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When it comes to video processing, the biggest story from NAB Show, and indeed the spring trade show season generally, was not the continued progress in HEVC or UHD. Though very important, these were largely anticipated. It was instead the growing interest in the virtualization of video processing, whether that is using on-premise or cloud-hosted compute resources. Most of the major compression vendors made significant announcements to outline their virtualization capabilities. Ericsson unveiled its Ericsson Virtualized Encoding, a unified software solution that can be implemented on processing platforms containing a combination of dedicated programmable hardware, like Ericsson’s video processing chip, in customer premises, and software or GPU-based servers that are on premise or potentially deployed in the cloud. Using a software abstraction layer, the solution is completely task and service-oriented, intelligently allocating encoding resources regardless of where they are, based on the task in hand and on operator priorities such as deployment speed, video quality and output.
At the NAB show, Yves Faroudja and his new startup showed off new technology designed to provide up to 50 percent reduction in video bit rates without reduction in image quality.
The Faroudja's scheme doesn't alter current compression standards (MPEG2, MPEG 4, HEVC). It's rooted in Faroudja's belief that such compression systems aren't using all the available redundancies to improve compression efficiency.
Under the new scheme, Faroudja introduces a new pre-processor (prior to compression) and post-processor (after compression decoding). "We take an image and simplify it; and that simplified image goes through the regular [standards-based] compression process," he explained. "But we never throw away information."
Instead, in parallel with the conventional compression path, Faroudja inserts what he calls a "support layer." This compresses signals not used in Faroudja's so-called simplified image. Together with the decompressed simplified image, the support layer helps reconstruct the original image in full resolution -- at a reduced bit rate.
Faroudja claims "a bit rate reduction of 35% to 50% for an equivalent image quality [and] a significant improvement of the image quality on low bit rate content."
At the conference this year, Adobe is demonstrating major product innovations, including MPEG-DASH and the new ultra high definition television (UHDTV) standard, which will enable media companies to deliver content across 4K enabled SmartTVs and other IP-connected devices. New capabilities in Adobe Primetime include: - Cloud ad insertion offers maximum device scale and enables content monetization on any connected device without requiring client code for ad insertion. The technology supports all TV content and is compatible with HLS to deliver any ad to any viewer on any screen. The existing client-side ad insertion capability, which ensures that broadcasters don’t have to tap into large server capacities to reach large audiences, combined with cloud ad insertion, makes Primetime the industry’s only delivery and format agnostic solution for content monetization. It also offers maximum flexibility and scale for companies that sell TV ads across devices. Primetime cloud ad insertion is available today - 4K support ensures that Primetime customers can deliver the highest resolution content to the latest set of digital home devices allowing consumers to enjoy stunning viewing experiences. Primetime leverages the latest UHDTV hardware capabilities to ensure fully optimized performance. Support for 4K is being previewed at NAB and is expected to ship in 2014 - Primetime 2.0 also offers support for the new MPEG-DASH streaming format in its core video engine layer. Support of the new industry standard gives programmers and operators the flexibility to deliver consistent video experiences across devices using their preferred format. MPEG-DASH support will ship by the end of 2014. - In addition to desktop operating systems, SmartTVs, Android and iOS devices, Primetime 2.0 now supports XBox 360 gaming consoles and Roku devices.
Via DASH Industry Forum
Adaptive Media Streaming over Emerging Protocols 2014 NAB Show Broadcast Engineering Conference April 7, Las Vegas, NV, USA Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christian Timmerer CIO | bitmovin GmbH & Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt christian.timmerer@bitmovin.com blog.timmerer.com
Windows Azure Media Services team is very pleased to announce beta version of Microsoft Smooth Streaming plugin for OSMF with WAMS MPEG-DASH support. Using Smooth Streaming OSMF plugin, you can add Smooth Streaming and Windows Azure Media Services on-demand MPEG-DASH(beta) content playback capabilities to existing OSMF and Strobe Media Playback players and furthermore build rich media experiences for Adobe Flash Player endpoints using Windows Azure Media Services you use today to target Smooth Streaming playback to other devices like Win8 store apps, browser and so on. This version of the Smooth Streaming plugin includes the following capabilities and works with OSMF 2.0 APIs: - On-demand Smooth Streaming/Windows Azure Media Services on-demand MPEG-DASH playback (Play, Pause, Seek, Stop) - Live Smooth Streaming playback (Play) - Live DVR functions (Pause, Seek, DVR Playback, Go-to-Live) - Support for video codecs – H.264 - Support for Audio codecs – AAC - Multiple audio language switching with OSMF built-in APIs - Max playback quality selection with OSMF built-in APIs - This version only supports OSMF 2.0 (...)
Via Guillaume de Lafontaine
At booth SU1210 at the 2014 NAB Show, Harmonic will demonstrate the world’s first end-to-end HEVC solution for delivering live 2160p60 10-bit Ultra HD content. In collaboration with companies including Broadcom Corporation, Sigma Designs, Vigor Systems, and ViXS, the Harmonic broadcast workflow supports the delivery of live, linear playout and VOD Ultra HD content to consumer-grade TVs and set-top boxes (STBs).
Highlights include: - The first consumer-grade demonstration showing live streaming of Ultra HD content, based on Harmonic’s market-leading HEVC encoding technology and the XCode 6400, a 2160p60 10-bit SoC chip from ViXS Systems, used to decode and display live content to a UHDTV via HDMI 2.0.
- An end-to-end solution for delivering 2160p60 Ultra HD VOD content over IP networks featuring Harmonic’s ProMedia® Xpress high-performance transcoder with HEVC support, sent by the WFS™ file-based workflow engine to a MediaGrid shared storage system, and streamed using the ProMedia Origin stream packager and server to consumer devices in the MPEG-DASH format.
- A 2160p60 Ultra HD linear playout workflow featuring Harmonic’s WFS, ProMedia Xpress, and MediaGrid solutions integrated with an Advertio transport stream playout platform from Vigor Systems, to deliver an Ultra HD linear channel.
- An Ultra HD 120-Hz broadcast workflow powered by Harmonic ProMedia Xpress frame-rate upconverted on Sigma Designs’ high-performance and cost-effective 120-Hz Ultra HD TV platform. Sigma Design’s Ultra HD TV platform is comprised of an Ultra HD TV SoC that enables HEVC decoding (STV7603) and an innovative motion judder removal and frame-rate conversion SoC (FRC8000) for providing the best picture quality on large screen displays.
- The first standard-compliant live 4K Ultra HD broadcast workflow, powered by Harmonic ProMedia Xpress transcoding and decoded by Broadcom’s BCM7445 Ultra HD video decoder solution.
NanoTech Entertainment announced today that it has partnered with Ittiam Systems Ltd. to provide NanoTech's Nuvola NP-1 and NP-C consumer and commercial 4K Ultra HD streaming media players with HEVC (H.265) and VP9 support. NanoTech will join Ittiam in providing demonstrations of the newly enhanced players at Ittiam's NAB 2014 Booth SU11021 (Upper South Hall).
The demonstrations will show how Ittiam's Tegra-4 optimized 4K HEVC decoder running on Nuvola can effectively enable anyone with a 3 Mbps or greater pipe to stream 4K content to their Ultra HD TV. NanoTech's own 4K OTT Video Service, UltraFlix, along with the likes of Amazon, Netflix, YouTube and M-GO will all be able to stream amazing quality content to Nuvola customers at lower bit-rates than ever before.
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The DASH Talks, a gathering of DASH supporters, compared notes on the standard's advancement, and highlighted the work being done.
“More important than anything else, DASH enables interoperability,” said Iraj Sodagar, a principal multimedia architect at Microsoft and the DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF) president. “The whole idea of DASH was gathering the best deployed streaming technologies in the market, adding more to it, and creating a standard for interoperability."
THE OFFICIAL DASH TALKS 14 PAGE (with downloadable presentations) IS HERE : http://dashif.org/dash-talks-nab-14/
NAB 2014 wouldn't be the same without Livestream, one of the internet's most popular broadcasting services, introducing new hardware or software. As such, Livestream has just announced another way for users to share video on its site: an application for Google Glass. Obviously, Livestream isn't the first to bring this feature to the wearable set, since you can already use the search giant's own Hangouts app to broadcast what you're seeing.
MPEG-DASH for On-Demand Streaming is now GA Our streaming server team continues to invest in MPEG-DASH across both On-Demand and Live scenarios. Last year we launched our On-Demand DASH preview and contributed reference streams to the DASH-IF site — these enable player development across the ecosystem. We are actively working with contributors (including Microsoft Open Technologies) to the DASH-IF JavaScript player to ensure interoperability of Live streams produced in Media Services with the DASH.js player framework. We are happy to announce that our MPEG-DASH support for on-demand streaming through our streaming origin services is now GA. It is included in the cost of an Origin reserved unit. Live streaming with MPEG-DASH is still in private preview and available only to Live preview customers at this time. OSMF Player Beta with MPEG-DASH Support The Media Services client team is announcing a beta version of a Flash based OSMF plugin with MPEG-DASH support. Using the OSMF plugin, you can add both Smooth Streaming and on-demand MPEG-DASH (beta) content playback capabilities to existing OSMF and Strobe Media Playback players and furthermore build rich media experiences for Adobe Flash Player endpoints using Media Services. The player does not yet support live streaming of DASH content, but we are working on that too. Microsoft Smooth Streaming Client SDK 2.5 with MPEG-DASH Support The PlayReady team, working in conjunction with the Media Services team announced the availability of the Microsoft Smooth Streaming Client 2.5 with MPEG DASH support. This release adds the ability to parse and play MPEG DASH manifests in the Smooth Streaming Media Engine (SSME) to provide a Windows7/Windows8 and MacOS solution using MPEG DASH for on-demand streaming scenarios. Developers that wish to move content libraries to MPEG-DASH now have the option of using DASH in places where Silverlight is supported.
Via DASH Industry Forum
Now Azure Media Services allow you to deliver Http-Live-Streaming (HLS) and Smooth Streams encrypted with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) (using 128-bit encryption keys). Media Services also provides the key delivery service that delivers encryption keys to authorized users.
Azure Media Services also provides a Microsoft PlayReady license delivery service. PlayReady is a full-featured content access protection technology developed my Microsoft that uses Digital Rights Management (DRM). It protects a content media stream during playback by using a license server that provides the decryption key needed to decrypt the media stream. Firstly, you need to pre-encrypt Smooth Streaming file with PlayReady License, by providing us License Acquisition URL, Key ID and Content Key. You could follow this MSDN article to use Azure Media Encryptor to encrypt the Smooth Streaming file. As a output, you could further package the encrypted Smooth Streaming into HLS and DASH (See how here). You could also define how the license could be authorized to your user. Similar to AES dynamic encryption, we enable Token/IP/Open authentication service.
Which platform/devices that PlayReady SDK covers?Azure Media Services can be used to encode, download, or stream Smooth Streaming or MPEG DASH content encrypted with PlayReady. For consuming PlayReady encrypted content, client SDKsand the PlayReady Porting Kit are available under commercial licensing terms. (PlayReady clients for Windows 8.1 Store Apps can be built using the free SDK located HERE). These client-side SDKs are not part of this preview.
Don't get lost in NAB and go straight to the DASH-powered booths! See the map of all DASH products demonstrations, showcased by 25 companies from the DASH Industry Forum. Registrations are still open for the DASH Talks event and the DASH Networking Reception.
Via DASH Industry Forum
Harmonic today announced that its multiscreen transcoding and delivery ecosystem now supports workflows compatible with Adobe Primetime’s ad insertion capabilities, enabling monetization of multiscreen video delivery with Adobe’s state-of-the-art “TV everywhere” platform. The Harmonic Multiscreen Ad Insertion solution includes Harmonic’s ProMedia® Live real-time multiscreen transcoder, ProStream® with ACE® real-time transcoder, ProMedia Origin multiscreen packager and streaming video server, MediaGrid shared storage, as well as the WFS file-based workflow engine, which manages ProMedia Carbon or ProMedia Xpress file-based transcoders to prepare ad content for delivery. This workflow is compatible with the Adobe Primetime platform, which enables pay-TV service providers and broadcasters to insert advertising as well as manage program substitution and blackouts for any device with access to the web.
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