Calculations of current and projected losses due to online video piracy keep going up. While pirate business models vary widely, the most successful ones revolve around websites that aggregate stolen video into legitimate-looking service offerings of on-demand and live content, mimicking a legal OTT or IPTV service provider. In this article we cover common forms of piracy and how professional video pirates find success. We also look at the crowded pool of amateur thieves that engage in illegal viewing through credential sharing and other means.
It has never been more important to not only understand the global trends of online video theft, but to determine the risks your content is facing and, most important of all, what can be done about it.
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The media landscape looks vastly different than it did only five years ago. “Media” is no longer solely the realm of production studios and television stations. Social networks, gaming sites, and user-generated content platforms are media companies. Internet service providers and technology giants are also foraying into the music and video space. E-learning services, faith groups, local newspapers and even fitness companies now use video more than ever to reach wider audiences.
At the same time, consumers’ idea of media has drastically changed. In a recent Lumen survey, nearly 90% of European consumers considered “television” as any video they watched on their devices. 65% of them already subscribed to two or more streaming services.
As video and technology merge, the face of media is changing; development teams are agile, software and cloud computing have replaced hardware-based workflows, and black-box technologies have fallen out of favor. Media companies need solutions that are adapted to new challenges and new ways of working.
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Encoding an OTT (over-the-top) ladder can be a demanding job. To satisfy the needs of viewers on a variety of screen sizes and resolutions, like 4K TVs and smartphones, you will inevitably end up with an encoding ladder that has many rungs. For every rung, or every step on the ladder, typical encoding scenarios will require an encoding instance.
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We are joined by Paola Hobson, Managing Director at InSync Technology to discuss how good the current boom for streaming services is for the industry. We also hear how beyond the commercial barriers, from a technical standpoint, how feasible it is for streaming services to address international markets and what are these and how can they tackle them. Finally, we hear about advancements in conversion solutions.
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For decades, pay-TV content protection was based on conditional access systems (CAS). The major shortcoming is cost and lack of flexibility, especially as operators need to transition to hybrid service models that embrace both broadcasting and OTT streaming. Intertrust’s ExpressPlay XCA, built on the open-standard Marlin DRM, unites previously siloed CAS and DRM systems into a converged security solution. Read about the six advantages of direct-to-TV broadcasting that eliminates the need for STBs and reduces both CAPEX and OPEX.
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Learn how a leading OTT streaming operator with top-tier live sports league programming and 100,000+ hours of drama, movies, sports and news content successfully scaled its cloud-based multi-DRM service to record size audiences.
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We are joined by Lennart Broers, Sales Director Operator Solutions at 24i to discuss what their end-to-end operator solutions brings to the market and why this makes a difference. We also discuss the main benefits for operators deploying end-to-end solutions over a ‘best of breed’ approach.
Lennart tells us what operators should be aware of when selecting their end-to-end solutions along with sharing recent 24i success stories and describing their ideal customer.
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We are joined by Matt Duhig, Co Founder & Managing Director at FX Digital to hear about the company and what makes them different from other providers. Matt also outlines what other businesses FX Digital partner with to provide Connected TV solutions and where he thinks that the industry is headed.
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Event-based television is becoming increasingly important for channel originators, broadcasters and content owners. Beyond examples of sports and news, these events also include the latest release of a cliffhanger drama or millennial reality TV programs. The huge followings attracted by this type of programming and content underline just how important these scheduled TV events are. Missing out on the latest plot line reveal or who is ‘out’ via social media is now just as critical as not knowing the latest sports scoreline.
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Over the years, cord-cutters have created an erosion in the number of People Using Television (PUT), as that number has dwindled. Many in the industry have complained that Nielsen hasn’t kept up and isn’t accurately capturing the reality of current viewing behavior. Nielsen has listened and as announced in November of 2020, they are now adding Broadband-Only (BBO) homes to their measurement. This change only affects local broadcast measurement, as BBO was implemented for national numbers in Q4 2013.
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