DASH

Video: Monetization with Manifest Manipulation

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Manipulating the manifest of streamed video allows localisation of adverts with the option of per-client customisation. This results in better monetisation but also a better way to deal with blackouts and other regulatory or legal restrictions.

Using the fact that most streamed video is delivered by using a playlist which is simply a text file which lists the locations of the many files which contain the video, we see that you could deliver different playlists to clients in different locations – detected via geolocating the IP address. Similarly different ads can be delivered depending on the type of client requesting – phone, tablet, computer etc.

Here, Imagine’s Yuval Fisher starts by reminding us how online streaming typically works using HLS as an example. He then leads us through the possibilities of manifest manipulation. One interesting idea is using this to remove hardware delivering cost savings using the same infrastructure to deliver to both the internet and broadcast. Yuval finshes up with a list of “Dos and Don’ts” to explain the best way to achieve the playlist manipulation.

Sarah Foss rounds off the presentation explaining how manifest manipulation sits at the centre of the rest of the ad-delivery system.

Watch now!

Speaker

Yuval Fisher Yuval Fisher
CTO, Distribution
Imagine Communications.
Sarah Foss Sarah Foss
Former SVP & GM, Ad Tech,
Imagine Communications.

Video: Adaptive Bitrate Algorithms: How They Work

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Streaming on the net relies on delivering video at a bandwidth you can handle. Called ‘Adaptive Bitrate’ or ABR, it’s hardly possible to think of streaming without it. While the idea might seem simple initially – just send several versions of your video – it quickly gets nuanced.

Streaming experts Streamroot take us through how ABR works at Streaming Media East from 2016. While the talk is a few years old, the facts are still the same so this remains a useful talk which not only introduces the topic but goes into detail on how to implement ABR.

The most common streaming format is HLS which relies on the player downloading the video in sections – small files – each representing around 3 to 10 seconds of video. For HLS and similar technologies, the idea is simply to allow the player, when it’s time to download the next part of the video, to choose from a selection of files each with the same video content but each at a different bitrate.

Allowing a player to choose which chunk it downloads means it can adapt to changing network conditions but does imply that each file has contain exactly the same frames of video else there would be a jump when the next file is played. So we have met our first complication. Furthermore, each encoded stream needs to be segmented in the same way and in MPEG, where you can only cut files on I-frame boundaries, it means the encoders need to synchronise their GOP structure giving us our second complication.

These difficulties, many more and Streamroot’s solutions are presented by Erica Beavers and Nikolay Rodionov including experiments and proofs of concept they have carried out to demonstrate the efficacy.

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Speakers

Erica Beavers Erica Beavers
Head of Marketing & Partnerships,
Streamroot
Nikolay Rodionov Nikolay Rodionov
Co-Founder, CPO
Streamroot

Video: CHUNKY MONKEY – using chunked-encoded chunked-transferred CMAF to bring low latency live to very large scale audiences

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones

Will Law from Akamai proves his chunky credentials by telling us how to achieve very low-latency streaming in his talk at Demuxed 2018.

In the jungle of solutions for low latency live streaming, there are many current options ranging from WebRTC, to proprietary UDP protocols to standard segmented media with ever-shortening segments. This session highlights one of these – chunked-encoded chunked-transferred CMAF – as an optimal and practical confluence of both reach and performance. On the technical side, we’ll investigate the underlying technology, the latency regimes possible, compatibility with legacy players, cachability on delivery networks and player behaviour requirements. Including live demonstrations of several streams on a production network. This talk looks at the standards from DVB and MPEG DASH as well as CDN support. As a sweetener, Will points you at open source code on both the encoder and player side for doing this all yourself.

Speaker:

Will Law Will Law
Chief Architect, Media Cloud Engineering
Akamai Technologies

Webinar: Foundational Concepts: Video Compression, Processing and Delivery

Posted on by Russell Trafford-Jones


On demand webinar from AWS Elemental covering some streaming basics.

In this webcast, you will:
• Learn how to create and deliver video over the internet
• Understand video codecs, containers, popular delivery methods and content delivery networks
• Consider methods, including adaptive bitrate streaming, that enable high-quality video to be delivered to a wide range of internet-connected devices
• Learn about the latest trends in video compression and delivery

Increasing smartphone subscriptions and data volumes per subscription are driving rapid growth in mobile data traffic, much of which is video content. According to multiple industry reports, these trends will continue for the near future, and by 2020, 75 percent of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index. Technical and business leaders at organizations that aim to expand offerings using video need to understand the complexities of delivering premium viewing experiences to consumers.

Watch now!