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Riding the Wave of Over The Top Video Streaming

Category: Smooth Streaming (Page 3 of 4)

Next Generation TV Forum – Cloud Technology Processing and Delivery

18th June 2017 /

I was invited to speak on two panels at the Next Generation TV Forum conference in London on the 14th June with the first one on the topic of “Next generation cloud technology in processing and delivery”. I really enjoyed the panel and one interesting point was the alignment of software engineering technologies such as the agile methodology with traditional engineering best practices. We also discuss whether CDNs are cloud based services (they are) and how using a combination of different approaches, you can reduce the time to build new channels from months to hours.

• The benefits of large-scale video processing in the cloud
• Virtualization vs. Cloud: Which one is right for “your” organization?
• Where can the cloud have the greatest impact on your workflow?

Moderator:

• Ian Trow, Senior Director Emerging Technology & Strategy, Harmonic

My fellow panelists were;

• Ed Silvester, Head of Video R&D, Perform Group
• Dom Robinson, Co-Founder and Director, Id3as

https://www.facebook.com/Kaltura/videos/10156198505624692/

Interview with Telco Transformation Magazine – Part 2

11th June 2017 /

The second part of the fun interview with Aditya Kishore from Telco Transformation Magazine has been published, were we continued our wide ranging discussion on high quality online video streaming, CDNs, DRM and video compression;

  • What would you say are your biggest challenges?
  • You talked a little about your CDN options at TV Connect. Can we revisit that, What has been your approach to caching? (See article here)
  • Are there any new technologies or solutions in particular that you are looking at in the next year or so?

As mentioned in a previous post, having a Multi CDN strategy is essential when operating at scale as not all CDNs are created equally and you need to understand the clients behaviour, making changes dynamically based on conditions.

One of my observations over the past 12 months is that the H264 video codec, has effectively run out of road and we’ll need next generation video compression to keep up with demand, delivering higher quality video with less bits.

Interview with Telco Transformation Magazine – Part 1

31st May 2017 /

I was recently asked to participate in a fun interview with Aditya Kishore from Telco Transformation Magazine and really enjoyed a wide ranging discussion on the following topics;

  • What are your chief responsibilities at Sky?
  • What are the key areas of focus for you today?
  • How do you see the balance between the two services shifting?
  • How do you see the video/pay-TV space evolving in the future — let’s say the next five years?

One of the key challenges with OTT services, is closing the gap with Satellite and Aditya says it best;

“Sky customers accustomed to digital satellite quality are unwilling to endure low-quality streaming experiences on the Internet; they expect a high-quality experience regardless of device or access network. And it’s Webb’s responsibility to create the best experience possible for streaming customers, despite the vagaries of Internet connections. As such, his goal is to “close the gap” between the video experience a customer has on a private, controlled network like satellite, on one hand; and the open and unpredictable Internet, on the other.”

In the second part (available in 1-2 weeks), we discuss CDNs, video compression and DRM.

 

Sky Technology Conference 2017 – Why we should all care about video quality?

30th May 2017 /

As a broadcaster operating in both satellite and OTT spaces, we have exceptionally talented developers who create amazing software that millions of customers use every day (Now TV, Sky Q, Sky Go, SkySports). Whilst the OTT software stack is critical to success, we are reminded that we effectively give it away for free, so that customers can be enjoy the industry’s best sports, movies, entertainment and news content on their devices.

I was invited to speak at the Sky Technology Developer conference on the topic of “Why we should all care about Video Quality?”. The main focus of my talk was to demonstrate that you need to have an end to end view of the whole ecosystem in place to achieve the quality of experience that our customers expect.

At Sky, we use Conviva to record millions of streaming sessions every day across our OTT clients. This highly valuable data is used to measure the viewing experience and make automatic changes, such as swapping CDN A with CDN B when conditions dictate.

With any OTT streaming service, the ultimate measure of success is to have the technology get out of the way of the customer experience. If we can achieve this, then our business will continue to grow market share and prosper.. Conviva is helping us with this goal and good software integration is critical to ensuring all devices get a consistent experience with four key performance metrics as a minimum;

  • Buffering ratio.
  • Average bitrate.
  • Video start failure.
  • Exit before video start.

Below, I present what I believe to be the formula for running a successful streaming service; 

Amazing Content + Super Developers + Great Network + Customer Service = Quality.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the talk.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section below.

BVE Conference 2017 – The Future of OTT

29th May 2017 /

I was asked to speak on a panel discussion at the BVE conference in London on March 2nd. As you can imagine from the topic, this was a very wide ranging discussion covering all areas of our industry with the following agenda;

Consumers today can view more content on more devices than ever before, and the OTT revolution shows no signs of slowing down. What will OTT content and delivery look like in 5 or 10 years? This panel discussion will look at OTT today and tomorrow, focusing on the following challenges and opportunities:

  • Multiplatform viewing: mobile, connected device, and smart TV
  • Rights acquisition and DRM
  • Monetisation models: SVOD, AVOD, and TVOD
  • 4K and HDR
  • Data-driven advertising
  • Live events
  • The impact of VR and AR

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