Trends in OTT, SVOD and IPTV

InBroadcast 

Now more than ever apps and services need to launch fast, be available cross-platform and with the right content to succeed.

July p58 https://t.co/6p85fGuk0t?amp=1

COVID-19 is leading to an irreversible shift in media technology investment, away from legacy and towards digital business models and workflows. That is the stark conclusion of an IABM report which has tracked the impact of the crisis on the content supply chain.

Where media technology buyers were once inclined to take a ‘wait-and-see’ approach when investing in new technologies such as cloud and remote production, those risk preferences are shifting radically as a result of the global external shock.

No-one seriously imagines things going back to where they were pre-pandemic. But it’s not just the vendors and their clients which will accelerate the digital transition. Consumers may also not go back to their old viewing habits post-lockdown. Far from slowing down as a result of the crisis, IP networking and direct-to-consumer models represents the short and long-term focus of the media industry. The single goal is to get content out to consumers while optimising the experience at the same time.  

During COVID-19 viewer experience suffered (temporarily) from increased consumption numbers, forcing organizations to reconsider how they deliver content. Even companies as large as Netflix had to adjust to the new norm by limiting resolution during hours of peak bandwidth.

Bitmovin saw the effects of increasing viewer figures in the data from across its Analytics customer base. The download speed for downloading video segments decreased by 15% and viewers had to wait 30% longer for the videos to start. The shift towards lower quality videos is a result of less bandwidth available- companies that didn’t reduce bitrate expenditure were the ones who saw the consequences with higher start-up times. Companies able to implement solutions like multi-pass encoding and multi-codec applications will overcome these challenges with reduced bitrate expenditures.

“These adjustments will save you on CDN costs and dramatically increase your organization’s device reach,” Bitmovin’s Joshua Shulman says.

New market conditions demand even faster releases

Now that streaming is so highly sought after, businesses need to launch faster to capture audiences and to grab a piece of the market share owned by the big players (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube). Less than two months after its launch, Disney+ has become the third-largest subscription video on demand service in the UK, showing that it’s possible to break into the saturated streaming market, but also proving that apps and services need to launch fast, be available cross-platform and with the right content to succeed.

“The question you should be considering is not ‘If I should reach more devices?’” suggests Schulman. “Rather, ‘When will I reach more devices?’ Will it be too late to launch in a too saturated market?”

Video app development remains an expensive and time consuming process, but Applicaster claims its new app development framework enables media companies to quickly launch and update bespoke D2C video apps that scale across mobile and TV platforms, without writing any code.

Called Quick Brick, the framework is available within the company’s SaaS app development platform, Zapp. Unlike traditional video app development, Applicaster says its platform enhances React Native UI and UX with critical native app functionality which not only drastically shrinks time to market but allows for rapid post-launch iterations.

“With Quick Brick you don’t need a computer science degree to deploy beautiful apps like Netflix or Hulu. It’s going to revolutionise the OTT industry,” said Jonathan Laor, co-founder and CEO of Applicaster.

Go REMI

Remote production was already growing in popularity pre-Covid but as rights holders and other content producers ramp up their coverage of live sporting events, even in empty stadiums, we will definitely see a shift to remote set-ups to ensure a safe production workflow.

“Simply put, REMI provides a practical, deliverable and proven option for producing live events that lightens the load when it comes to travel, equipment and onsite staffing – without compromising the quality of the broadcast,” asserts Glenn Adamo, Managing Director of The Switch Production Services. “It also allays the fears of travel weary production and technical crews who fear for their and their family’s safety being exposed.”

Broadcasters and other rights holders will aim to have as few people onsite as possible, reducing numbers of crew, support staff and even the talent, with a stage manager being virtual from the remote production site.

“The remainder of the high-end technical crew (TD, audio, replay, graphics, video) would operate remotely along with the producer, director, associate producer,” says Adamo. “That said, there still needs to be careful planning at the REMI site itself to ensure social distancing, such as the installation of plexiglass dividers and sanitising of headsets, rooms, air flow and surfaces.”

The Switch recently launched a fully cloud-based TV production platform for live events. MIMiC is offered as an on-demand ‘as-a-Service’ that means all aspects of the production workflow, from editing and graphics creation, to comms and talk-back, is handled in the cloud, while distribution is via OTT services or over The Switch core network.

The Switch says this opens up broadcast quality live production for smaller, niche sports events and ad-hoc or one-off live event production by removing the cost and complexity which can burden traditional production models.

Blackbird, a rival video cloud production technology which is optimised for rapid highlight clipping, is also gaining customers. Recent announcements include adoption by Liverpool FC for production of media to the LFC website and social channels and Whisper, the sports production company which works with Formula One and the NFL.

 Whisper chose Blackbird to drive ‘video production efficiencies’ for the creation of a wide range of content, including F1, to remotely edit content. The production team will also use the Blackbird Player to view and approve content from anywhere – again speeding up the content review process.

A related development is Blackbird’s integration of the streaming protocol Zixi to enable fast, secure and reliable contribution video links between venues and production hubs.

Streaming goes 4K and interstellar

The power of live video over the internet got a couple more jolts in the arm when financial services giant Bloomberg upgraded its streaming service to 4K, while millions of people caught the space bug watching NASA’s SpaceX launch facilitated by streaming contribution links.

Both were enabled by competing protocols designed for low latency jitter-eliminating live video.

Zixi, which is the leading internet streaming protocol in terms of customers, is now helping SVOD Bloomberg TV+ to deliver in 4K. The UHD streams from studio cameras to subscriber screens are of broadcast quality and speeds, according to Bloomberg, and include a transcoding process to HEVC which takes all of 300 milliseconds. 

Zixi explains that its ‘advanced WebVTT’ implementation holds and controls metadata throughout the entire broadcast workflow, enabling closed captioning ‘along with the precise placement of the time code and frame rate for unique and individualized monetization.’

Haivision can call on some high-profile users too and none more eye-catching than helping facilitate the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center. The historic moment marked the first time in nine years that astronauts travelled to the International Space Station from US soil.

Haivision’s own Makito X video encoders and decoders streamed live video from the launch pad for real-time monitoring at the NASA and SpaceX control rooms. Using SRT, the teams sent bi-directional audio and video feeds between each of the control rooms to communicate during the launch.  

While SRT and Zixi work just fine for closed networks such as these, broadcasters wanting to transmit live events at scale over the internet to slash the cost of dedicated fibre and satellite links, want the flexibility to be able to work with any professional ISP and any set of vendor decoders and encoders.

A new format is riding to the rescue. Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) is intended as a vendor neutral specification for an interoperable protocol and is rapidly amassing support. While the days of SRT and Zixi are far from numbered – indeed both support RIST since doing so also enables them to sell more equipment – there are some who think that RIST will ultimately become the de facto protocol as broadcasters make IP their primary means of transmission.

Operational Optimisation

The OTT supply and delivery chain is much more dynamic than in any other media delivery ecosystem. Audio and video errors can occur at any point in video streaming workflows, from transcoding to the final delivery. When the quality of video streaming goes down, it negatively impacts the quality of experience and increases the risk of losing customers.

This is where a new partnership between Interra Systems and Skyline Communications comes into play. The integration between Interra’s ORION-OTT system and Skyline’s network management and orchestration (NMS/OSS) platform gives broadcasters and OTT service providers a single, automated solution to manage OTT content workflow orchestration and quality alerts.

Anupama Anantharaman, vp of product management at Interra Systems, explains, “Our joint solution will allow service providers to have a single pane of glass through which to monitor and manage the quality of all linear and OTT channels. Throughout the entire delivery chain, channels can be monitored, with dynamic orchestration of probes on premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid setup.”

New U.S. digital TV standard ATSC 3.0 will create important new opportunities for U.S. broadcasters, including the ability to deliver emergency alerts, program guides, and targeted advertising.

A new ATSC 3.0 Cloud software-as-a-service from Triveni Digital, can help deliver these services with maximum efficiency.  Explains Ralph Bachofen, vp sales and marketing, “Integrating Triveni's software-based ATSC 3.0 Broadcast Gateway scheduler (specifically, GuideBuilder XM ATSC 3.0 Transport Encoder) and state-of-the-art third-party systems, ATSC 3.0 Cloud enables broadcasters to launch nextgen TV services faster and more efficiently.”

As an added kicker, the ATSC 3.0 Cloud service includes support for SRT Transport (SRT) to ensure a secure communications path in the cloud.

Operational optimization is a ‘must have’, according to Bitmovin. Its original assessment was that no trend stood above the others in terms of importance. But the pandemic has quickly vaulted Operational Optimisation to the most valuable video technology trend. Organisations that are not able to appropriately evaluate their metrics and adjust their strategies will fail – and fast.

Quibi might be one of the key examples of an operation failing due to a lack of diversity and the ability to shift. 

“Quibi was effectively designed for the pre-COVID world where mobile content ruled consumption,” says Schulman. “Unfortunately, with so many people now working from home (or unemployed), content consumption has returned to larger devices and the demand for quick mobile content declined at an unprecedented rate, thus leaving Quibi undownloaded and nearly forgotten.”

There are multiple adjustments that a business can make when the target audience and devices are more diverse. Now, more than ever, bitrate expenditure (bandwidth capacity), budget, and reach need to be evaluated under scrutiny and optimised for best subjective performance.

As we consider the next steps there are major up and coming industries that must take these trends into consideration, including but not limited to, live-streamed political campaigns, sports teams, and many more.