Developing for and supporting live streaming events like the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the World Cup require several must-have tools for monitoring, debugging, and identifying and solving problems quickly and effectively. These tools include freeware, open-source solutions, paid products, and some custom tools that RealEyes has developed and shares with the community. This session also discusses some of the “gotchas” and key issues to look for when dealing with major events.

The Alliance for Open Media’s (AOMedia) AV1 codec launched with much ballyhoo at NAB in April 2018, but also with many questions about comparative quality, encoding time, and when the first streams will be deployed by actual services. In this session, AOMedia member Netflix details its comparative results, as well as how and when AV1 was/will be deployed to Netflix viewers.

As more video distribution and consumption mechanisms come online, detailed playback metrics are becoming a video engineer’s go-to tool for validation of platform quality and health. But when quality of experience is key, how can these metrics be used in a way to create timely and actionable solutions to issues? In this presentation, the lead video playback engineer at Vimeo discusses some real-world use cases where utilizing detailed playback metrics led to quickly identifying and solving complex video playback issues.

In this panel discussion, industry experts look at how machine learning is used in video quality measurement, per-title encoding, ABR algorithms, delivery optimization, and more. We include realworld publisher stories of machine learning in action, focused on the actual impact to end users. Attendees get a glimpse of the cutting edge of video technology and take away tactics they can use immediately.

Companies on the cutting edge of video engineering and development share the latest technologies that are pushing the industry forward. Details announced soon!

At Twitch, we have been studying how to move from a single codec (H.264) to multiple codecs to provide our viewers the optimal viewing experience. In this session, we will share our findings about VP9’s suitability for live streaming and the technical and industrial challenges such move involves. We will cover VP9 encoding performance, device and player support, and provide an overview of how the transcoding platform need to change to enable VP9 encoding and delivery at scale. Speaker: Tarek Amara, Senior Video Specialist, Twitch TV/Amazon

The Common Media Application Format (CMAF) has the potential to be the converged media container for HLS, DASH, and other ABR formats to follow. But how soon can companies start to leverage this format and in what ways? This presentation provides an overview of the spec, the benefits, and presents some short case studies that describe how companies are using CMAF today.

Companies on the cutting edge of video engineering and development share the latest technologies that are pushing the industry forward. Details announced soon!

While codecs have been defined for a wide array of video applications, Adaptive Bit Rate characteristics enable significant further performance and quality gains. This session identifies enhancements such as deep profile re-use and fast latency-free live per-scene intelligence to further improve performance and quality in both existing as well as next generation codecs.

HLS and MPEG-DASH are the current standards for HTTP-based live streaming, but these designs are inherently slow and add delays to live feeds. Sub-second latency is critical for scenarios such as gambling, auctions, interactive communications, VR, sports, and gaming. WebRTC is touted for its sub-second latency but couldn’t scale to the volume needed by CDNs and couldn’t reach Apple devices. In this session, learn about a novel WebRTC-based solution that would match current CDNs in terms of reach (all devices), quality, cost, and scale, while providing sub-500 milliseconds latency.

Perhaps one of the more popular use cases for ultra-low latency (ULL) streaming is the live trivia space. With restricted targets that only include smartphones and leave browser dependencies behind, low latency game producers can choose from a range of SDKs for native app streaming capabilities. In this session, learn more about the critical elements needed to successfully pull off predictable and regular broadcasts with cloud-based services.