OTTCONversations: Sam Blackman, Elemental Technologies - The 2012 Summer Olympics Go OTT

As the world tunes in to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, more than 20,000 broadcasters aim to reach a potential global audience of 4 billion viewers with more than 4,000 hours of coverage. According to Sam Blackman, CEO and Co-founder of Portland Oregon-based Elemental Technologies, this year the Olympics are going over-the-top (OTT) and his company is serving up Olympic streams on a global scale with some of the biggest names in broadcast and media entertainment, including, the BBC in the UK, Terra in Latin America, Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium and Eurosport. The company is also supporting customers in the US and Japan. Elemental estimates that its multi-screen video processing deployments in 70 countries will help its broadcast customers reach upwards of a billion viewers worldwide.

Elemental Technologies provides hardware and software solutions for adaptive multi-screen video processing. Elemental Live is a linear encoder that takes live streams in and creates multi-screen outputs for live distribution, and Elemental Server is a file-based server that creates multi-screen outputs for live distribution. Blackman says that many of its customers use these solutions for large-scale sports video streaming. See my 2010 interview with Blackman from Streaming Media East, where he also demonstrated Elemental Live and Elemental Server (Larry Kless' Weblog: Elemental Delivers GPU-Accelerated Video Streaming Solutions)



I spoke with Blackman earlier this year at the Over-the-Top Conference, OOTTCON 2012, where he discussed, The Olympics Go OTT: Lessons Learned from the last 12 months in sports video streaming. Blackman says that total available TV audience for the Olympics has grown from 3.9B in 2004 to 4.7B in 2008, and that it's by far the biggest global sports even. Not only has the number of viewers grown, so has the number hours of professionally-produced live video content. Consumers want to watch the Olympics on all of their screens, and this year a record number of viewers all around the globe will watch live and video on-demand (VOD) content on TV, PCs, laptops, tablets, mobile phones and other connected devices.

“When we began the intense evaluation process for streaming of the Olympic Games more than a year ago, Elemental had little idea of just how broadly we’d be adopted on a global scale,” says Blackman.

In this video, Blackman summarizes five of the key lessons Elemental learned from working with the sports industry which it's put to use in delivering the 2012 Summer Olympics video stream.

Destination Divergence

You never know when the next iPad will hit, ...how quickly can you react?

The first key learning was around the divergence of output end-points. With its customer TF1, France's top TV channel and a leading media group in Europe, Elemental had to stream a very large event to multiple devices in Apple HLS and Flash, and set-top boxes in separate outputs for five ISPs across France, all with different packaging requirements.

"The key take-away from this sporting event," say Blackman, "was that to deliver effectively to this divergence of multi-screen devices, you absolutely have to have a software-based solution. Because only software is flexible enough to adapt to the rapidly changing multi-screen world."

Instant On-Demand

Content windows are collapsing to hour = 0, speed can be your differentiator.

The second key lesson was learned working with a company called deltatre, that powered all the highlight reels from recent the Rugby World Cup games. In this case, Elemental was taking highlights that DeltaTRE was creating and very quickly making as many as 20 multi-screen outputs for all its different highlights.

"The key here is that speed is critical," Blackman points out. "Fans want to see highlihgts of big plays as soon as possible, and having a highlight read for VOD, video on-demand consumption in two minutes, as opposed to 30 minutes is a huge difference in terms of how effectively DeltaTRE's customers were able to monetize that VOD asset. So speed of processing is very critical."

Going Global

The Olympics is a true global phenomena but every live event is now geo-agnostic.

The third lesson was learned working on a project with Brazilian-based Terra Networks which had the streaming rights for the 2011 Pan American games and was streaming to 17 different countries across Latin America. Terra was one of Elemental's early international deployments, and Elemental learned a lot about international deployments and requirements that are different internationally than domestically. In this case, multi-channel audio support was required and Elemental had to create many different audio channels and have them associated with a single video file, so that regardless of what of language is being put on top of that content, the end user could view the video and hear the audio in their own language.

The second key learning in working with Terra was around sub-titling and captioning of content, which are very different based on geography. Sub-titling and captioning requirements have changed dramatically over the past few years, and transitioning and translating between one captioning format and another is becoming more and more difficult.

"So being able to successfully translate captions across different end devices, screens and geographies is absolutely critical", stresses Blackman. "Having a solution that really has been through the wringer, in terms of international deployments is absolutely critical."

Personalized Playback

Content playback on the fans terms. just might put more fans in the seats.

The fourth key lesson was from Stanford University that deployed real-time wifi replay system where, if you are attending a Stanford football or basketball game, you can actually pull up a replay on either your iPad or mobile device, either a close call or great play. By leveraging Elemental Live which created an archive file in real-time, Stanford was able to make these on-demand highlights available instantaneously. So with in under a minute of the play occurring, fans could pull up that video clip on their mobile device.

"What this is a sign of," Blackman notes, "is a trend, that to make sure that venues and stadiums remain exciting events to attend when they're competing against really big screen televisions and fancy audio systems in living rooms. People are still going to want to go to the stadium because they get to watch the action live but they also get this personalized video replay system in their hands on their device. So as the fourth learning, and this is going to be important in more and more sporting venues moving forward."

Protocol Proliferation

Hope the DASH 'collapses the world', but be prepared in the event that it doesn't.

The final learning was from Eurosport, the Paris-based equivilent of ESPN for Europe, that is using Elemental for both live and VOD to 11 different countries.

"Here the key is that Eurosport is creating streams for devices as disparate as iOS devices (iPads, iPhones), Roku boxes, Apple TV, Flash Player on the PC and Android devices and then, Silverlight for Xbox 360 and other Microsoft applications," states Blackman. "They are creating 29 different outputs simultaneously, and having to manage the network requirements of all those outputs."

Blackman says that there's hope with MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP), an emerging video standard that they've been developing with several other companies in the space, that it will help reduce the number of outputs from 28 down to just a few different adaptive bit rate (ABR) outputs with standardized packaging. If that happens, it holds the promise that ‘collapses the world’ into a single video standard and the proliferation of formats will start to get reduced.

Elemental recently raised $13 million is a series C funding round, with an eye on global expansion, and the 2012 Olympic Games will be Elemental’s largest live deployment to date. See this this recent press release for on Elemental's multiscreen delivery of the Summer Games: Elemental Unveils Plans to Stream the 2012 Olympic Games with Leading Broadcasters Worldwide | Elemental Technologies.

About Elemental
Elemental Technologies is the leading supplier of video solutions for multiscreen content delivery. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, the company pioneered the use of graphics processors to power adaptive video streaming over IP networks. Providing unmatched solutions for top media and entertainment companies worldwide, including Comcast, Disney and HBO, Elemental helps content programmers and service providers bring video to any screen, anytime – all at once. The company has offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. To learn more, please visit www.elementaltechnologies.com and follow  @elementaltech on Twitter.

Related:

• Elemental Streams the Olympic Games with Broadcasters Worldwide | Elemental Technologies
• Elemental Will Process Olympic Video for Audience of 1 Billion - Streaming Media Magazine
• London 2012: The Biggest Online Video Event Ever - www.StreamingMediaGlobal.com
• Taking the Olympics online: How will online video perform? - FierceOnlineVideo
• Aiming For Global Expansion, Elemental Technologies Raises $13M In Round Led By Norwest | TechCrunch
• Elemental Technologies raises $13 million venture round, prepares global marketing push | OregonLive.com
• Elemental Sweeps Olympics Deals for Multiscreen Video Across Four Continents | Elemental Technologies

Skytide's 7 Online Video Trends to Watch in 2012

In a recent white paper, 7 Online Video Trends to Watch in 2012, online video management analytics company Skytide outlined the emerging trends in the online video industry and the content delivery supply chain that serves it. If the last few years were any indicator of the hockey stick affect of rapid change within the video sector, 2012 promises to be full of twists and turns and major and disruptions. While predictions are a dime a dozen, they have much more relevance when coming from an industry expert and authority on the subject. I caught up with Patrick Hurley, VP of Marketing of the Oakland, California-based Skytide, and author of the white paper, to get an insider perspective on their online traffic projections, federated CDNs and why Telco CDNs will dramatically change the content delivery market. The white paper has been very well received, as Hurley noted, since it was first posted on Slideshare late last year where it's currently accumulated over 8,000 views to date and was featured among their 12 best presentations with predictions for 2012. It is also the number one search result on Google for video trends.



1. Online video traffic will continue to soar

Skytide says the first trend to watch in 2012 is that online via traffic will continue to soar. Hurley admits that while this is no big surprise, they have data to back that up, including Cisco's Visual Networking Index (VNI) that forecasts online video will account for 90% of all consumer IP traffic by 2013 and a compound annual growth of 32% from 2010-2015. Skytide's own large Tier 1 customers are very bullish on this and have seen growth rates exceed all industry expectations. Skytide is even more bullish and believes that it's possible for the coming years that online video traffic will grow 50% or more annually.

"The implications for that are really significant, for the Telcos and Communications Service Providers (CSPs)," explains Hurley. "Because that could compound an already serious problem that they have. They're caught in a vicious cycle."

The cycle starts with the fact that their legacy businesses (landline, telephony, etc.) which used to be their cash cows are really declining quickly and they can't count on them anymore. At the same time, consumers continue to have this insatiable appetite for online video, but that demand requires that the big Telcos, ISPs and CDNs invest heavily in capital expenditures to support their infrastructure. That would be great, if they could recoup those costs, but the problem is, the only thing their getting from online video consumers is a very modest monthly fee, which is your ISP bill, so they aren't able to monetize their capital expenditures.

Hurley says that CSPs need to extricate themselves from this vicious cycle and pursue new strategies. One of the trends we saw in 2011 will continue into 2012, says Hurley, and that is that the Telcos and cable companies are going to get into the content delivery business, which is an inherent strengths they can leverage as owners of the network infrastructure with direct relationships with end users and content owners. That helps them on both sides of the ledger and create new revenue streams.

2. Telco CDNs will make big waves

Owning the network is the biggest advantage that the Telcos have because they control the Quality of Service (QoS) over the last mile, and more importantly, there's a cost savings component there as well. In particular, CDNs like Akamai and Limelight have to lease the bandwidth from the network operator, and network operators don't have that issue.

Based on those advantages, we'll be seeing more of that in the next year, which leads to Skytide's next prediction, that Telco CDNs will make big waves in 2012. Over the last several years the Telcos have waded in the CDN waters slowly, but now they're diving in head first. Some of the world’s largest telcos have now deployed their own CDNs, which is diminishing the dominance of pure-play CDNs. Companies from outside the space (Amazon, Google) are getting into the CDN business and the trend by major content providers (Yahoo, Microsoft, Google) to operate their own in-house CDNs. Dan Rayburn lists many of them on his blog here: Updated List Of Carriers, Telcos and Pure-Play Companies In The CDN Business | StreamingMediaBlog.com.

3. Federated CDNs will finally shift from  
    concept to reality

The third prediction is that Federated CDNs will finally shift from concept to reality in 2012. This has been a hot topic of discussion at content delivery conferences over the last year, and Hurley says that's for good reason. As Federated CDNs move from concept to reality, it will cause a seismic shift in the CDN market.

"CDN Federation stands to be very disruptive, giving service providers an unprecedented opportunity to compete directly with market leaders like Akamai and Limelight in the global CDN arena."

In June of 2011, Dan Rayburn announced on his blog that a group of telcos had founded an Operator Carrier Exchange (OCX) to formalize the process and standards of interconnecting their content delivery networks. Just a few months later, Cisco announced at the CDN World Summit that it had completed a CDN interconnection pilot with several tier 1 telco providers (BT, KDDI, Orange, SFR and Telecom Italia).

In my conversation with Hurley, he skipped over the following three trends, but encouraged people to download the white paper to read more about how they'll be taking greater shape in 2012:

4. Adoption of Adaptive Bitrate protocols will grow 
5. IPTV providers & MSOs will extend reach into OTT models 
6. Multi-screen viewing will become the norm 


7. Online video advertising budgets will soar

And, finally the last trend is that online video advertising budgets will soar. Hurley says that it's created a virtuous cycle based on a confluence of factors that plays in its favor. First, technology is finally at a point where online video resolution and reliability is to the advertisers liking.

"Advertisers buy an audience," says Hurley. "They also buy adjacency to content and they have to have that in a quality experience, and that's what they're able to get now."

They're also able to to tap into new technologies like adaptive bitrate streaming which holds the promise of ad insertion into a live stream, and that mirrors the model of traditional TV advertising. But most importantly, advertisers go where the audience and the audience is increasingly going to tablets, mobile phones and laptops to watch online video. So that confluence of virtuous events is really poised make online video advertising budgets grow 27% in 2012.

To download the white paper, go to: Skytide website
Slideshare: 7 Online Video Trends to Watch in 2012

About Skytide
Skytide, the leader in Online Video Management Analytics, provides content delivery providers and digital media companies with the most complete operational view of their streaming video businesses, delivering the information necessary to make better-informed business decisions. Only Skytide's out-of-the-box analytics and reporting solutions can process massive amounts of disparate data sources and turn it into detailed reports in near real-time. Skytide is venture-backed and works with leading digital media and technology companies including: British Telecom, Broadpeak, Cisco, Clear Channel Communications, HP, Juniper Networks, Telecom Argentina, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Telstra.

Update  2/21/2012: Revised copy, added numbers 1-7.

Adaptive Bitrate Technology: Meeting the Multi-Screen Challenge Head On – Matt Smith, Envivio

As the demand to deliver content to consumers on multiple screens continues to grow at a rapid pace, companies adapt their methods and means to meet the challenge. It's no longer a notion or idea on the horizon – but a mandate for many product and services in a multi-platform world, where consumers want any content on any device, anytime and anywhere. This is both exciting and worrisome for service providers and content owners – but new trends and tactics like adaptive bit rate (ABR) streaming is changing it all and making it easier to deliver content, says Matt Smith, VP of Internet Television Strategy & Solutions at Envivio.

Smith attributes the accelerated change of multi-screen delivery to the "hockey stick effect" of mobile video viewing trends. He cites Cisco's Visual Networking Index: Forecast that says, "By 2014, all forms of video will constitute 91% of global consumer Internet traffic." (from Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2010–2015  [Visual Networking Index] - Cisco Systems)

Adapting to ABR 

"Adaptive bit rate encoding has been around for a few years," says Smith, "but we're really starting to see some increased uptake as broadcasters and content providers fully embrace the TV Everywhere experience. We're seeing true convergence happening."

ABR streaming was first developed by Move Networks and is now offered in several different flavors by Adobe Systems (HTTP Dynamic streaming), Apple (HTTP Live Streaming) and Microsoft (Smooth Streaming). It works by taking a single source video and encoding it at multiple bit rates. When the video is requested over the network, the content adapts to the network not the network adapting to the content. A user's bandwidth and CPU capacity is detected in real time and the quality of a video stream adjusts according to the changing conditions. 

Each bit rate version is sliced up into tiny fragments and the video player pulls fragments from the different encoded versions and inserts them into the stream as bandwidth dictates. The result is faster video start times with little or no buffering which translates to better viewing experiences. (From Skytide Insight for CDNs - Adaptive Bitrate Streaming)


According to Smith:

"Adaptive bit rate gives some commonality amongst these formats, (from Adobe, Apple and Microsoft), [and] all have common codec payloads in AVC and AAC. So what we're able to do is create a common encoding experience so instead of creating every stream rendition on the encoder, we're creating resolution renditions and delivering those to the network where we catch it (if you will) in what's called a network media processor (NMP)."

Envivio's Halo product is a NMP that can take in 50 different channel renditions and output thousands of streams. A NMP is very beneficial for CDNs and has other functions like DRM, content encryption, ad detection and insertion, television ratings to closed captions. Smith says the NMP stage is the next evolution of ABR and network functionality where the customer/operator is given a lot of scale. Smith added that traditional method of streaming, in which encoder creates multiple renditions, is still very valid for operators with only a few channels. But for those operating multiple channels, this is a new and dynamic approach that they'd want to consider.

Smith advises that for content owners, all screens are a MUST HAVE, and says:

"If your media strategy excludes screens, revisit your strategy. There is no one platform or group of users you should exclude. Channel growth will exacerbate the problem – number of screens will increase."

Smith shared the following points in Adapting to ABR:

• Enables experiences/resolutions -­ mobile to HD
  – Better QoE for viewers/users
  – Adds complexity: additional renditions/screens
• Chunked formatting/delivery
  – Boundaries  and chunk lengths vary by format
• Video & audio payload similar between formats
  – AVC/H.264 -­‐ Video
  – AAC -­‐ Audio

‘Hey Matt - is there one universal codec?'

That was a real question an unnamed Yahoo! Engineer asked Smith in 2003, and almost 10 years later it still brings a smile to his face. Smith has been involved in every aspect of digital video systems design, compression, workflows and delivery for 15+ years, having worked with industry leaders like NBC, Yahoo!, Inlet Technologies and Cisco. He recounts how in the past, different workflows were created for the different streaming environments. There was one for web, one for mobile, one for television and for a variety of reasons there were multiple streaming formats. Hence the best question of career which he says has gotten a lot of laughs over the years. 

Smith says, laugh if you will but where we are today with ABR and the common payload of AVC/H.264 video and AAC audio, it has enabled these chunked ABR type experiences creating the option to do common encoding within a M2TS wrapper to generate multiple renditions on one small platform, and enable a lot of scale. 

Key Takeaways…

Smith says that with ABR, you're essentially creating similar number of streams, but in a different part of the network. You get significant scale gains and you should plan to deliver to every possible screen. The workflow not for every organization and where channel count is low, "old" models work. 

It's about moving from live to live: file to live, live to file. ABR allows for real time packaging (think about… request for right device at the right time) and request based delivery, runtime encoding and delivery. The benefits of a NMP as origin server provides value beyond is packaging and assists with cache.  Smith sees ABR and NMP solutions as key technologies to help service providers and content owners meet the multi-screen challenge on head on and win.

About Envivio
Envivio is a leader in solutions for multi-screen video-over-IP delivery. We design our solutions to remove the boundaries of traditional television and make the world’s video content universally enjoyable by all viewers, on any device, across any network, at any time. Now in its second decade of developing market-leading video convergence solutions, Envivio has amassed dozens of patents, pioneered video-over-IP methods, and led in the deployment of emerging standards and new technologies.  Envivio’s customers include global tier-1 service providers, including eight of the top 10 mobile operators, seven of the top 10 broadband providers and three of the top four cable operators.  Envivio is headquartered in South San Francisco, California and has offices worldwide including France, England, China, Singapore and Japan.