching; the Commission has had a system for streaming services since 1996 and an outsourced CDN since 2008; on its websites, the Commission applies the EU directive on data protection in the electronic communications sector (the EU Cookie law), which is applicable to all the Contractors providing web services to the European Commission (more info on http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm#section_3); the requested date for the start of operations is 15 September 2014. The tender must provide a detailed schedule for the deployment of the proposed technical solution, from the date on which the contract is signed. Additional features will be considered as an added value by the Commission: the speech to text facility, at least in English, for the live transmissions; any other technical feature that the Contractor may add to his technical offer. 2.2. Reports This reporting method will take the form of a secure website in screen and mobile format which is accessible at all times, with API-type web services, allowing direct electronic access to the statistics database of the Contractor. The tenderer must describe the structure of the web and mobile site and the associated web services and provide examples of reports. Statistical data needs to be collected in a coherent way that allows comparison between different events. The Contractor will mainly provide reports in real time of audience's measurement on the different services provided. The Contractor will make these quantitative data available in the form of a secure website which is accessible at all times, containing information which can be exported in XML format, as well as in a format compatible with Excel. Access via a web service is also requested. All data and information are to be provided in English. Basic data must be made available in real time: real time traffic measurement on the live streaming on the different mode of distribution: by URL provided by the Contractor (linked to each channel and language) and by device used: desktop, mobile and audio; number of visitors by day, by time slot, by EbS transmission, by mode (desktop, mobile, tablet), by viewing (live or VoD), by language, by country of origin (with a 7

separate breakdown for visitors from the EU institutions and presented on a European map and a world map showing the location of viewers) within 24 hours; minimum, average and maximum viewing period within 24 hours; operating system, browser and device and player used within 24 hours; global streaming breakdown by channel (EbS and EbS+), by type of transmission (live, news, archives), by mode (desktop, mobile, tablet), by viewing (live or VoD) by language, by country (with a separate breakdown for visitors from the EU institutions) within 24 hours; global amount of downloaded data from the CDN by country (with a separate breakdown for the EU institutions) within 24 hours. An API and XML interfacing the statistics database must be provided to allow the Commission to aggregate this data in its own database. The occurrence of data delivery for the API is 24/7, and every hour for the XML files. List of mandatory data provided by services (API or XML), for a period of time: country of origin of the visitor; user agent (media player, OS, hardware browser used and version); number of unique and concurrent users; number of hits; number of IPs counted; volume of traffic (unit of storage MB); average traffic in a time period (unit of storage MB); viewing duration (in minutes/seconds); reference to media (reference number of the media given in EPG). By aggregating the basic data for an analysis period that they select themselves (day, week, month, quarter, half-year or year), users of the reporting website must be able to extract the following elements in the form of relevant figures and graphs: sum of audiences generated by a set of EbS/EbS+ items dealing with the same event (by views, unique viewers and average viewing duration); ranking of best and worst audiences for a space and time defined by the user. A website version adapted to smartphone and tablet formats containing the aggregated monitoring results as defined below will also be available, for an analysis period selected by users of the reporting website (day, week, month, quarter, half-year or year). Once a year, at the invitation of the Commission, the Contractor will present an operational and technical report on the performance of the contract on the occasion of a visit to Brussels, detailing: 8

the list of technical failures and corrections applied during the period of analysis; ways in which the system could be improved. Mission expenses must be included in the overall price of the service. All quantitative and qualitative data will have to be provided to the European Commission at the end of the contract and to be deleted on the Contractor's premises. 3. TECHNICAL TENDER Tenderers must include in their tender a technical bid detailing how they propose to perform the tasks covered by the contract, in compliance with all requirements of the tender specifications. The tenderer should also describe the measures he intends to apply in order to ensure that its working practices are in line with the normal technological standards and practices in the field. The technical bid should follow the same structure as the subject of the contract (see point 2). The tenderer must describe all the measures taken to fulfil the quality control phase described in point 2.1.4. The technical bid must include all the elements necessary to implement the service, in particular: the full installation schedule for the equipment needed for the requested services; the methodology and systems implemented to achieve the required results in producing live and VoD streaming and will describe in full details the structure and performance of the CDN proposed; examples of reports presenting the basic and aggregated data in web and mobile format, like those requested under point 2.2; quality control measures for the data provided, reporting and all the requested services; preventive, corrective and on-going maintenance; user training and support. The tenderer is also invited to present his vision of the technological evolution of the market and related technologies over the next five years, and the possible evolution of the proposed solution over the course of the contract (maximum three A4 pages). The technical bid should not include any of the documents referred to under the exclusion or selection criteria, nor should it refer to matters already covered by the exclusion and selection criteria. The technical bid will be assessed on the basis of the award criteria under point 5. 9

4. SELECTION CRITERIA 4.1. Capacity of the tenderer For legal capacity and bank details, as well as financial and economic capacity, which are common to all Lots, see the General Specifications, Annex I to the Invitation to tender. 4.2. Technical and professional capacity for Lot IV The tenderer must demonstrate convincingly that he has the ability to undertake the tasks requested (point 2.1) by complying with the following selection criteria: 4.2.1. Criterion 1 The tenderer must have the necessary experience in the field covered by the contract. As evidence, he/she will provide a list of at least three services performed in the last three years in the field covered by the contract, illustrating the services described with the following information for each service performed: general description of each project; the total amount of the project; the date and duration of the services and the recipient, together with documents issued by the recipients attesting the quality and reliability of the services performed. 4.2.2. Criterion 2 The tenderer must have the technical means to perform the tasks described in these specifications and the Annexes. As evidence, he/she will provide a detailed description of the infrastructure and the equipment which will enable him/her to ensure in particular: the redundant solution of reception routes for the incoming feeds and the link for the files upload; the native capacity of the technical solution proposed to manage video streams in at least 25 different languages; the full coverage of requested services for the target group of customers considering the various technical environments used; the seamless integration of the facilities required for the service requested with the broadcasting equipment already in place within the institutions and the IT environment used by the Commission (Proxies, EU cookie law, AV Portal, corporate player, video transmission). 4.2.3. Criterion 3 The tenderer must have appropriate staff in order to perform the tasks described. As evidence, he/she will provide the educational and professional qualifications of the persons responsible for performing the tasks under the contract, who should have the following skills, to be evidenced by testimonials/references: a minimum of three years' recent professional experience in the field covered by the contract (streaming technology and file compression); 10

perfect command of English (European level C2 standard 1 ). As evidence, the tenderer should provide CVs illustrating the education and qualifications of the persons who will provide the services for this Lot. Each CV provided should indicate the intended role in the delivery of the services. 5. AWARD CRITERIA Bids from tenderers who do not satisfy the exclusion/selection criteria will not be considered for the award of the contract. The contract will be awarded to the tender offering the best value for money on the basis of the following criteria: Quality Price a) Quality of the proposed technical solution: installation schedule for the equipment required for encoding, streaming and CDN services, global performances of the system, potential and flexible upgrading of the system (languages and CDN capacities), systems maintenance, user training and support (graded from 1 to 50 points); b) Quality of the reporting requested via website, mobile and web services (basic and aggregated data); quality of presentation of data in the examples provided (graded from 1 to 30); c) Adequacy of quality control measures for the data provided, reporting and all the services requested, and evolutive criteria in the solution proposed (graded from 1 to 20). 5.1. Technical evaluation The technical tender to be submitted as part of the bid (see point 3) will be assessed on the basis of Quality criteria a), b) and c). The result of the technical evaluation is the sum of the number of points obtained as a result of the evaluation of each criterion. Only those bids which are awarded at least 60% for each criterion and a total score of at least 70% will be considered for the award of the contract. 5.2. Financial evaluation For the financial bid, the tenderer must use the standard price tables in Annex E. Any omission or amendment to the original price schedule will cause the bid to be considered null and void. 1 http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/en/resources/european-language-levels-cefr 11

5.3. Award of the contract The contract will be awarded to the tender achieving the highest score obtained by applying the following formula: Score for tender X = Cheapest price Price of tender X *40 + total quality score (out of 100) for all criteria of tender X *60 6. ANNEXES 6.1. Complementary information Annex Lot IV A: Example of XML file; Annex Lot IV B: Model of contract (for information only, not to be completed). 6.2. To attach to the offer Annex Lot IV C: Declaration on honour for exclusion criteria, to be signed by the tenderer; Annex Lot IV D: Tables for selection criteria and financial capacity D.1 Selection criteria; D.2 Financial capacity; Annex Lot IV E: Table to use for the price offer. 12

STREAMING, COMPRESSION, HOSTING AND CONTENT DELIVERY ANNEX LOT IV-A EXAMPLE OF XML FILE <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?> <epg>... <epgdata> <title>press conference opening remarks by Olli REHN, Vice- President of the EC in charge of Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro</title> <channel name="ebs">110001</channel> <starttime_ms date="05-11-2013" time="10:40:52">1383644452000</starttime_ms> <stoptime_ms date="05-11-2013" time="11:06:47">1383646007000</stoptime_ms> <meta> <language>or EN FR DE IT ES EL PT NL FI HU PL SK RO</language> <widescreen>16_9</widescreen> <chunks>0</chunks> <sid>243930</sid> <ref>i083170</ref> </meta> </epgdata> <epgdata> <title>q&a</title> <channel name="ebs">110001</channel> <starttime_ms date="05-11-2013" time="11:06:47">1383646007000</starttime_ms> <stoptime_ms date="05-11-2013" time="11:52:28">1383648748000</stoptime_ms> <meta> <language>or EN FR DE IT ES EL PT NL FI HU PL SK RO</language> <widescreen>16_9</widescreen> <chunks>1</chunks> <sid>243956</sid> <ref>i083180</ref> </meta> </epgdata> <epgdata> <title>recorded cutaways</title> <channel name="ebs">110001</channel> <starttime_ms date="05-11-2013" time="11:52:37">1383648757000</starttime_ms> <stoptime_ms date="05-11-2013" time="11:54:01">1383648841000</stoptime_ms> <meta> <language>or EN FR DE IT ES EL PT NL FI HU PL SK RO</language> <widescreen>16_9</widescreen> <chunks>0</chunks> <sid>244225</sid> <ref>i083289</ref> </meta> </epgdata>... </epg> 13