Expanding connectivity and improved broadband
infrastructures have enabled the growth of simultaneous device usage across
multiple screens. With live streaming and OTT driving new patterns of video and
media consumption, how are broadcasters and solution providers improving their
applications and delivery of content? Raymond Tan takes a deep dive to
find out how closer are we in creating an optimal viewing experience that can
satisfy users across all platforms and devices.
A confluence of
factors is driving the delivery of content and changing how we view video,
generating opportunities for cloud-based multi-screen solution providers.
Firstly,
connected devices are increasing, from smart TVs to gaming consoles, and it is
now possible to use any OTT device to watch live or on-demand content.
Secondly,
the use of 5G and improved high-speed broadband access will make it easier to
access high-quality content from anywhere, including remote locations.
Describing
the impact of the above growth factors, David Gerbaulet, director, Business
Development & Strategy APAC, ATEME, said: “Multi-screen technologies will
continue to evolve as related areas continue to see growth. The amount of
content that viewers have access to is also driving the use of multi-screen technologies.”
Streaming
gaining momentum
Over the
next 12 months, the focus will be in improving technology that makes streaming
quality as good as broadcast, particularly for live broadcasts, said Eric
Gallier, vice-president, Video Solutions
at Harmonic.
“Some
of the issues that the industry is looking to tackle include latency, scalable
delivery and video quality. The use of public clouds for streaming offerings
will become quite common.
“The
cloud makes it easier to launch new services, is less risky and can scale, and
can also be used whenever needed,” Gallier said. “Also, multi-CDN solutions have emerged to
improve the scalability and security of OTT distribution.”
In
the same vein, Richard Mansfield, director, Product Management at MediaKind,
said that there is now a real expansion in the amount of streaming cases to the
main screen, especially around live scenarios.
He
maintains that new streaming offerings are increasingly bringing to consumers a
highly flexible, personalised multi-device experience that is coming close to
the standards in linear TV viewing with regards to latency and picture quality.
“Improvements
in video encoding, such as Versatile Video Codec (VVC), will help address
challenges faced in delivering the bandwidth required for these higher quality
streams, whilst low latency technologies address the issue of delay,” Mansfield
said.
Dan
Murray, director marketing strategy, OTT Video Monitoring at Telestream,
expects broadcasters in 2020 to continue offering new direct-to-consumer services,
including exploration of additional revenue with personalised
advertising.
He
explained that operators and broadcasters are increasingly using cloud
workflows to deliver services quickly and on-demand, while lowering upfront
investment.
“While
multi-screen technology is becoming widely adapted, the industry is working on
low latency options to reduce the time gap between streaming vs traditional
cable. At the same time, streaming services are pushing to offer the best
picture experience including 4K and HDR.”
Issues
still to overcome
There are
still factors to contend with for multi-screen technologies to fully take off.
Murray said a lot of changes is now happening at a fast pace: new services,
advertising, cloud workflows, low latency and 4K/HDR. Working on all
simultaneously is a major challenge. There are also challenges
surrounding broadcasters shifting from SDI to IP production; streaming service
security; and digital rights management (DRM) challenges.
Telestream
today offers solutions for multi-screen VOD workflows, Advertising workflows,
Cloud delivery, and Video Quality Monitoring solutions. Telestream Vantage, for
instance, allows broadcasters around the world to standardise VOD workflows and
advertising workflows for multi-screen. And Telestream Cloud enables
operators and broadcasters to migrate these workflows across multi-cloud
networks.
ATEME’s
Gerbaulet said a key factor impacting how quickly multi-screen technologies get
adopted is the quality of content, especially for live TV, which in turn is
affected by the internet connection.
“There
is also the issue of the large amount of content available which is leaving
viewers feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. Subscription fatigue will also be
another key issue for direct-to-consumer players with some viewers potentially
preferring a more laid-back experience with their preferred content available
in one place.”
Among
their existing multi-screen solutions, ATEME TITAN Live encoder offers encoding
optimisation with high video quality and multi-profile output with low latency.
The organisation’s new TITAN Playout solution can enable virtual programming to
create personalised TV.
Harmonic’s
Gallier sees the main challenges and issues as relating to the last mile, where
poor connectivity can hurt QoS. For established OTT players, the challenge is
to progressively incorporate new technologies, such as low-latency streaming
formats, into their current offerings without impacting the viewing experience
and quality of service.
“Launching
a brand-new streaming offering in the public cloud that can scale easily,
provides a 5-second end-to-end latency and a broadcast-grade picture quality is
what today’s operators hope to achieve — and we achieved that in the
Asia-Pacific region before a premier soccer tournament in 2018,” he said.
Harmonic’s
VOS 360 Live Streaming Platform leverages the flexibility of public cloud
infrastructures to meet the demanding and complex requirements of live
streaming. The fully managed
solution runs on a wide range of public cloud platforms, handling all stages of
the media processing and delivery chain.
Gallier
maintains that operators can use the live streaming platform to achieve
real-time scaling to handle peaks in viewership, which is extremely useful for
live sports; it also supports several unique cloud-based workflows, including
low-latency delivery for OTT, dynamic ad insertion and live-video delivery
optimisation through a multi-CDN approach.
In
September last year, MediaKind launched a Universe Alliance initiative to
provide content providers, service providers and operators access to all
solutions that combine technologies from MediaKind and its partners. This enables
customers to benefit from pre-integrated, application-specific packages which
are designed for broadcast-quality IP video delivery at scale.
At
IBC 2019, MediaKind launched a pre-integrated low latency solution for
broadcasters and operators delivering live content to consumers using ABR
technology for OTT or streaming services.
On
the ground in Asia
The
different industry players believe the seeds are already in place, and as
multi-screening continues to increase, and as OTT streaming and video quality
reaches the standards of linear TV, they are ready to move their customers to
the next stage.
MediaKind’s
Mansfield said they have several customers across the Asia-Pacific region,
ranging from Australia to South Korea and from India to South-east Asia. “They
use our technologies in a variety of ways depending on their infrastructure,
choosing either on-premise, private or public cloud, or a mix.”
According
to Gerbaulet, demand is being driven by customers wanting to refresh their
setup and achieve cost savings. “We’re working to improve existing codecs, like
MPEG-2 or H.264, and are also helping to develop new codecs (AV1, VVC) to
create future-proof solutions using micro services.”
Harmonic has multiple customers in the Asia-Pacific arena, including PCCW Media, the integrated multi-media and entertainment group of PCCW based in Hong Kong, who is using Harmonic’s
VOS Cloud-Native Software for its Now TV, Now Player and Now E services. The use of the unified solution for IPTV and OTT content preparation and delivery helps PCCW speeds up the time to market for its new services.
Indonesia
mobile network provider Telkomsel is powering its MAXstream OTT service using
Harmonic’s VOS360 platform for better scalability and flexibility. During
the 2018 soccer World Cup in Russia, the VOS360 platform enabled Telkomsel to
successfully serve 550,000 concurrent viewers and a high QoE.
“Our
customers in the Asia-Pacific region can easily and efficiently combine
on-premises and public cloud resources by migrating video workflows back and
forth. They fully understand how this deployment flexibility can help them to
evolve at a rapid pace,” said Harmonic’s Gailler.
Murray
said the company is working with many operators and broadcasters in
Asia-Pacific in SDI to IP migration, 4K/HDR production in VOD workflows, and
monitoring video services, including video production that uses Telestream
products prior to multi-screen streaming and up to monitoring of live
multi-screen OTT service quality.