I have touched those points many times in the last 8 years in several projects (optimization of encoding pipelines and/or codecs, optimization of streaming protocols and servers, optimization of players) or during conferences (see Adobe Max 2009 / 2010 / 2011) and I’ve made “online video optimization” one of my distictive competencies. Playback optimizations (Reliability of streaming, start time, other aspect of QoE) ABR streaming optimizations (Robustness of distribution)ģ. The points to be optimized are many but, in my opinion, the three more important are:ġ. It’s up to us to untangle the skein and fulfill those expectations. It’s a tangle of codecs, streaming protocols, multiple DRMs and CDNs, advertising, interactions flows, personalized experieces and so on.Īt the end of the story, users want the max possible quality through out the video, a fast start and zero rebuffering on every screen. But we know that behind-the-scenes there’s a lot of work to do to maximize that user experience. Users push the play button and want only to watch their preferite video flowlessly. If it’s clear what are the reasons to invest in streaming optimization on the other hand it’s not so easy to find the right way(s) to accomplish it. Source: Conviva CSR2015 -How Consumers Judge Their Viewing Experience
In this scenario optimization of streaming is becoming a key technological factor to differentiate a service from competitors, increase the satisfaction / retention and reduce costs. It cannot simply “work”, user expectations are constantly growing and it’s increasingly harder to engage users (see graph below). Simply put: If it worked it was enough.īut now things have changed. Like any business in its early stages it was more important to place on the market the right product (and then find a viable business model before running out of money) than anything else including optimization of QoE. Infact, until very recently, no one really cared about video optimization. The pressure of competition is now really high and this will bring many benefits to end users on many fronts, even that of QoE’s optimization. It is a multi-billion business ran not only by giants tech companies like Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, Vevo, but also by a multitude of traditional broadcasters (BBC, HBO, Sky just to name a few) with their regional OTT services. We can say that nowadays online video has entered a phase of maturity. The ride of online video has been so intense that today the traffic generated by video is more than 70% of the total Internet traffic, orders of magnitude higher than 10 years ago (and still growing…). Recently Dan Rayburn has published a blog post about the early history of the streaming media industry, an “era” (1995-2005) where pioneers started experimenting codecs, products and models for the distribution of video over the Internet.īut it’s only with the launch of Youtube (2005-2006) that online video started a really tumultuos growth to become the preminent portion of global IP traffic. Over the last decade the consumption of online video has undergone an exponential growth, but online video is as old as the Internet itself. Online Video: infancy, youth and maturity
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