An Optimized Playback Experience is Crucial to Viewers

The player is the most important contact point for viewing experience, and is also integral to effective monetization and other commercial factors.

— Dr. Yang Cai, CEO VisualOn

The rapid development of streaming services worldwide tends to be dominated by discussions around content. Asking questions such as, who is producing it and how it’s being consumed. But in the understandable excitement around these new platforms and services, it’s clear that some key technical issues have been overlooked – none more so than the role of video players.

The current generation of streaming services is often being undermined by poorly performing video players. But luckily, more and more streaming service providers are realizing the importance of optimizing the performance and capabilities of the video player. “There has been a tendency towards de-valuing the role of the video player with commoditized options and vendors that throw in players as a value-add,” says Cai. “This short-sighted perspective on the impact of the player can have a negative impact on the cross-platform functionality and viewing experience for advanced and growing services.”

As streaming has developed, so has the company’s portfolio of solutions geared towards optimizing the impact of the video player across all devices. Cai notes: “The most immediate and tangible way for a service to make an impression on subscribers is through the playback experience. Instead of being an afterthought, the playback experience must be optimally designed to match the goals for consumer usage. So what we have focused on doing is creating an unparalleled portfolio of playback solutions able to play any content reliably on any device.”

Support New Ways to Engage with Video Content

MultiStream Sync, with features to allow viewers to select multiple camera angles, has been quickly deployed in the past three years. It has been devised to optimize the experience regardless of device or platform: as well as adjusting to various conditions – including network speed or device capability – to deliver low latency streams, it provides frame-accurate video and audio synchronization across devices. The solution provides a revolutionized viewer experience and helps clearly articulate the value of premium services.

To date, the enhanced volumetric video solution applies multistream to three-dimensional space. The solution enables viewers to switch between camera angles while the video is playing with no delay and buffering. It brings a new level of interactivity to the viewer, meaning viewers can decide when and what to watch, and it is evident that this has great potential to increase engagement among users.

More streaming solutions designed to change the way viewers engage with video content. And co-watching is one of them. It allows viewers to enjoy real-time text, audio and video chat while watching live and VoD with friends and family. Although the pandemic accelerated the use of co-watching applications due to restrictions on gatherings, co-watching will remain a part of viewing behavior after the pandemic.

Cai suggests that co-watching will become even more mainstream as the number of innovative use-cases for the technology continues to proliferate. He gives several examples: “The technology could be used for sports or esports events, musical, or cultural events. You could watch a movie with the director, and while you’re watching they can make comments and tell stories about shooting the movie.”

VisualOn WatchParty empowers viewers to interact in real-time with celebs, musicians, commentators, etc.

Bandwidth Saving While Maintaining the Video Quality

5G will ultimately have a transformative effect on the quality and capability of video services, which means increased bandwidth and very low latency, and that means operators have the opportunity to support ultra-high resolutions, high frame-rates, immersiveness and interactivity.

Improving the quality of the viewing experience (QoE) is very important for operators, such as OTT video service providers. QoE is related to the quality of the video and smooth playback. While the video quality is increasing with the adoption of high-resolution videos such as high definition (HD) and ultra-high definition/4K, the volume of video data is also growing, and the cost of bandwidth and CDN transfers associated with video consumption is increasing every year.

However, the headwinds are making it difficult to grow in 2023 and operators are looking for ways to save streaming costs. Thus, for video delivery service providers, reducing the cost of bandwidth and CDN transfer, while maintaining or improving the quality of the viewing experience is a critical issue that must be addressed in order to maximize profits.

Nowadays, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are increasingly being applied to perfect the streaming service and increase the delivery efficiency. Video compression software leverages AI and ML to automate video compression. An ML-based algorithm that efficiently, automatically and optimally configures the encoder to achieve best results based on the input contents.

Deploying and maintaining high-quality video services can be frustrating and cumbersome. It requires significant testing and troubleshooting to discover what is causing playback issues before you can even start to debug and qualify devices and streams. ML-powered automation tools can be used to pinpoint the exact moment when an issue occurs, and flag potential problems before they happen. It analyzes where rebuffering, frame drops or other errors occurred and marks those events for analysis and testing.

We are still at the early stage applying AI and ML to video streaming, especially live video streaming. Classifying, recognizing objects, and recognizing faces are tasks that AI and ML should manage in the future, which can help solve problems, from protecting privacy to improving the quality of user experience.

Monetization Strategies for Targeted TV Advertising

By Anda Tanchuma, Senior Product Manager at Viaccess-Orca

As pay-TV operators and service providers look to boost their monetization, targeted TV advertising is gaining significant traction. Even Netflix has surrendered to the trend, joining the rest of the other streaming giants in the AVOD world by launching its own advertising tier.

AI-driven targeted advertising, in particular, is an effective way to improve TV monetization for operators and service providers, while alleviating reliance on legacy, controversial, and third-party data-based targeting techniques. By leveraging an AI/ML-based approach to targeted advertising, and by monitoring the TV user experience, operators can tap into new revenue streams.

The Case for Targeted TV Advertising

Recent research shows substantial growth in the SVOD market. Global SVOD subscriptions will increase from 1.21 billion in 2021 to reach 1.68 billion by 2027, an impressive growth of 39%. Global revenues, meanwhile, will reach $132 billion.

While global consumption of SVOD services rises, growth is even higher in the AVOD space. According to Statista, AVOD spending in the U.S. is set to surge in the next few years, and surpass $24.2 billion by 2025, as new services are launched domestically and internationally. The pivot toward AVOD will have a significant impact around the world, opening up additional monetization avenues for operators and service providers.

Must-Have Targeted TV Advertising Features

Targeted TV advertising provides operators with a foundation for content monetization, but its success relies on attaining valuable, in-depth insights into viewers’ behaviors and preferences.

Using AI/ML-based targeted TV advertising techniques, pay-TV operators and service providers can accurately segment audiences based on viewing interests, household composition, life moment events, demographics, and more, to drive higher engagement, increase viewing time, and maximize revenues.

So, what key features should operators look for in a targeted TV advertising solution?

It is imperative that the solution supports all platforms, devices, operating systems, content forms (i.e., VOD, linear, time-shift TV), viewer touchpoints, delivery methods (i.e., IPTV, OTT, cable, DTH, DVB), and a diverse range of ad types. This will ensure that operators and service providers can reach as many viewers as possible and, in turn, effectively increase their revenues.

Leveraging advanced data analytics is also key to the success of targeted TV advertising (see Fig. 1). By leveraging usage data, operators and service providers can create personalized recommendations to drive higher engagement and increase viewing time. Data analytics facilitates far more opportunities to display ads and a higher revenue potential. In addition, the same usage data can be leveraged to make a unique set of profiles and household segmentations, improving campaign targeting by matching every ad with the desired audience.

Figure 1: Operators can better understand the composition of households with AI-based data analytics and insights.

Another important aspect of targeted TV advertising is maintaining compliance with regulations and keeping operators’ data safe. For instance, in many European countries General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) must be considered. By putting into place a consent management system operators can ensure that only the users who have given their consent will receive targeted ads. This doesn’t mean that other users don’t get ads. They will still receive ads aimed at general audiences or contextual targeting ads, targeting the content they are consuming while the ads are being displayed. However, their personal data and viewing habits cannot be used to associate them to viewer segments.

When it comes to data privacy, it is vital for operators to keep their data in a walled garden. This will ensure that operators’ segments cannot be targeted by third-party vendors. Data is valuable, and only operators should benefit from it.

Implementing AI/ML-Based Targeted TV Advertising

Utilizing AI/ML for audience segmentation is a multi-phased process. Operators can start small and then expand as required. For instance, operators and service providers can begin serving ads based on geolocation. With this approach, AI and ML techniques are utilized to accurately extract data from viewers watching content on the go, sharing credentials, and moving between addresses.

The next step might involve offering usage-based targeted advertising based on viewers’ specific viewing history. This approach allows advertisers to either target or exclude certain individuals, based on their prior exposure to a certain campaign.

Eventually, operators can build up to granular segmentation. With this method of targeted TV advertising, operators use ML to establish viewer segments with exceptional granularity. Granular segmentation empowers advertisers to deliver a different targeted ad to a highly relevant audience that has been segmented by viewing history. A simple way for operators and service providers to adopt granular segmentation is through banner ads and animated gifs that are inexpensive to produce but highly effective thanks to the use of AI and ML.

Improving Monetization With User Experience Monitoring

When implementing targeted TV advertising, it is imperative that service providers ensure and maintain an outstanding quality. A poor-quality ad will create viewer dissatisfaction, churn, and a decrease in the ARPU. However, delivering high-quality targeted TV advertising can be challenging given the complexity of the technical architecture for video streaming. There are many different software and network components involved in video streaming, making it difficult for operators and service providers to understand where quality of experience and quality of service issues are happening.

By monitoring the TV user experience on subscribers’ connected devices — including smartphones, tablets, PCs, set-top boxes, and smart TVs — operators and service providers can gain insights into how end users are experiencing playback on their video streaming services, including targeted TV ads. Having real-time access to critical data allows operators to see video streaming issues from the subscribers’ perspective and, in turn, make appropriate UX improvements.

Some of the critical data points that need to be collected include video start failure, time taken to start the playback, rebuffering, playback error, stream quality, what version of the application viewers are running, the CDN being used, video resolution, zapping time, network bandwidth compared with player bandwidth, and more.

Once the data is collected, comprehension is essential; operators must be able to rapidly interpret data. Moreover, most operators today are delivering video streaming services to a massive volume of viewers and devices, meaning scalability can become an issue as they are accumulating a significant amount of data. However, with a cloud SaaS solution, operators can effectively scale up their service to address surges in demand.

Conclusion

With billions of potential revenues available, now is the time to embrace targeted TV advertising. Leveraging the latest AI-based data analytics and UX monitoring techniques, operators can deliver targeted TV ads that improve viewer engagement, reduce churn, extend subscriber viewing times, and boost monetization.

Eyeing up new revenues with addressable advertising

By Daniel Wohlfart, Principal Product Manager, Advanced Advertising at Synamedia

With recessions taking their toll and subscription income flatlining, scouting out new monetisation options to boost balance sheets has never been more critical for the media and entertainment industry.

And with an ever-increasing amount of data available to publishers, addressable advertising is in vogue. In the same way that the internet opened up advertising to even the smallest businesses, the days ‘spray and pray’ one-size-fits-all are over, meaning anyone wanting to reach specific audiences through video services can do so. Advertisers - from big brands to small local businesses – can now target specific profiles, inventory, and content regardless of what device or app viewers are using.

Video service providers in both developed and emerging markets stand to make substantial revenue gains by lighting up their inventory across their linear, on-demand, and catch-up services so advertisers can tailor-make campaigns to reach specific audience segments across all screens. For example, if you run an upmarket furniture company, you can now easily target high income households watching design programmes.

A digital make-over

As audiences continue to turn to streaming as their primary method of viewing, connected TV advertising is projected to grow significantly. FAST business models are growing in popularity, and streaming icons such as Netflix and Disney+ have launched ad-based tiers to broaden their revenue streams, with others expected to follow suit.

At the same time, the traditional TV advertising market – which was worth £5.46 billion in 2021 according to Nielsen Ad Intel - is becoming increasingly outmoded as eyeballs and ad spend look to online platforms.

Thanks to increased broadband connectivity and with the right technology in place, there is an opportunity to revamp the existing TV ecosystem, win back old brands and attract new advertisers.

Streaming and TV providers have a brand building power and audience reach that online alternatives can only dream of. Combining that reach with the same data richness of online advertising allows TV and video advertising to not just keep pace with online, particularly with the pinpoint targeting accuracy of who is consuming content and when, but to offer something significantly better: it has the benefit of offering an eye-catching ad that can fill even the largest HD screen.

A new mode of addressability

Video service providers have had some success to date with piecemeal targeted ad solutions but these have been disjointed approaches resulting in inconsistent reporting, unpredictable execution, and unnecessary overheads.

The missing element has been a unified, single platform for an integrated campaign enabling providers to monetise addressability on every screen, even those with limited resources.

By expanding targeted inventory across all screens and services, Synamedia Iris allows customers to run a single campaign which is optimised to reduce wastage and improve campaign performance.

Providers can boost ad revenue by expanding their addressable footprint, allowing advertisers of all shapes and sizes to target ads precisely and on more than just mobile and web applications. Individual spots can be seamlessly replaced using scalable, real-time server-side ad insertion.

New industry collaborations

Maximising this opportunity requires a new model of collaboration in the industry. Every part of the value chain becomes more valuable as reach increases, targeting gets more precise, and reporting is more accurate.

With a unified targeting solution, providers can turn their greater reach and expanded addressable inventory into a compelling proposition for brands big and small. The benefit is that these targeted advertising slots will command higher CPMs (cost per 1000 impressions).

Sizing up quality vs quantity

For addressability to shape up into actual revenue, it’s essential to provide accurate measurements that allow advertisers to validate ad impressions and improve future marketing campaigns. To achieve this -and compete against online advertising - robust reporting and forecasting tools are critical to optimise campaigns.

Addressable advertising’s model depends on audience quality rather than the audience volumes associated with traditional advertising. To get the necessary insights, providers can use new analytics technologies to identify audience profiles and viewing patterns.

This is where our Synamedia Clarissa business insights solution pairs with Synamedia Iris. By casting an expert eye across all video services and stitching all the relevant data together, Synamedia Clarissa reveals insights into how viewing behaviour can help identify audience segments that advertisers are interested in.

For example, Clarissa can help you target households that are likely to have kids, even when they aren’t watching “kids” content, and tell you not only what else they watch, but also what device and service they prefer to watch it on.

And if you have additional audience data from third-party sources or panels, Iris can incorporate this information to further enhance your targeting capabilities.

SaaS hits the mark

With a unified targeted advertising solution, the industry can finally combat the erosion of ad revenues to digital platforms and generate new income by offering established and new advertisers an alternative to the crazy furore of online advertising.

And where a targeted advertising solution would previously require years of expensive bespoke development, Synamedia Iris’s SaaS model and standard interfaces deliver onboarding in weeks with a fraction of the spend. Video service providers can add capabilities – such as creating ad inventory or managing audience segments, campaigns and measurement - as their needs evolve.

An insight-driven solution means providers can deliver a better, less disruptive experience and monetise addressability on every screen – even those with limited or outmoded resources. And advertisers can run more efficient, successful campaigns, delivering the right ad to the right viewers at the right time. Keeping all customers happy while keeping the balance sheet in good shape: that’s the win-win business scenario that will always be in style.

24 Hour Party People

John Griffiths explains why revenue generation for OTT services all hinges on the experience. So how do you make sure people keep coming to the party?

Jeff Bezos once compared Amazon’s approach to customer experience to hosting a party 24/7. “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job, every day, to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” Bezos’ comments came way back in 2004. But they could just as easily be describing the challenges facing broadcast media today as brands look for growth in the OTT market.

Confused? Let’s explore the metaphor further.

Imagine you’re throwing an exclusive party; it’s ticket-only and premium-priced. You’ve spent big on an awesome venue and a world-famous DJ to bring in the crowds. And you’ve doubled down with a free bar and a legendary mixologist to tantalise tastebuds. All the ingredients are in place: it’s going to be a humdinger. But, as the masses arrive, you suddenly realise your ticketing system has misfired, front of house is overwhelmed, and long queues of disgruntled punters are sprawling round the block. Guests slowly trickle through, but – just as the party gets going – the power fails, the lights go out and the dance floor empties. The crowd wants its money back.

This nightmare scenario is a relatable parallel for OTT brands as they battle to build audiences and bolster revenues. The message is clear: you can bet the farm on big names and great programming, but if you don’t take care of what goes on in the background, your party will fall flat. It doesn’t matter how good your content is or how well you price it, if the user experience doesn’t stack up, your brand will end up feeling like the spotty adolescent at the school disco that nobody wants to dance with.

The party theme is a useful jumping-off point for discussion of the biggest challenge facing streaming businesses: revenue generation. However, the metaphor isn’t perfect. Whilst most shindigs are constrained by fixed timelines and venue capacity, OTT is the party where everyone’s invited and guests can turn up whenever they like; all day, any day. There are obvious exceptions – like live pay-per-view sports and special events – but, generally speaking, OTT is a 24/7 party, 365 days of the year. The music never stops.

Talking ‘bout my generation

Revenue generation is a hot topic for broadcast media as the OTT market continues to expand. It’s front of mind for established players looking for new ways to stimulate growth. And it’s top priority for new entrants who are late to the party and three drinks behind. Everyone, it seems, is talking about revenue generation.

There are three fundamentals to optimizing revenues. The first is obvious: content is King. Cliché or otherwise, the importance of great content is unarguable. If you haven’t got content that people want to watch, you might as well go home. The second fundamental, intrinsically linked to the allure of your content, is an audience. A sustainable audience is the foundation of your business model, whether that’s through paid subscriptions, advertising or sponsorship. Again, if you haven’t got an audience that’s either willing to pay you money or an attractive demographic for advertisers, you haven’t got a business.

The final component – often overlooked – is the user experience (UX). In my opinion, UX is the key to revenue generation. Modern audiences, increasingly spoilt for choice for streaming services, are quick to unsubscribe if an experience doesn’t meet their high expectations. UX encompasses everything from the user interface and ease of use to how quickly a viewer can get from sign-in to streaming. Every element of friction that obstructs that process threatens your ability to generate revenues.

There are, of course, exceptions. If the content you’re offering is exclusive and valued – live sport being a good example – viewers will likely tolerate a degree of poor experience. However, if it’s available elsewhere, they absolutely won’t. And even if they do, their patience won’t last long.

UX is the glue that binds your content with your audience, the music that keeps the dancefloor crowded. It’s fundamental to revenue generation.

Churn baby churn (disco inferno)

Some organisations make the mistake of defining ‘revenue-boosting activity’ as the development of new features. It’s much bigger than that. Ultimately, everything about your OTT service is linked to revenue; whether it’s on-screen or behind the scenes, every tiny detail should be generating revenues or driving cost savings, with the sole objective of reducing churn. However, if a glitch in your infrastructure damages the experience, it will cost you subscribers and nullify revenue gains. Ultimately, nothing burns profits more than poor UX.

So how do you ensure that your OTT service is the 24/7 party that never skips a beat? The answer primarily lies in optimizing a goldmine of data that’s too often squandered.

OTT services generate a colossal amount of data from multiple sources across the supply chain. That data spans everything from video performance to ad serving technology and everything in between. It’s complex – but understanding it is key to delivering a quality experience. Therein lies the problem. In the transition to OTT services, broadcast media has struggled to make the most of its data assets.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is data aggregation and visualisation. Many businesses are obsessed with capturing data but are unable to leverage it to improve the experience. Building big data sets is all very well, but if you can’t understand what that data is telling you – or identify the actionable insights that could fine-tune your UX – you’re missing a trick.

Data can give you an accurate picture of the factors driving customer churn. Moreover, it can give you the evidence you need to build a business case to invest in new features, new functionality or new markets. These opportunities can help you generate new revenues to invest in quality content, which in turn will have a domino-effect on growth. However, success hinges on deep understanding of how diverse data interact. That requires a holistic approach.

Many businesses still work in functional silos and struggle to connect the dots. For example, it’s not uncommon to see product managers whose sole concern is how their product is performing, while marketers in the same organisation are only interested in measuring conversions – they don’t care about churn further down the line due to poor UX. But these two activities don’t exist in isolation; if you’re converting 1000 people a month but losing 500 due to suboptimal experience, half those conversions are wasted. You need to connect the dots to understand what’s causing the churn. Getting there requires developing a 360° picture that gives management – at a strategic level – a clear view of all the working parts. That’s not just about capturing data, it’s about aggregating it, interpreting it, visualizing it and acting upon it.

It isn’t easy. When a user logs into a service to search for content, their journey passes through countless split-second checkpoints – sign-in, catalogue systems, entitlements, subscriptions, etc. At the same time, the content delivery network is pulsing data. One seemingly simple request to browse content and press play generates hundreds of interactions, all data points that contain vital information. The question for the brand is always: is that user experience smooth? Can we reduce the number of clicks and make it a more efficient process? Or can we eliminate some friction that’s delaying the journey? To answer those questions requires aggregating data across tens of thousands of users and looking for trends that tell you the story.

Help!

Such is the complexity of data aggregation that it’s unlikely you can do it on your own. An external partner is often a useful addition to the team, bringing domain expertise, independence and perspective to the table. A good partner will establish your most salient KPIs and develop a process to map them across multiple data sources. They will customize systems that collect diverse datasets – such as log files from niche services or quality of service data from larger platforms – and be able to aggregate and visualize it to show you the end-to-end picture. And they’ll use that visibility as the foundation for Quality of Experience audits that help you diagnose problems and engineer solutions.

Fundamentally, it’s only by having a holistic view of your entire business that you’ll be able to spot opportunities for revenue generation. Getting there is all about making the most of your data and empowering teams to make evidence-based decisions. If you can do that – through purposeful data aggregation and meaningful visualization – you’ll be well on your way to optimizing UX and maximizing revenues.

Then it really will be time to party.

About Spicy Mango

Spicy Mango is an expert media technology consulting and software delivery organisation. The company has been building service provider grade video platforms, media technology solutions, and delivering high quality consulting services since 2015. Our customers include RTL, NBC Universal, Discovery, Two Circles, Eurosport and Vodafone.

To find out more: www.spicymango.co.uk

New Regions = New Revenue for Sports

Chris Clarke, CEO, Cerberus Tech

Some sports are undoubtedly global leaders, with an audience to match. Then there are others, which enjoy immense popularity in certain markets but are less well known elsewhere. Ice Hockey, for instance, is a national obsession in Canada but is still relatively niche in the UK. Rugby has an estimated global following of 475 million people, but its popularity tends to be concentrated in specific regions. When it comes to building up a dedicated audience in new markets, there are several challenges that need to be overcome.

Popularity with viewers is often tied to circumstances beyond the individual dynamics of the game. It can be impacted by both cultural and historical factors, as well as the level of investment in youth teams, and the ongoing commitment from broadcasters in that market. Often clubs and federations have a hard time securing buy-in from broadcasters, so a ‘chicken and egg’ scenario ensues. How can you prove the potential of a sport if you can’t reach your audience in the first place?

TV at the soccer. video camera back football goal

Until recently, broadcasters had their hands tied by the prohibitive cost of experimenting with sports that were less familiar locally. The financial resources required for traditional delivery methods meant only offering content which had been historically popular in that region. But without experimentation and fresh formats, live sport is at risk of falling into a stagnating business model. A recent Altman Solon study found that “UK sports fans are watching more sports since the pandemic” but highlighted an increase in demand for women’s sport, and that audiences are opting for highlights over full matches. To stay ahead, broadcasters need to match their strategies to content consumption preferences and engage a sports fanbase that is constantly evolving.

Optimising Contribution and Distribution

Historically, broadcasting live sports events has been extremely costly, particularly if distributing feeds to multiple regions. It is generally straightforward for takers in the same region to pick-up feeds, but when distributing further afield, additional costs can make exploring new markets prohibitive. If satellite is the only method of delivery, it limits the content owner’s ability to expand and the broadcaster’s ability to experiment.

Traditional transport of live sports requires significant physical resources and infrastructure. Tower access, satellite uplinks and downlinks, or fibre circuit charges all fall under a downstream cost profile that negatively impacts the taker. In some instances, this can overtake the cost of securing the broadcast rights in the first place. Generally, only tier-one sports offer the guaranteed ROI for expansion into a new market, and it has been difficult for lower tier or niche sports to deliver to new audiences and increase revenue. Of course this varies by region: what is tier one content in one territory, won’t necessarily be considered high-value in another.

However, in recent years, technological developments in sports content delivery have made it easier for rights owners to reach takers in new markets. Using broadcast-grade IP tools for content delivery combines the protection of encoded feeds with the flexibility of the cloud. Broadcast IP can adapt to a variety of use cases, from an extremely cost-effective back-up feed, to improving the ability to localise content with multiple feeds tailored to a specific market. This helps takers move beyond a generic world feed, towards a content delivery model that adapts and scales to the needs of the audience within their region. It also brings with it the ability to make changes at the eleventh hour without incurring huge costs. This, alongside the option to respond quickly to unforeseen circumstances such as unexpected last-minute rights acquisitions, makes for a strong business case.

Freedom to diversify and expand

The fact that transporting content to regions where a sport has a relatively small following is cost prohibitive, makes it really difficult to reach new audiences - hence, the chicken and egg scenario. Equally, delivering any content that is supplementary to the main sporting fixture is also not worthwhile, because the relatively low value of the content does not justify the associated high transport costs. This means that audiences who prefer more short form content are not being catered for, so they are not engaging when perhaps they would otherwise. If distribution costs are a barrier to growing the popularity of smaller and more niche sports and expanding popular sports in new regions, it makes sense to complement traditional distribution with additional lower-cost methods.

If it is possible to reduce the costs associated with content distribution, then many more opportunities arise for diversifying sport. This applies to the types of sports being covered around the globe and also to the type of content being distributed. Reducing the cost of transporting content makes it possible to package up and deliver supplementarily content, such as content captured before, after and around the main event. Having additional content that can be broadcast in different formats, such as in bite size chunks, as opposed to long-form, can also help appeal to a wider audience.

Content owners need to have both the flexibility and freedom to choose the most appropriate distribution method for a particular set of circumstances. In a situation where popular sports are picked up by multiple takers in the same region, then it makes sense to use satellite. However, to deliver that same content to a region where that sport has yet to grow a solid following, it makes sense to use broadcast-grade IP. Supplementary content around the main event can then also be delivered in both cases using broadcast-grade IP. This would enable takers in the two regions to distribute the content that they think would appeal most to local audiences.

Adding broadcast-grade IP workflows complements satellite and creates opportunities for distributing more varied content to a wider audience. Having this added flexibility also gives content owners the chance to adapt quickly, as business needs require. A wider variety of professional sports are broadcast today, but there is still more to do. As the types of sports that people are engaging with continue to grow and diversify, content owners and broadcasters need to ensure they are delivering the content that piques their interest. This enables rights holders to increase the exposure and visibility of sports, which in turn improves engagement with global audiences.

The future of sport is diverse, global, and focused on revenue growth. Cloud-based delivery will help facilitate a new sports renaissance, meaning more content variety can be distributed without compromise.

Loosening the Ad Tech Bottleneck

Programmatic Advertising, Targeted Advertising, SSDAI, Addressable, GDPR, Digital Advertising

The two basic premises of broadcasting haven’t changed for the last 100 years or so. One, give viewers compelling programming and they’ll watch. Two, effective monetisation is critical for supporting all that programming.

However, the methods for creating, distributing, and consuming all that content have undergone a dramatic transformation, especially in the past few years. Yes, viewers can still see content on a traditional tuner-based television set, but that’s now only one viewing option and quickly becoming the minority when we see that for some TV set manufacturers, roughly half of their buyers are now consuming content only using online applications.

Streaming services and over-the-top (OTT) platforms have emerged far beyond being niche technologies to become mainstream content superpowers. Connected TV (CTV), which enables video content to be delivered and viewed through internet connectivity, is booming. New streaming content delivery models like Free Ad-Supported TV (FAST) channels or Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD) have emerged in the last year to become prevalent in the U.S. market. They are also popping up rapidly in other territories, combining a more and more quality content experience without the need for a subscription and supported by scheduled ad breaks inserted for live programming or Per/Mid/Post roll for VOD.

The good news is this plethora of streaming content options has given consumers more choices for viewing. It’s also opened up new monetisation opportunities, enabling broadcasters and content owners to provide personalised and targeted advertising experiences to their audiences rather than using Gross Rating Point (GRP), the standard measure of media delivery in advertising

There are two primary options for monetising the content experience. One is to make the viewer pay directly for the content, the second is to sell advertising to propose the content “for free” to viewers. Interestingly, some broadcasters or OTT providers use models that combine both these options like the new entry level Netflix or Disney+ offer.

But we noticed that the OTT world has taken a renewed interest in the free ad supported model perhaps due to a “subscription fatigue” from users at the same time as streaming services costs are increasing.

The challenge is that not all these delivery and advertising technologies are evolving at the same pace.

Monetisation was historically managed by Client-Side Ad Insertion but is now often managed by Server-side Ad Insertion (SSAI) for video which enables the seamless delivery of video ads into content streamed on internet-enabled devices and a much better viewer experience avoiding buffering.

Despite this technology becoming more powerful and flexible, there is an immediate need for more advanced SSAI features beyond the simple and accurate insertion of ads. The growing complexity of content providers delivery strategy, OTT platforms requirements and contractual agreements, advertising countries regulations, and privacy laws are highlighting a need to have enhanced Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) solutions able to manage insertion workflows and rules and not just a “simple” manifest manipulating technical component.

But there are some roadblocks including lack of diverse feature sets and platform visibility.

New Ad Tech Solutions for a New Market

With the rapid growth of FAST channels and delivery of OTT services for CTV, SSAI customers need advanced digital ad tech solutions customizable to their individual workflows to move to an enhanced DAI world fitting their needs. An example is volume split, where you want to split the inventory in percentages with each split following their own workflow (like a volume split between the TV set manufacturer and the publisher inventory). This can be advantageous to have it in your SSAI solution. It is certainly strategic to maintain a separation between your video delivery process and your ad tech stack but also to keep additional data on what is happening on the delivery platform.

Another example is device split, where you want to define which ad, promo or content will be inserted for mobile devices and which will be inserted for CTV users for example. These functionalities are sometimes provided by the ad server or header-bidding solution, but these are additional services incurring incremental costs, the implementation can be complex and very few options exist on the market. Customers benefit by separating video delivery from their ad stack while still being able to manage their providers separately without being forced to change video delivery components each time they want to change their header-bidding or ad server solution or do A/B testing to compare solutions or even work with multiple of them at the same time depending of countries / OTT Platforms or their own rules.

Blackbox versus Transparency

One downside of the Adtech world is the common tendency to create wall gardens when the right course is to follow the path of Open Internet. Many advertisers want transparency to understand where their ads are played and from which path. But this transparency must also work the other way for publishers to better understand why sometimes high-quality content, fully compliant with privacy laws and providing a brand with safe ad inventories, is not targeted by the programmatic stack or monetisation partners.

Having an independent provider at the SSAI level in the video delivery chain will enable data collection that gives visibility into video delivery, deeper audience information and transparency about fill rates, ad performance, and missed opportunities from all partners.

SSAI at a Crossroads

Server-Side Ad Insertion is at the crossroads of the video and the ad-serving industries. Most existing SSAI products and solutions are mainly only manifest manipulators.

The role of the manifest manipulator is to retrieve the manifest from the original stream, obtain a list of video or ads from the ad pod, mainly created by a call from an ad server to insert when detecting a specific marker, stitch them in the manifest of the stream, user by user to provide targeted stream to each of them by returning this updated manifest to the video player.

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The additional feature that some SSAI solutions are providing are adding bumpers or a simple fill slate at the beginning or at the end of the ad break.

Another valuable feature supporting ad break scheduling is pre-fetching, which allows SSAI systems to “look ahead” to an upcoming ad break. Even if the exact start time and duration of the break is dependent on in-play decisions, a theoretical target break length can still be determined in advance with sufficient time allowed for calls to be made to the ad servers especially when using programmatic or open programmatic.

If needed, the SSAI platform can then dynamically adjust the break length based on the real duration retrieved from the original manifest when appearing, delivering a correct, personalized, and true “TV experience” while maximising the monetisation opportunity.

Go Beyond Manifest Manipulation with SSAI Ad Break Management

In the television and streaming ecosystem, ad breaks or ad pods are tightly controlled when it comes to scheduling or exact durations. When you're calling your ad server to fill a specific ad pod duration, if you request 120 seconds of ads, you don't always get the entire duration filled with ads. Sometimes you get only one or two ads. Most of the current SSAI platforms use a simple slate to fill this gap, hardly the greatest user experience. This solution wasn’t of course accepted in traditional TV where there is no way to have a static slate shown for up to three minutes on a live TV channel. It is from our point of view the same for OTT as we distribute potentially on Connected TV where the same level of quality and viewer experience is expected from viewers and publishers

Instead, you can highly enhance the quality of your service to viewers by managing these potential gaps with a dynamic content and promotion management solution. Now, you can automatically select different promotions or auto-promotion of your service or even content for a specific period of time, depending on the delivery platform or device. For example, go even deeper with rules by deciding to use the longer one to avoid chaining 15 promotions of five seconds each in length in succession.

Scaling

There is a direct link between ad revenues and the ability of the SSAI and the ad break management to scale. High-volume, event-based live content like sports generates a high volume of concurrent streams to manage. There is usually a very high ramp-up rate on a service as viewers frequently join a stream at the last minute before it starts.

The manifest manipulation must be able to manage these two constraints, but also the ad break component. Most users will join a streaming event before it starts but during an ad break, creating a great opportunity to generate ad revenues.

Multiple Streaming Formats

While many configurations are currently compatible with standardized protocols like HLS or MPEG Dash, some SSAI providers cannot manage specific configurations like mono period as an entry on MPEG-DASH. This means sometimes having to re-adapt or even replace your packaging solution. There are also many encoders/packagers on the market so it’s important to check that your SSAI solution can handle multiple streams in varying formats.

Simplifying the SSAI Complexity

An effective new-generation SSAI platform bridges traditional linear video delivery infrastructures with the digital ad tech world. But the solution must manage huge volumes in parallel, understanding the ecosystem and the different bricks in the complete chain.

It may seem attractive to put all your eggs in one long-term basket, especially as ad technology keeps evolving. But it makes more sense to opt for an agnostic, independent, dedicated vendor for SSAI acting as an abstraction layer to manage the entire ad insertion process, hide its complexity to clients but also provide a real web user interface that is not merely a technical component for developers using API.

Creating a layer of abstraction between your video delivery environment (transcoding, packaging, DRM, CDN, video players) and your ad tech environment with an easy visual interface that ad ops and technical teams can use gives your company flexibility and nimbleness while signaling your willingness to work with everyone.

Publishers today need a scalable platform that not only interacts and manages the increasingly complex ad insertion process but also provides a tool that makes the insertion workflow management easiest even for complex environments and requirements. Simply, the complexity for user must be the goal of a new-gen SSAI platform.

New-gen SSAI solutions also need to view and extract data on everything that is happening on the video delivery process and on the Adtech components. Finally, the new-gen SSAI must also provide monitoring features to be integrated in an overall technical supervision ecosystem.

New technologies are reaching the market to help streaming services overcome the current challenges of ad-blocking, latency, transparency, multi-platforms distributions, and device fragmentation. The right solution, such as Ad Insertion Platform’s Server-Side Ad Insertion technology and its Ad Break Composer can enable streaming platforms to explore new revenue streams by maximising their premium OTT ad inventory value but also by viewing and deeply understanding how their OTT platform is performing.

The ultimate benefit for broadcasters, publishers, rightsholders and content-owners is a comprehensive, transparent, monetisation solution seamlessly delivering ad-supported video content to multiple platforms – while enhancing, not detracting from, the viewer experience.

Social Experiences – Covid and Beyond

Most of us are social creatures and even when apart, we strive to be together. The bond that we create from shared activity, such as watching movies together, runs deeper than one might think. Research published in a scientific journal which involved chimpanzees watching a video in pairs, showed how they became more sociable with each other after the viewing session ended. This indicates that the bond we form from activities such as watching video content together has deep evolutionary roots.

This desire to connect is at the heart of Social Experiences a.k.a SocialX functionalities. It became an important feature for many video consumers during the covid-19 pandemic, enabling them to watch together when stay-at-home directives forced them to be apart. A survey carried out last year found that co-watching was more popular with Generation Z than other demographic groups. 41% of respondents aged 16-34 said that they have used a co-viewing app, compared with 23% of those 35-54 and only 3% of those 55+.

Now that life has pretty much returned to normal, does social watching still have an important role to play? If so, how critical will it be for service providers and what type of content will lend itself best to a shared viewing environment?

Meeting consumer demand

Many of the big players were quick to launch some kind of co-watching feature during the pandemic to meet this sudden spike in consumer demand. Fast forward to 2022 and from the continued improvement of the social features available on most OTT services, along with the launch of some new services, it looks like these types of functionalities are here to stay.

A quick review of co-watching services available at the moment shows that most, if not all, of the mainstream offerings provide some kind of social watching feature. Netflix Teleparty allows consumers to choose a film from Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max or Amazon Prime then share the link with friends so that everyone can watch together. Both Amazon Prime Video and Hulu enables customers to watch movies in sync using the services’ watch party features. In a similar way, Disney+ users can use the services GroupWatch functionality and other services, such Scener and twoseven, allow consumers to co-watch content from a range of video providers.

More than just movies and TV

It is not just movies and TV series that people want to watch with others. Live sports content, live events, fitness and even educational streams can all be accessed via different kinds of watch together services.

Sports content in particular seems to have a lot of potential for shared viewing, perhaps because, by its very nature, watching sports is a highly sociable pastime. During the pandemic, many sports events responded to lock down circumstances by introducing social watching experiences as a means of giving fans access to the live sports action that they were still craving. For the first time, fans could enjoy watching live matches from home, at the same time as interacting with friends and family. Although sporting events are once again operating as usual, there appears to still be a demand for these watch together environments. Earlier this year, Disney rolled out its first shared watching experience for live sports viewers by making Apple’s Shareplay co-viewing experience for FaceTime available for its ESPN app users. The feature makes it possible for sports fans to watch live sports together using the ESPN+ streaming service while on a FaceTime call.

Other kinds of live events are also taking advantage of the feature in a bid to increase viewer engagement. For example, NASA had planned to broadcast the postponed Artemis-1 launch on a zoom watch party, with live content and discussions featuring space experts. In a similar way, many fitness brands are using co-viewing features to their advantage, allowing friends to take part in instructor-led virtual classes together. One example is fitness streaming platform Krew that released a social watching feature to its app earlier this year.

Group Video calling lies at the heart of industries like EduTech and Telemedicine.Easily explained, a lecture is recorded in a way where both teachers and students are able to watch the video back from any location in the world, allowing for a level of interactivity and engagement that doesn’t easily happen in physical lecture halls.The ability to have remote sessions allows teachers to be able to host classes remotely. This has led to many universities coming up with Hybrid or remote course programs as technology is now bridging the gap between remote and in person classrooms. In fact, a recent report by the Open University has identified watch parties as being one of the top ten new innovative forms of teaching methods likely to result in major shifts in educational practice. Additionally for telemedicine, it is projected that the North America Telehealth market worth $9,496.6 million by 2024, at a CAGR of 24.3% from 2018 as per a report by Meticulous Research.

Role in video provision post Covid

As video providers compete for users in an increasingly competitive market, there is a constant need to innovate and improve engagement. Social watching has the potential to unlock new opportunities for engaging viewers but is also a route to unlocking new revenue streams. In the live sports vertical, for example, sponsors and rights owners can create exclusive shared experiences for fans to join where they can engage with teams and players. Similarly, in entertainment, viewers could join watch parties to engage personally with their favorite stars. As we move forward towards a time where extended reality and the metaverse becomes part of our everyday existence, we may well see these social watching experiences take on a much more immersive form than simply watching the events on a screen while talking to friends and family over voice call or messaging.

It would seem that social watching does still have a role to play in the post Covid world although it is not yet a critical ‘must have’ feature for all streaming services. Social watching does not only meet the deep-rooted human need to engage with others, but it also provides a different way for consumers to interact with content, whether that be for entertainment, work, learning, fitness, or perhaps something entirely different.

Telestream: ARGUS

ARGUS is a new product from Telestream that represents the next step in centralized video monitoring management. It was developed in response to the needs of OTT service providers who require large scale comprehensive monitoring of their entire distribution network. ARGUS enables automated surveillance of each video transition point with data aggregation from monitoring probes across the video delivery chain and provides deep dive analytics data that enables service providers to quickly identify the source of video quality issues and their root causes. Without a system like ARGUS, service providers are effectively blind when locating problems across the delivery chain.

With its true consolidated management and analytics, ARGUS introduces a new distributed system architecture that enables scaling the number of monitoring points from small to large. This enables probes to be deployed across various regions or countries while still being connected to the same centralized management system. Service provider no longer need to manage monitoring points from different regions and territories separately. They can aggregate all the data from hundreds to thousands of different probing points into a single unified interface.

ARGUS also takes advantage of a new microservices architecture optimized for virtual and cloud deployments, targeting the needs of larger media companies who demand solutions be cloud friendly while fitting into their automated and orchestrated deployment workflow. ARGUS’s ability to scale at a global level enables large media companies to deploy the monitoring in container and Kubernetes cloud-native environments along with automation and orchestration needed to instantly report on the health of the system in real time.

ARGUS allows users to monitor by exception with multiple alarm levels and thresholds that ensure engineers can find and fix problems fast. It provides alert visualization of active alarms in a single pane of glass. Plus, in-depth troubleshooting to pinpoint the root cause of issues such as compression artifacts, transport stream impairments, and network delivery issues.

Any migration to the next generation video distribution drives a lot of complexity and new requirements for visibility of the Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS). ARGUS alerts if the DAI infrastructure is broken for ads by reporting on accurate execution of placements conveyed by SCTE-35 markers and maintaining the requisite AV quality of ads that match core content parameters. Identifying instances where the marking process fails is an effective way to track fill rates and identify why they may be underperforming.

ARGUS is a critical part of reducing subscriber churn and ensures successful monetization for streaming service providers.

PHABRIX QxP: BaM Shortlist – Support

PHABRIX is pleased to present its first example of a traditional ‘Waveform Monitor’ – but with a twist. Inheriting all the class leading features and flexibility of the QxL Rasterizer, the QxP additionally features an integral 3U multi-touch 1920x1200 LCD screen, speaker, integral V-Mount (or G-Mount) battery plate, integral mains PSU and 12v external DC input. You now have 12G SDI and 25G ST 2110 compliance monitoring in a portable form factor using industry standard Camera Batteries.

With its new class-leading Waveforms, the QxP is equally at home on-set in SDR or HDR Productions, Grading, Shading, or QC, MCR, Engineering and R&D environments. The user is free to use the integral screen, or external HDMI monitor, and use the flexible tool layout to view up to 16 instruments simultaneously. A rich set of remote access options including NoVNC and uniquely the UI as 2110-20 (video) and 2110-30/31 (audio) flows provides all the ‘headless’ operational flexibility of a conventional Rasterizer and more.

The QxP includes SMPTE ST 2110, 2022-6 and a wide range of formats as standard. In-field upgrades are available for a rich set of options: UHD/4K, IP-MEAS, HDR, Dolby E decode, PCAP capture, EUHD and extensive AV-ANC test signal generation. Factory-fitted options provide 12G-SDI interfaces and RTE™ real-time SDI eye and jitter analysis, with an engineering grade data view and an optional, unique advanced SDI-STRESS toolset.

For real-time IP workflows the QxP supports simultaneous Generation and Analysis of SD/HD/3G/UHD/EUHD 2110 payloads on generic SFP28/25 GbE interfaces, with ST 2022-7 Seamless IP Protection Switching (SIPS) and independent PTP followers on both media ports for fully-redundant media network operation – all with AMWA NMOS IS-04 and IS-05.

Whether working in SD, HD, UHD, SDR, HDR, SDI or IP, conventional or remote production, the QxP combines the user-configurability and advanced tools required for full operational flexibility when transitioning to next generation workflows.

Ability Post Production Academy: BaM Shortlist – Support

Ability Post Production Academy is the first Online Video and Film Editing Academy that is affordable, inclusive and accessible; all our courses can be delivered live online with an Experienced Tutor / Film / TV Editor.

We are able to deliver training to both our corporate clients such as BBC, NFTS, Northern Film School, XJTLU University China, ITV and Netflix as well as direct to our students (Please contact us to see if you are able to get our discounted price).

We keep our classes small, so that you get plenty of hands-on training. Unlike many colleges and universities, the trainers are not just lecturers /tTeachers but are leading film and TV industry professionals with over 25 years’ experience in Post Production in both Film and TV, with credits at BAFTA, Cannes, Raindance and Edinburgh International Film Festivals.

Official Avid Online Learning Partner

Also we are an Official Avid Online Learning Partner able to deliver the Accredited Avid Media Composer 101, 110 or Combined MC101 and MC110 courses, allowing you to get Avid Certified User Certificate which is recognised within the TV and Film Industry.

We continue to develop new courses in Adobe Premiere and Black Magic Resolve 17 so keep coming back to see the New and Exciting Video and Film Editing Training Courses.

We are passionate about Inclusion and Disability.

Ability: taking the "Dis” out of DisAbility in Film and TV Post Training.

Courses Include

Avid Media Composer (2018) Legacy (On Request)

Avid Media Composer 2020./2021 (New Vsn with Bin Containers) both AVID 101 and 110 Courses

Adobe Premiere 101 - 2022 Vsn

Intro to Blackmagic 17/18 Editing Course

For more information, please contact us or book a 15 minute telephone meeting with Nigel Honey using the Calendly Meeting Scheduler here.

Nigel G Honey is a film editor and founder and CEO at Ability Post Production Academy Ltd. He's a Film / TV Editor with 25 years’ experience, and an invisible disability. He was told he'd never be a film editor because of his disability - but went on to edit feature films for Cannes, Edinburgh International and BAFTA film festivals, and is now the Only AVID Certified and Resolve Instructor in Scotland.

An Optimized Playback Experience is Crucial to Viewers