Review: Media Excel HERO 6000

This review will highlight Media Excel's HERO 6000 and walk readers through the process of configuring streaming using the HERO platform. You'll learn how to deliver live streams, create encoding presets, add audio presets, create channels, and add outputs for playback. The article will also cover how to add roles and play streams.

Presenting… The 2025 Streaming Media Top 100

Here we reveal the 2025 Streaming Media Top 100, our list (appropriately enough) of the top 100 companies in the streaming universe outside of Europe. This list complements the 2025 Streaming Media Europe 51, which acclaims Europe's key streaming innovators and high achievers.

Mining for Riches in the Niches: Dynamic Approaches for Targeted Growth

What does niche streaming mean in 2025? With the vast abundance of content available to TV audiences, how can niche programming be targeted adequately toward specific audiences, and what are some of the best ways these audiences can discover that content?

AI's Streaming Stack: Meet the Media Workflows

How has AI entered the media workflow? For this new column, we'll look at different applications used in the media industry. For this issue, we'll start with asset management, asset storefronts, and localization. While some of this functionality—speech-to-text transcription, translation, voice synthesis, natural language processing, logo detection, facial recognition, and object detection—has been around for a while, the biggest improvement is that much of it is now available on workflows with live content.

Litigating and Monetizing Content Licensing to LLMs

Licensing data to LLMs is a potential revenue stream for streamers much like advertising on CTV platforms: it is an opportunity that didn't exist until recently that has the potential to deliver dividends for years to come. But as with CTV advertising, its viability and profitability won't happen overnight.

5G Without the Hype: Taking Control of Live Sports Production

For years, 5G has been sold as the technology that would transform live broadcasting. Network slicing, guaranteed quality of service, zero latency—all promised, few delivered. What's really changing the game now isn't another operator trial. It's private 5G, giving broadcasters the ability to design, deploy, and control the network themselves.

Losing the Feed, but Owning the Story

For decades, broadcasters were the heartbeat of live sports. They owned the feed, shaped the story, and set the standard. But today, that control is slipping, not because audiences have abandoned them, but because the definition of "live" has changed.

AWS GM of M&E Samira Panah Bakhtiar Talks Gen AI and Interactive Sports Streaming

In this Q&A, Samira Panah Bakhtiar, Amazon Web Services (AWS) general manager of me­­dia, entertainment, games, and sports, talks about how AWS and agentic AI are changing the ways streaming workflows are executed. In her interview, she spoke both to the business side of the house and the underlying tech.

Leveraging AI in OTT and CTV Content Discovery

In this article, experts from key streaming vendors weigh in on both the benefits and drawbacks of leveraging AI in OTT and CTV content discovery while speculating on how it will impact the future of personalization. Various methods of filtering make AI recommendations fully transparent to users, ensuring that personalization does not become too rigid for them, and advancements in IP distribution are among the many issues under consideration in this evolving field.

Industry Champions Revealed: The 2025 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

The readers have spoken! Here we present 19 top tech solutions of 2025, as chosen by the readers of Streaming Media .

AI and Adtech in Operation

With an eye to providing more insight into real-world deployments and the operational side, online adtech firm Magnite volunteered to give me insight into how AI fits into their current operational processes.

The Multiview Imperative: How Technical Architecture Determines Streaming Success

The largely unsung hero in YouTube's growth may be a feature that cost the company 99% less to implement than Sunday Ticket: multiview streaming capability. As this article shows, if you're broadcasting sports, multiview--particularly Build Your Own Multiview (BYOMV)--is quickly becoming an expected feature among sophisticated viewers. It's also one of the most affordable and effective ways to amplify the value of your programming, particularly when your content isn't exclusive and faces direct competition in the same market.

Q&A: Globo Director of Product & Engineering Igor Maciel Macaubas Talks Content Delivery, Discovery, and Build vs. Buy

In this wide-ranging conversation with Globo Director of Product & Engineering for Digital Products Igor Maciel Macaubas, we discussed Grupo Globo digital products that deliver content at scale monthly to 90 million unique Brazilian viewers.

How the Gen Z Playbook Is Reshaping Next-Gen Sports Streaming

Going 'round the horn with a handful of strategically positioned industry players reveals a range of emerging strategies in play for attracting and holding the interest of Gen Z sports fans, including building interactive experiences, emphasizing player-centric fandom, and embracing gaming and social media-based fan communities.

Producing Seamless Multi-Lingual Live Streams: A Practical Guide for Independent Producers

In this article, I'll walk you through a practical workflow for producing multilingual live streams with real-time translation—a solution that's often simpler than managing a complex hybrid event.

Review: YoloLiv YoloBox Extreme

YoloBox, an Android-based tablet with live production software and hardware-based connectivity, marries the capabilities of software, the I/O of hardware, and the portability of a tablet. The all-in-one tablet-based streaming solution market also has entries from Magewell (Director and Director One) and Cinetreak. YoloLiv is not only the pioneer in this segment; it also offers the most diverse solutions, from the single-input Mini to the new device I'll be looking at here, the eight-input Extreme.

Review: Meta's Video Codec Acid Test (VCAT)

Identifying which phones can handle AV1 decode is the goal of Meta's new VCAT testing tool, for Video Codec Acid Test, which is both the brainchild and the swan song of encoding legend David Ronca. In short, VCAT is an Android app for benchmarking battery drain and system health during HW/SW video decode operations on Android devices.

Q&A: Google's Shalini Govil-Pai Talks the Future of Android TV

In this interview with Streaming Media's Nadine Krefetz, Google VP & General Manager Shalini Govil-Pai discusses ongoing developments at Google TV, the state and future of streaming, and the growing impact of AI on streaming recommendations, user experiences, and monetization.

The Smart Set: OEMs, OS Wars, and the New CTV Playing Field

How are the OEM and OS battles changing the way TV is marketed and distributed, from live linear to FAST, AVOD, and all other forms of free streaming? Are we heading toward a closed society in terms of CTV, as the worldwide competition for control of TV interfaces continues and dominant OEMs consolidate their power as content gatekeepers? In this article, several leading industry figures weigh in on these questions, offer insight about what is at stake for providers and users, and discuss the current CTV landscape.

The Pros and Cons of Software Decoding for Publishers and Viewers

This article examines recent data on efficiency and power usage for hardware and software decoding and explores how this data shapes the value proposition for publishers opting for software decoding and viewers that wittingly, or unwittingly, watch services that deploy it. It concludes with two short surveys for publishers and consumers that ask for your perspective on and experience with software decoding. Be sure to take the surveys!