In Broadcast - January 2016 - 36


36

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 6 - Issue 1 | January 2016

InMedia

Streaming IPTV OTT Trends

NeuLion Digital Platform

4K Streaming
The arrival of 4K could also boost
OTT distribution of live sports,
according to Chris Wagner, EVP for
Marketplace strategy at NeuLion.
At the beginning of last year, the
company showcased the live stream
of a National Basketball Association
(NBA) match produced in 4K by BT
Sport from the O2 Arena to NBA
executive offices in New York.
However, streaming content in 4K
across continents is not smooth sailing.
The capture, encoding and delivery
are all hurdles to be cleared before
providing 4K on the end user's screen.
"The first challenge of 4K is to send
the larger video through the open
internet," explains Wagner. "Using
HEVC (H.265) compression enables
viable bitrates while still maintaining
the increased quality of 4K. Adding
4K could be an operational nightmare
with yet more formats and variants.
Our use of open and flexible DASH
specifications ensures less format
variants, which leads to operational
efficiency in production and delivery.
We ensure all components in the
stream's journey are compatible."
The tech has made its way into
the sixth version of Neulion's Digital
Platform, released in September,
offering content owners end-to-end
delivery of live and on-demand video
in HD and UHD/4K. The solution uses
technology acquired from DivX last
January and also features ad-insertion
and integration with Freewheel and
Google DoubleClick.

"...Adding 4K could be
an operational nightmare
with yet more formats
and variants"
Chris Wagner
NeuLion

Customers
include
Euroleague
Basketball which is using it to power
Euroleague TV, and the World Surf
League which is moving its live
production into 4K.
In partnership with Discovery
Communications, Piksel has also
developed a delivery solution of
UHD/4K. Design features include
an end-to-end workflow that allows
playback with H.265 encoding to
deliver to Samsung or LG connected
TV apps. This integrates with Piksel
Palette's processing pipeline to enable
streamlined delivery of content across
connected devices.
Quality Evolution
While conflict between TV (payTV
especially) and OTT makes for a good
story, the reality is that a majority
of consumers still find value in both
services. A June 2015 survey (by
CutCableToday), for example, found
that nearly 70% of Netflix users also
subscribe to a payTV service.
The explanation for this is simple:
most consumers still enjoy a mixture
of live/linear and on demand content.
Currently, the only way to satisfy this
twin craving is to subscribe to multiple
suppliers. But that means dealing with
multiple interfaces and a fragmented
viewing experience.
"The potential to unite the
immediacy of live/linear and the
convenience and breadth of OTT
programming in a single, unified
experience is what has segments of
the media industry so excited about
cloud DVR (cDVR), which is quickly
emerging as an enabling technology
for a new and personalised video
consumption experience," says Joe
McGarvey, Director of Marketing,
Imagine Communications. "A secondgeneration of cDVR solutions is now
making it possible for content owners
and aggregators to combine the best
elements of PayTV packages and OTT
offerings into a single service."
Quality, though, remains the

cont'd...

watchword. One in five viewers of
streamed TV will abandon poor
experiences immediately, according to
Conviva's OTT: Beyond Entertainment
Survey Report. It suggests that after
a poor experience of streaming
video, one in five people will never
return to that service, whereas 90%
of respondents choose to return
to services that deliver a superior
experience.
As one of the few companies
with an end-to-end TV Everywhere
solution - from media ingest to
advanced advertising, subscriber
billing and multiscreen CDN Imagine
Communications take this seriously.
The major challenge of offering
a comprehensive cDVR service is
massive storage requirements. But
according to McGarvey that's only the
tip of the storage iceberg.
"To offer a cloud-based video
delivery service that allows subscribers
to consume all of their video from
any device or any location, service
providers must support multiple bit
rates and format options for each
piece of content," he says. "That
means having potentially dozens of
versions of the same programme
always at the ready. On top of that,
current copyright policies require
most content distributors to store a
separate copy of programming for
each subscriber."
The
costs
and
complexities
associated with these massive storage
requirements have prevented content
aggregators from delivering a fully
personalised and affordable new
television experience.
"Recent breakthroughs in storage
optimisation, such as just-in-time
transcoding, are enabling service
providers
to
overcome
these
obstacles," suggests McGarvey. "They
can introduce ground-breaking and
cost-effective video services that unify
the best of pay TV and OTT services
into a seamless viewing
experience."
Operator requirements
begin
with
the
consumer, as a result,
operators
want
to
differentiate themselves
by being the first to
deliver a compelling
mix of live TV and OTT
programming.
ABOX42 believes
it
is
providing

the solid hardware foundation and
the software features to get to this
unique TV proposition with least cost
and effort. It says operators require
a combination of live TV, cloud PVR
services, broadcaster on demand
services (like HbbTV), VOD and a
variety of third party services (like
YouTube). "This is a challenge for
most traditional STB providers, it
says, due to complex and evolving
requirements," it states in offering the
ABOX42 IPTV STB line as the ultimate
answer.
According to Dune HD, the live
TV component can be free-to-air
broadcast, pay TV over managed
access or a combination of both.
Ideally, operators would like to be in
the position to choose any or all of the
four service models identified above.
In fact, this is a must - or else the
operator risks losing relevance, the
STB vendor suggests.
To enable operators to bring the full
range of experiences, they need more
flexibility and security than a basic
streaming video customer premises
device can provide, it argues. In
other words, there's need for a new
generation of 'thin STB' solution.
Dune HD Connect is put forward
as that solution, described as a full
IPTV set-top and IP streaming video
client device with built-in WiFi, in form
factor similar to a USB flash drive. The
company's latest models feature 4K/
UHD and HEVC support. DuneHD Cloud
is its online video platform for VOD
and Live TV.
The latest version of Xstream's
video management system, Xstream
MediaMaker, is available both as a
cloud service and as on-premise operation. Version 8 is a veritable onestop-shop for content owners to get
into OTT and includes tools for video
ingest, management, encryption and
encoding. For instance, it claims to be
the only video management system to
offer "total customisability" and an integrated shop and payment module.

Xstream MediaMaker
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://www.neulion.com/ https://youtu.be/ja_sH1aa3ro
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - January 2016
