Posts for 'Live Streaming'

Traditionally most online video has been on-demand, but recently that has begun to change with more live events delivered online all the time. The trend has been driven primarily by sports, news and music, but other categories like entertainment are also following along.

For content providers, live presents numerous new workflow complexities vs. on-demand in areas such as encoding, ad insertion, stream management, metadata, device support, etc. To address this complexity and try to streamline workflows, thePlatform is today introducing a single web-based console in its mpx platform that can handle key tasks including signal acquisition and encoding via an integration with Elemental (so encoding can be managed within the console), dynamic ad insertion and metadata creation plus archiving to VOD for replays.

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LiveU, which pioneered the bonding of cellular broadband cards to enable flexible live mobile broadcasting, has gained a huge following among TV networks and stations. Now it has introduced a new, even lighter-weight backpack unit that enables any content provider - no matter how small - to affordably become a live mobile broadcaster.  

At the recent NABShow, Ken Zamkow, director of sales and marketing for LiveU, brought one of the new backpacks, the LU40-2 ("LU40 squared") by the VideoNuze booth and showed it off. It weighs less than 10 pounds and is very compact, allowing up to 13 cellular channels and controllable through a smartphone interface.

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At the NABShow last week I did a short video interview with Albert Lai, Brightcove's CTO for Media and Broadcast. In the interview, Albert explained Brightcove's expanded TV Everywhere integrations with Adobe Pass and Akamai's Sola Vision Identity Services.

It's well understood that if content providers are to distribute to multiple devices via TV Everywhere, security and authentication are paramount. By integrating with Adobe and Akamai, Brightcove is trying to provide its content customers with multiple authentication choices depending on their preferences, helping reduce friction in TVE rollouts.

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I'm pleased to present the 175th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week Colin and I attended NABShow 2013 in Las Vegas, where we had a booth and recorded 20+ video interviews with industry executives, which we'll post over the next couple of weeks.

Through the interviews and other on-site discussion, we came away with a number of observations, which we share today. We focus specifically on the trend toward live event / live linear streaming, what's coming up with HEVC encoding and whether 4K TV will fly. All of these were omnipresent topics/questions at NABShow.

Listen in to learn more!

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Live video events have become a big business, as brands, sports leagues, music promoters, and others have come to realize their huge audience appeal can drive engagement and monetization. But planning and executing a high-profile live streaming event isn't easy, with multiple technologies required to work together for the kind of flawless delivery that viewers expect.

Given these opportunities and challenges, former AEG Digital Media executives John Petrocelli and Josh Lennox have joined forces to launch a new firm, Bulldog Digital Media, which will facilitate clients' live video content strategies and monetization across multiple platforms. I've known John and Josh from their AEG Digital days and last week I caught up with both.

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LiveU, which pioneered live video streaming over cellular connections, is on a huge roll, now serving 500+ broadcasters in 70 countries worldwide, according to COO and co-founder Avi Cohen, whom I spoke to yesterday. Given that growth, it's no surprise that the company raised another $27 million earlier this week, a noteworthy round given current market conditions.

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I'm pleased to present the 155th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, senior analyst at The Diffusion Group, who joins from London. First up this week, we discuss AOL's video success and the larger concept of video syndication. Earlier this week, AOL revealed that its video revenues jumped from $10 million 2 years ago to $100 million in 2012, largely due to syndication. Colin and I dig into why syndication is so compelling and what's ahead.

Next up, Colin shares insights he gained from a presentation at the OTTTv World Summit in London by Marina Kalkanis, Head of the BBC's Programmes OnDemand Core Services team, which is responsible for the media and metadata services supporting BBC online. Marina's team oversaw BBC's online simulcast and on demand streaming of the London Olympics.

Colin was impressed by the scale of the BBC's Olympics operation and how video was consumed online and on mobile devices. One key takeaway - BBC found online/mobile complimenting linear TV, similar to NBC's experience in the U.S.

Click here to listen to the podcast (20 minutes, 11 seconds)

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The VideoNuze-TDG podcast is available in iTunes...subscribe today!

Yesterday marked another milestone in online video's continuing evolution as 8 million concurrent live streams of Felix Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos Mission were delivered (note that's according to YouTube, but has not yet been independently verified). I was one of those live streams, gathered with my family around my Mac watching the jump unfold on YouTube in full screen mode.

I figured a lot of people were also watching, so what really hit me was the quality of the stream - no buffering, no audio/video synch issues, no pixelation, nothing. Just a seamless high-quality feed for the full hour we watched. In my experience, that would be noteworthy even if only a small audience was tuned in and it was on-demand. The fact that it was done with 8M live concurrent streams seems quite significant.

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At the recent NABShow, OriginDigital's CEO Darcy Lorincz stopped by the VideoNuze booth for an interview. Origin is now part of Accenture and as Darcy explains, remains very focused on powering live events over its network. Last year, it was responsible for 14,000 live sports, news and corporate events.

Darcy discusses how important moving its platform to the cloud has been in enabling it to scale up to support so many events. In addition to scale, clients have benefitted from increased reach into new international markets and more cost-effective transcoding. Darcy also describes a new concept called "Virtual Linear" whereby VOD assets assembled into a linear experience for viewers, with non-skippable ads inserted in real-time. This has helped bring video libraries to life. See video below (7 minutes, 22 seconds)

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In another milestone for online video's evolution, independent online studio My Damn Channel is announcing today "My Damn Channel LIVE," a live daily comedy show. The show will be featured on My Damn Channel's web site and on its new YouTube channel. It will be streamed at 4pm ET starting a week from today and will be hosted by Beth Hoyt, an up and coming actor/writer/comedian.

The show is envisioned as a late-night talk show, but updated for all the elements that online offers. The format will include celebrity interviews, interaction with viewers, promotion of other My Damn Channel comedy shows and engagement with talent from other YouTube channels. Viewers will also be able to catch up on the show on demand.

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