Built to Scale? Why Live Sports Need Multicast ABR and a Video-Specialized CDN

Live streaming is rapidly emerging as the primary destination for major sports events, but not without significant challenges. For sports streamers, three imperatives are emerging as critical priorities: scale more efficiently, reduce operational and environmental costs, and secure content against piracy. All while giving fans the high-quality experiences they demand from investing in multiple premium subscriptions.

Optimizing OTT Experiences: Five Streaming Strategies That Deliver Better QoE

This article explores practical, vendor-neutral strategies that OTT service providers can use to strengthen QoE across the entire delivery chain, from pre-delivery checks and multi-stage monitoring to client-side analytics and emerging innovations in automation and personalization.

Anatomy of a Low-Latency Origin Service

At the core of every streaming workflow is the origin server—the system that receives encoded video segments and playlist files from an encoder and makes them available to the distribution network. The origin acts as the authoritative source for the stream, ensuring that each request from a video player, whether for the latest HLS segment or an updated manifest, is served with accuracy and speed. Its performance directly impacts startup latency, playback stability, and the ability of a stream to scale to millions of concurrent viewers.

Dynamic HDR and the Future of Visual Differentiation

From my work as a media solutions consultant with InterDigital and contributor to the Advanced HDR by Technicolor initiative, I've seen the need for a strategic shift toward dynamic HDR implementations that preserve creative intent, simplify delivery architectures, and future-proof content ecosystems. In this article, I break down the imperatives across four dimensions: strategy, operations, economics, and technology.

Three Emerging Forces That Will Reshape the Content Delivery Space

The content delivery world is getting more complex. The traditional CDN model has splintered, the need for vendor diversity is rising, and user expectations keep inching upward. But it's not all friction. Several emerging technologies and standards are poised to meaningfully improve Quality of Experience (QoE)—not just in a piecemeal way, but across the entire delivery path. Here's a closer look at three forces that will reshape the future of content delivery.

Beyond Broadcast: How Streaming is Reinventing the Live Sports Experience

Success today isn't defined by simple reliability. It's about delivering live sports at broadcast-level speed, enhancing it with personalized viewing options, and orchestrating a broader digital ecosystem that keeps fans connected before, during, and after the game. Streaming isn't a replacement for TV - it's a complete redefinition of what sports media can be.

Challenges of New Encoding Scenarios: Reflections on Measuring Perceived Quality

While VMAF has been a valuable tool for assessing video quality, its limitations highlight the need for complementary metrics or the development of new assessment methods. These new metrics should address VMAF's shortcomings, especially in the context of modern video encoding scenarios that incorporate AI and other advanced techniques. For the best outcomes, a combination of VMAF and other metrics, both full-reference and no-reference, might be necessary to achieve a comprehensive and accurate assessment of video quality in various applications.

The Quest for Greater Efficiency in Video Processing

Viewer demand for high-quality 4K video content has skyrocketed, and there is an expectation that 8K video will also surge in the coming years. However, with increased resolution comes much larger file sizes, which is challenging for media providers because of the increased storage and processing power needed. Naturally, media companies are seeking ways to process video more efficiently. Frank Schönberger of MainConcept explores how content providers and video services leverage technological developments in video compression and AI to improve efficiency at every stage of the broadcast workflow, from the point of capture to delivery to the end user.

Streaming Wars: End-to-End Quality Assurance and Video Analysis Gives Streaming Service Providers the Upper Hand

The battle for audience retention continues to intensify in the highly competitive streaming realm. Anupama Anantharaman of Interra Systems highlights the critical role that end-to-end quality assurance, media QC monitoring, and in-depth video analysis play in meeting the escalating demands of today's video consumers and why the role of these processes is becoming more crucial than ever.

Considerations for Providers Shifting from QAM to IP Video Delivery Networks

Traditional, controlled broadcast environments are being replaced by dynamic, complex ecosystems where multiple applications and services must coexist harmoniously. The challenge is to maintain the quality of a provider's main service, like linear TV with dynamically inserted ads, while accommodating the diverse requirements for and potential interference from third-party applications. Yoann Hinard of Witbe discusses the challenges faced throughout this process, including remote monitoring, dynamic ad insertion, and QC testing across devices.

How Open Caching is Enabling Broadcast-Scalable Streaming Success

Rachel Kahana Samet of Qwilt discusses how open caching enables broadcast-scalable streaming success, especially for live sports broadcasting.

Instant Replay: Streaming Media Connect November 2023

Streaming Media presented its 12th Connect virtual conference November 13 - 16, with media industry cartographer Evan Shapiro as host and MC. Shapiro kicked off the event with a dynamic keynote, digging deep into the Q3 earnings call data to hold the spin doctors accountable and giving an unvarnished view of the industry. Other highlights included The Future of Streaming with Shobana Radhakrishnan, Senior Director of Engineering at Google TV, and several panels covering topics such as Cloud Workflows for Streaming and CTV, Optimizing Live Streams at Scale, How Codec Patent Pools Will Impact Streaming in 2024, Making Live Streaming and VOD More Accessible, Live Streaming Technology Trends, and more.

The Future of CDN Technology: Unlocking the Next Frontier in Video Streaming

The video streaming market is booming, and as video streaming consumption continues to soar, content delivery network (CDN) technology needs to evolve rapidly to keep up. Damien Sterkers of Broadpeak discusses the current challenges with streaming and what measures to take to face them.

Codec Licensing and Web Video Streaming

John C. Simmons, Principal Engineer at John Simmons Consulting, LLC, discusses patent licensing for streaming, which is especially relevant now in light of the recent German court decision in the Broadcom v. Netflix case and Avanci's announced launch of a video streaming patent pool.

Instant Replay: Streaming Media Connect 2023

ICYMI--Streaming Media presented its 11th Connect virtual conference August 22-24, with Evan Shapiro as host and MC, a cracking keynote from NBCUniversal VP Quincy Olatunde, and 12 dynamic panel discussions featuring industry luminaries sharing their expertise on topics ranging from OTT to FAST to generative AI to emerging codecs to edge delivery to streaming at scale and more. The full archived conference is available right here!

Unlocking the Promise of 4K Streaming Through VVC Adoption

Tony Jones of MediaKind discusses the steady adoption rate of Versatile Video Coding (VVC) and its numerous benefits, such as significant cost savings and reduced energy consumption for streaming.

The Build vs. Buy Dilemma: Why Media Companies Are Changing Their Approach

Eric Black of Edgio discusses the "build vs. buy" tech dilemma for media companies launching new streaming platforms and why smaller companies need a good relationship with a trusted partner to take on the system integrator role for complete end-to-end solutions.

If Interoperability Is Worth Doing, it Is Worth Doing Well

By investing in better ways to handle and manage content delivery by IP, organisations can offer greater compatibility instead of locking customers into a proprietary and potentially limiting approach. In the interim, those with IP expertise have a responsibility to ensure interoperability is at the core of decisions that broadcasters are making.

Amazon To Talk Thursday Night Football at Streaming Media West

Streaming Media West returns to Huntington Beach November 15-16, with Streaming Media University Workshops on November 14. Registration is open now.

Blowing the Whistle on Bad Video Quality

The video experience experts at SSIMWAVE compared titles across eight top U.S. streaming services, and the differences in quality were shocking. But what was even more shocking was that none of the services are delivering video at the quality that both subscribers and creatives expect.