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Christopher Alvarado Sr. is a Global Account Executive for BaishanCloud North America. Chris has held Senior Sales and management positions for industry leaders for over 25 years, with extensive experience in securing strategic partnerships, building and leading high-technology sales organizations, and securing partnerships on a global basis.
Here’re insights from Chris about cross-border streaming content delivery international trade association for Broadcast and Media technology suppliers.
Adoption Trends: Cloud
Updated September 2021
IABM Adoption Trends reports annually track the adoption of specific emerging technologies within the broadcast and media sector. The purpose of these reports is to enable member companies to better understand what is driving the adoption of emerging technologies within customer organizations. This will provide member companies more insight to better address the challenges lying ahead, from new product development to marketing strategy. These reports contain a discussion on the state of adoption of a specific emerging technology in broadcast and media, as well as an analysis of significant customer deployments.
The previous version of this report, supported by Net Insight, can be found here.
Access the interactive version of this report below or click here to download the PDF version.
Anyone else feel like they’ve been on a whitewater raft the past year and a half? Constantly trying to read the current and watch out for the rocks and waterfalls? It seems that turbulent times have become the new normal, and all types of businesses, large and small, around the world have had to make changes to survive.
And, of course, for other businesses, these rocky times have created a wealth of opportunity. That is certainly the case for those that create, own or stream digital video entertainment. It has been fascinating to see how quickly people pivoted and how the streaming business has exploded now that a hot date with your television has become the safest bet in town.
In my own professional pandemic pivot, I moved from the storage industry into the world of codec technology. As part of my new job, I get to play producer for our webinars and a new little conversational gathering we’ve named “Coffee & Codecs.” In our Coffee & Codecs series, we aim to explore issues in business and technology with various industry leaders. So, for our maiden voyage, we will be talking about the recent change we’ve seen with some of our own leaders: Deacon Johnson, SVP of Technology Licensing & Strategy, Nick Otto, Director of Product Management, and our series host, Geoff Gordon, VP of Marketing.
This Thursday, September 16 at 9am PT, I hope you will join us for a lively discussion about:
A flexible and scalable stream hub
M2A Connect allows video streams to be acquired, aggregated, transformed and distributed through a simple console or API control.
M2A Connect enables Content Owners, Broadcasters and Streamers to easily manage their live output to customers, syndication partners, regional headends, or any platform. It also enables any entitled takers to flexibly manage their subscriptiondefined video streams in real time or through scheduling.
Already making full use of M2A Media’s cloud-based M2A LIVE solution to capture, package and deliver its late and live content (such as flagship programme, Channel 4 News and tier 1 sporting events), UK public service broadcaster, Channel 4, was looking for a solution to process and publish a back catalogue of 20,000 hours to all platforms under the All4 brand. M2A VOD was chosen by the UK broadcaster, based on the product’s technical agility, accuracy and operational efficiency.
DAZN is the world’s first truly dedicated live sports streaming service, providing fans with unlimited access to watch the widest array of live and ondemand sport on virtually any internet-connected devices; including desktop, tablet, smartphone, smart TV or games console. Events can be watched live or on demand, or in highlights packages. DAZN uses M2A LIVE to deliver low latency, low buffering, high quality video to ensure the excellent streaming service that its subscribers have come to expect.
DAZN launched in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Japan in 2016, Canada in 2017, Italy and U.S. in 2018 and Spain and Brazil in 2019. In 2020, DAZN expanded to more than 200 countries and territories, reinforcing the commitment to becoming a global sports destination platform.
ITV, the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster, delivers a wide variety of content on its family of freeto-air channels, through linear television broadcasting, as well as on-demand via the ITV Hub and other platforms globally. Home to marquee shows such as Love Island, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and the X Factor; ITV chose M2A CAPTURE to enable the accelerated delivery of live programmes to catch-up and on-demand platforms, including ITV Hub, and third party platforms such as Sky, Virgin and Amazon.
Primarily funded by television advertising revenue, ITV has the largest share of the UK television advertising market, with a share of broadcast (SOB) of 47.6% in 2017. It’s channels attracted a total share of viewing (SOV) of 21.7% in 2017, the largest audience of any UK commercial broadcaster.
With international fans and families unable to attend the Olympics in Tokyo due to COVID-19, journalists covering the action and storylines are more vital than ever. Reporters Aaron Nolan, Lex Gray and latakoo’s Erin Cargile walk us through their long and exciting days at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Get a chance to learn how great stories are put together. In this first episode, we hear about the historic, first, wall-to-wall HD coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the challenges faced by journalists Will Wright, Dave Barker and latakoo co-founder Jade Kurian.
Health IT leader helps clients implement the latest software innovations with fast, secure downloads
Headquartered in North Kansas City, Missouri, Cerner Corporation has worked at the intersection of healthcare and information technology to connect people and systems around the world for 40+ years. Their mission is to relentlessly seek breakthrough innovation that will shape the healthcare of tomorrow.
Transferring Software Updates Was Slow Going
Cerner develops and installs a wide range of innovative software and technology solutions for hospitals and healthcare networks around the globe. It’s critical for these organizations to have access to the latest software upgrades and enhancements to keep their trusted systems secure and running the latest feature sets that support all aspects of patient care.
To make this happen, the Cerner IT team manages downloads for a variety of solutions that client can select from the client distributions web portal. The latest Healthcare content and terminologies are a popular option as are new feature packages for various software systems, some containing evolving procedures related to COVID-19.
The catch? These downloads typically involve some large file sizes, many exceeding 1GB in size. This was making them cumbersome not only for the Cerner IT team to upload to the client web portal, but also for clients to download without excessive wait times and frustration.
Streamlining the Process with Secure File Acceleration
The team selected FileCatalyst TransferAgent to accelerate the transfer of these large files. The files are secured with the latest encryption standards in transit and at rest. “Now the level of security we have within transfers ensures clients feel comfortable there are no bad actors coming into the plan because data is encrypted,” said Alan Shelley, Software Development Manager, Cerner.
Preventing Download Restarts
One important feature of FileCatalyst is it can retry the network connection without restarting the transfer from square one if it loses a packet during transmission. Without this feature the network could time out and the file transfer would start over, causing an aggravating—and potentially lengthy—cycle for all involved. “Life before FileCatalyst ended up being a lot of client complaints due to hiccups in transferring packages. It was frustrating for end users,” Shelley said.
Achieving Flexibility in Transfer Protocols
Although there are many line speed variables affecting client-side downloads, FileCatalyst can run seamlessly using multiple transfer protocols to give clients flexibility “We have clients with ultra-secure networks that can’t use our first level protocol,” said Matt Hudgins, Scrum Master, Cerner. “The great thing about FileCatalyst is if the first level doesn’t work, it will automatically fail over to second and third protocols.” This automatic adjustment helps prevent transfer errors and delays.
Supporting Patient Care with Efficient System Updates
The metrics for 2020 are impressive: Clients used the portal to download 98,000 software bundles using FileCatalyst. This means healthcare leaders around the world are enhancing their Cerner solutions rapidly with new capabilities that will help them deliver top-notch patient care.