Video Breakthroughs

In this IBC interview, Ramin Farassat, VP of Product Marketing and Business Development at RGB Networks, provides a crisp analysis of where adaptive bit rate streaming could be heading next. It considers the use of just-in-time packaging for multi-screen nPVR and VOD, with its potential to save server storage space, and the inclusion of audio in adaptive streaming so consumers with more bandwidth can jump from stereo to 5.1 surround sound. He also outlines why some operators are conducting friendly trials with ABR set-top boxes, hoping to unify all video infrastructure around IP ABR video.

This white paper explores MistServer, a greenfield initiative by DDVTech BV, The Netherlands-based startup who recently created a lightweight, scalable media server. With a goal of solving significant media delivery problems, MistServer’s design offers benefits over current solutions.

Brains and brawn, just not in the same place. DDVTech’s MistServer is based on a philosophy that a media server should do what it does best: serve audio and video streams. They split the brawn (MistServer) from the brain (MistSteward, MistCenter, or a web control interface).

It's all about DASH: Adoption is moving at a rapid pace, as industry insiders see a strong need to get DASH implemented in the field in the coming year.

The Pantos spec, as it is known in the industry, is a series of working drafts for HLS submitted by two Apple employees as an information draft for the Internet Engineering Task Force. As of the time of this article, the Pantos spec is currently at informational version 10.

Much has changed between the early versions and the most recent v10 draft, but one constant remains: HLS is based on the MPEG-2 Transport Streams (M2TS), has been in use for almost 2 decades, and is deployed widely for varied broadcast and physical media delivery solutions.

In that time frame, however, little has changed for basic M2TS transport stream capabilities. For instance, M2TS still lacks an integrated solution for digital rights management (DRM). As such, all HLS versions cannot use "plain vanilla" M2TS, and even the modified M2TS used by Apple lacks timed-text or closed-captioning features found in more recent fragmented elementary stream streaming formats.

Yet Apple has been making strides in addressing the shortcomings of both M2TS and the early versions of HLS: In recent drafts, the HLS informational draft allows for the use of elementary streams, which are segmented at the time of demand rather than beforehand. This use of elementary streams means that one Achilles' heel of HLS -- the need to store thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of small segments of long-form streaming content -- is now eliminated.

Google, with its Android mobile operating system platform, has adopted HLS for Android OS 4. Some enterprising companies have even gone back and created HLS playback for earlier versions of Android OS-based devices.

Audio sometimes gets lost in the noise of video technology. But what more quickly degrades a viewer’s quality of experience (QoE) than a voice not synchronized with picture or loudness levels that fluctuate wildly between channels? The bottom line upfront: Pay TV operators neglect audio at the peril of losing both eyes and ears of their customers.

One company that agreed with the need for an efficient solution and went through this process of integrating with Dolby is RGB Networks. The driver from RGB’s perspective was ABR streaming to the set-top box, which has audio requirements higher than second-screen devices.

Ramin Farassat, RGB Vice President of Product Marketing and Business Development, said this recent enhancement of Dolby’s technology allows for stereo to run at a low bit rate, and then as network conditions improve, it jumps to 5.1. “If I were doing it with today’s technology, there’s a break,” he said. “With Dolby, it’s a seamless switch.”

Intertrust Technologies Corporation today released Wasabi Express, a standards-based next generation DRM platform for mobile and desktop applications. Wasabi Express together with the Company’s DRM Cloud Services provides a single solution for service providers that want to distribute content using a Marlin DRM-compliant media player.

Service providers, technology solutions providers and developers using Wasabi Express will have access to technologies that enable them to implement new content distribution business models for delivering over-the-top content to mobile and PC platforms. Wasabi Express offers extensive support for download and adaptive streaming media distribution models (including MPEG-DASH and HLS). It also enables content portability and compatibility with other Marlin clients and services.

Wasabi Express is protected by tamper resistance technology from Intertrust’s whiteCryption subsidiary.

Additional details on Wasabi Express are available at: http://www.intertrust.com/solutions/wasabi_express

Video service providers have become enamored of adaptive bit rate streaming as a way to deliver video to tablets and smartphones, but not everyone believes the technology will become the primary way video is delivered to the home.

HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) "is not ready for primetime TV," declared Pieter Liefooghe, chief solution architect and solution line manager at the video solutions and integration organization of Alcatel-Lucent, during a panel on the topic at last week's Managing & Monetizing OTT Video event in Boston. HAS is "okay for a single-stream, OTT-style of service, but as a basis of a primetime TV service, it's a challenging proposition," he added.

But this doesn't mean HAS will never be suitable for primetime TV, as the shortcomings identified by Liefooghe relate to "out-of-the-box" HAS technology. He said, for example, that AlcaLu has identified some technologies and techniques that can be done on the routing platform and the content delivery network (CDN) to boost HAS performance enough to address some of its technical shortcomings. And he insisted there are ways to pare delays down to six seconds while still guaranteeing continuous playback.

"There's a future for HAS as the new RTP," Liefooghe concluded.