Successfully stream high-quality near-live content over the Internet can quickly become a near impossible task. Bad network conditions, latency and distance are known to dramatically impair video streaming. Various products and services have been introduced, such as forward error correction over UDP, peer-to-peer distribution and CDNs. However, none provide the same universal quality and "zero-delay" transmission needed for a great experience. Aspera FASPStream is the first open video transport solution capable of live streaming high-quality video globally over commodity Internet networks with low buffering and negligible start-up time. This session will outline how to integrate the Aspera fasp.io software suite with standard RTMP, HLS and DASH workflows on browser, desktop, mobile and set-top box platforms.

The Socionext “Media Cloud” is designed to deliver a 10-fold increase in video server speeds and efficiency, resulting in new levels of server performance and optimal user streaming experience. The initiative integrates a “Sea of Transcoders” for real-time transcoding up to 256 bundles of AVC/ HEVC adaptive bit rate (ABR) streams for a variety of inputs, up to 4Kp60. The dense transcode solution provides maximum server performance for video processing.

Attend this session for your chance to win: GoPro Hero6 Action Camera ($499 value)

Considering Adobe’s recent announcement providing an end of support date for Flash, you need to be ready for a Flash-less world. HTML5 has had plenty of time to play catch up and surpass Flash capabilities—or has it? In this session, learn which transport technologies from HTTP, WebRTC, RTSP, and even RTMP work best, when to use them, and where to put your development dollars for maximum return.Programming in UHD has gone up tenfold, although only a relatively Platforms small amount is still available. More media enterprises are coming online with UHD broadcasts, and standards have arrived to a certain degree, with initial support for content and devices. But we are still far from pervasive UHD-ready facilities and end-to-end workflows. This session cuts through the hype to look at what realistically can be accomplished in UHD today and experiences thus far in deploying UHD. The panelists also cast an eye to the future, with discussion around topics such as live UHD event production and streaming and the potential for high dynamic range (HDR).

Virtual assistants such as Alexa, Google Home, and Siri are quickly moving from niche to mainstream. Streaming audio and video are the cornerstone of a successful skill deployment. This session explores the integration of virtual assistants into the connected home and their non-traditional business model. Attendees will learn about balancing production requirements and return on investment with the potential rewards of tightly integrating their brand into their user's daily routine. Panelists will also share their experiences of managing user expectations while exploring unobtrusive monetization paths.

With the speed of technology today, one of the most important parts of software is adaptability. By taking control of your own encoding and packaging, you can greatly reduce cost and maintain high adaptability and agility to meet your needs now and in the future. When working with cloud encoding, there are several transcoding and packaging options, and the APIs for these options will change over time. We talk about how to build a more dynamic cloud encoder that can use the best tool for a specific job by decoupling the tools from the core application, as well as how to mix and match multiple operations concurrently on a single encoding task. Operations include WebVTT and AAC sidecar manifests, DASH assets, metadata, video quality, and stream muxing/demuxing. This session covers some of the strategies we’ve used to handle dynamic cloud encoding and packaging for live and VOD delivery.

Think you know everything about encoding? Teradek’s Jon Landman thinks otherwise. Dive deeply into the world of hardware codecs, from compression technologies such as HEVC to transport protocols and delivery. If you’re still unsure about joining the cutting edge of IP video before the broader industry, Jon Landman is here to show you the way.

VAST 4.0 represents the first opportunity for a fully integrated, standards-based, server-side ad insertion workflow. Join this sessions to learn how it will impact your workflows and enable you to maximize your revenue by circumventing ad blockers, reaching more devices, and improving viewers' experience.

Attend this session for your chance to win: GoPro Hero Session Camera with Handler Hand Grip and SD card ($230 value)

During the last year, among all the other initiatives on digital, The New York Times invested on reinventing the ingesting and encoding pipeline of their on demand videos. The chosen approach was the built with a set of open source components that leverages cloud services for fast, scalable and reliable encoding jobs. This case study will walk through the new achievements and improvements that were built on the services set, including a thumbnails service for improving the click through rate, closed captions support, on the fly packaging and fragmented MP4's for adaptive streaming formats and analytics integration.

Many content distributors and aggregators still use H.264 as their primary, if not exclusive codec, but the bandwidth savings incident to newer, more powerful codecs are alluring. Those considering a switch must evaluate at least three options; HEVC, VP9, and the Alliance for Open Media’s AV1 codec, which should be close to release by the close of 2017. In this session, codec specialist Jan Ozer evaluates the quality of these codecs and compares them to H.264. Learn how much bandwidth you can save with each and how the newer codecs compare from quality and implementation perspectives.

In this presentation, attendees will learn how NASA and Amazon Web Services engineered a complete, resilient, and repeatable workflow that brought this industry-first event to viewers everywhere using scalable cloud and software enabled workflows. Among the many insights that will be shared: live 4K transcoding in the cloud; the role compression efficiency plays in on-going deep space discovery; overcoming bandwidth constraints on the ISS and on Earth; the implication of cloud-enabled live 4K video streaming for public sector applications in defense, security, first responders, law enforcement, energy and other segments; even how to get an encoder into orbit.

Per-title encoding techniques customize the encoding ladder to match the encoding complexity of the source, saving bandwidth on easy-to-compress videos and ensuring the quality of more complex footage. This session compares the efficiency, implementation issues, and costs of multiple commercially available and open-source alternatives, like Capella Systems Cambria Encoder, compression optimization from multiple vendors, and the alternatives available using Ffmpeg. Learn what per-title encoding is, how the various options work, and which is the best option for you.

Video content today is consumed on a wide variety of devices and the most common approach for reaching all these devices typically involves the creation of a dedicated application containing a dedicated native video player for every platform. While great for their viewers, most of the companies following this approach since discovered that each new device that they support introduces new technical and operational challenges. Although these challenges almost feel inevitable, there is a different approach available in the Universal Video Player, where one video player is used in all applications.

Using a Universal Video Player enables content owners to deliver a high-quality video viewing experience without any of the downsides associated with a native video player approach.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Three bags of Chokotoff Belgian chocolates ($15 value)

Hybrik powers some the largest video operations in the world, including Sony, Vevo, and Technicolor. Hybrik delivers a complete media processing solution including transcoding, quality control, and media analysis. And Hybrik is 90% less expensive than other cloud solutions. Come see why Streaming Media named Hybrik "Best of Show" at NAB!

Attend this session for your chance to win: iPad Mini ($350 value)

How To: Live Streaming Without The Big Price Tag

Although the technology keeps getting easier to use, building end-to-end streaming workflows can still be challenging. In this session, we walk you through installing software and building numerous on-demand and live streaming workflows. Along the way, we cover options and best practices for each step. Applicable scenarios include enterprise video, mobile journalism, sporting events, concerts, education use cases, and many more. You learn about streaming formats and architectures (including on-premises vs. cloud vs. hybrid), plus technologies and solutions for specific needs.