Video Developer Report 2017 Welcome to Bitmovin’S Video Developer Report!
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Video Developer Report 2017 Welcome to Bitmovin’s Video Developer Report! First and foremost, I’d like to thank everyone for making the 2017 Video Developer Survey possible! Without the great support and participation of the video developer community, we would not be able to create this report and share the insights into how developers around the globe work with video. With 380 survey submissions from over 50 countries, this report aims to give an overview of the status of video technology in 2017, as well as a vision into what will be important to video developers in the next 12 months. We hope this report provides helpful information. We have already learned a lot, and are looking forward to the 2018 Video Developer Survey a year from now! Best Regards, Stefan Lederer Stefan Lederer CEO, Bitmovin Page 2 Key findings Apple HLS is the dominant format in video streaming in 2017, but the format people are looking to in the next 12 months is MPEG-DASH. HEVC is the video codec most people are planning to use in the next 12 months, but VP9 and AV1 are also growing in popularity. Software encoders are the most popular encoders, used either on-premise or in the cloud. Cloud encoding is more popular in North America than in Europe. More than a third monetize their online video with subscription models. 45% use some form of encryption or DRM protection. Half of the developers with ad requirements are using a Server-Side Ad Insertion solution. HTML5 is now by far the dominant platform for video playback. OTT devices like Roku, Chromecast, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV have significant regional differences in adoption. Q1. Streaming Formats 100% 78% 80% 56% 60% 37% 40% 26% 25% 20% 12% 6% 2% 0% HLS RTMP Other Smooth Streaming ProgressiveStreaming Adobe HDS MPEG-DASH MPEG-CMAF Which streaming formats are you currently using? In 2017 Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is the most by a quarter of the participants as a fallback for older popular streaming format. This makes sense, as one browsers. Legacy formats, like HDS, Smooth Streaming can reach all devices with HLS as long as you don’t need and RTMP are getting phased out, although RTMP is still DRM protection. In the popularity rank, it is followed popular in contribution feeds as well as in low-latency by MPEG-DASH, which is required once you need to use cases, like betting. use DRM across different browsers and platforms. Progressive Streaming (simple MP4 files) are still used Note: The questions in the survey are multiple choice, multiple answer, and therefore will not add up to 100%. Page 4 Q1. Streaming Formats 100% 80% 60% 40% 31% 24% 19% 20% 8% 7% 6% 4% 0% HLS RTMP Smooth Streaming ProgressiveStreaming Adobe HDS MPEG-DASH MPEG-CMAF Which streaming formats are you planning to use in the next 12 months? Most video developers in the survey are looking to MPEG-CMAF, the new streaming format that aims to use MPEG-DASH, followed by HLS. HLS is especially harmonize HLS and DASH. Stay tuned to see the results interesting for many people as it now supports HEVC in the next year’s survey. on MacOS and iOS devices, as well as fMP4 segments, which are supported directly by HTML5 without re- multiplexing in JavaScript. A rising star on the list is Page 5 Regional variations in streaming formats 100% 75% North America 80% 46% 60% 42% 40% 26% 20% 20% 8% 3% 2% 0% HLS RTMP Other Smooth Streaming ProgressiveStreaming Adobe HDS MPEG-DASH MPEG-CMAF 100% 85% EMEA 80% 58% 60% 38% 40% 32% 27% 20% 12% 6% 1% 0% HLS RTMP Other Smooth Streaming ProgressiveStreaming Adobe HDS MPEG-DASH MPEG-CMAF Interestingly, we don’t see any real difference in the 85%, and APAC leads in MPEG-DASH adoption with streaming formats between regions. While EMEA has almost 70% of participants reporting using the format; the highest concentration of HLS streams, at whopping the distribution of formats looks surprisingly similar. 100% APAC 72% 80% 69% 60% 38% 31% 40% 28% 19% 20% 6% 6% 0% HLS RTMP Other Smooth Streaming ProgressiveStreaming Adobe HDS MPEG-DASH MPEG-CMAF 100% 74% LATAM 80% 53% 60% 42% 40% 32% 20% 11% 5% 5% 0% 0% HLS RTMP Other Smooth Streaming ProgressiveStreaming Adobe HDS MPEG-DASH MPEG-CMAF Q2. Video Codecs 100% 95% 80% 60% 40% 28% 20% 10% 6% 1% 0% VP9 AV1 AVC Other H.264 / H.265 HEVC/ Which video codecs are you using currently? The dominant video codec among survey participants is VP9 arrives in production as well in 2017, especially to definitely H.264/AVC, at 95% adoption. It is supported reach browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, by nearly every platform that is used by consumers and Android devices. With a more efficient compression today; the 5% not using H.264 maybe for playback on than H.264, it can deliver better quality videos for the older set-top boxes or other niche use cases. same amount of data, or use less data while maintaining the same visual quality. Netflix is using VP9 codec for Interesting to see that 28% already use HEVC! Whatever their downloadable content, keeping bandwidth usage the use case, these organizations are definitely ready for low and saving on CDN costs. the upcoming HEVC support on iOS and Mac. Android has had support for HEVC playback in native apps for Interestingly, 6% of the responders already use AV1. some time, as well as with set-top boxes in closed loop This is surprising, as the codec is still in the creation. We systems where people control the encoder and the assume that video developers are checking out this new playback device, and Android TVs. codec now, to be ready for its released at the end of 2017. Page 8 Q2. Video Codecs 100% 80% 60% 40% 40% 18% 20% 14% 0% VP9 AV1 H.265 HEVC/ Which video codecs are you planning to use in the next 12 months? Not surprising, in the next 12 months, most video In terms of Web browsers, currently only Microsoft Edge developers are looking into HEVC. Probably because and Safari has support for HEVC, while Firefox, Chrome Apple has announced their support for HEVC with HLS and Edge support VP9. This explains the importance of on the new iOS 11 and MacOS High Sierra. Similarly, VP9 for a lot of developers in the next 12 Months. When Android already supports HEVC, so we are looking it comes to AV1, the next 12 months will be extremely forward to a future with higher encoding efficiency and interesting, as the AV1 bitstream gets frozen and the better quality on mobile video applications. codec will be officially released at the end of 2017. Page 9 Q3. Where You Encode 100% 80% 60% 54% 46% 40% 34% 24% 20% 7% 0% Hardware Software - Cloud Software On-Premise Managed On-Premise Cloud Encoding Service Page 10 Q3. Where You Encode Where do you encode video? In terms of video encoding - “software eats the world” Software is followed by the cloud, as an infrastructure (to quote Marc Andreessen, the famous venture layer for video encoding, either self hosted, using a capitalist and developer of the Mosaic Web browser). software encoder, or on a SaaS model. The majority of the video developers in our survey report using software encoders, either on local on- Hardware encoders are still very popular, especially premise hardware, or in the cloud. Software encoders for live streaming use cases. However, we expect this include commercial encoders as well as open source number to go down further in the next year, as software tools such as ffmpeg, x264, and others, for Live as well encoders continue gaining in popularity with benefits of as On-Demand use cases. scalability, flexibility and rapid deployment. Page 11 Regional variations in encoding deployments 100% North America 80% 60% 51% 42% 34% 40% 30% 20% 8% 0% Service Software Managed Hardware On-Premise On-Premise Cloud Encoding Software - Cloud 100% EMEA 80% 61% 60% 48% 40% 27% 17% 20% 4% 0% Service Software Managed Hardware On-Premise On-Premise Cloud Encoding Software - Cloud We see an interesting difference here between the North popularity. There is also a significant difference between America + EMEA regions, where software encoder on- the usage of Cloud Encoding Services in North America, premise is the most popular deployment, vs. LATAM and where 30% of the respondents use them, vs. Europe, APAC regions where hardware encoders have higher where only 17 % encode with cloud-based services. 100% APAC 80% 56% 60% 50% 41% 40% 25% 20% 6% 0% Service Software Managed Hardware On-Premise On-Premise Cloud Encoding Software - Cloud 100% LATAM 80% 63% 60% 47% 40% 32% 26% 20% 5% 0% Service Software Managed Hardware On-Premise On-Premise Cloud Encoding Software - Cloud Q4. Platforms and Players 100% 89% 80% 62% 60% 36% 34% 40% 32% 31% 22% 19% 20% 4% 0% Roku Native Flash / Other HTML5 HTML5 Apple TV Silverlight Chromecast Native SDKs / Android / iOS Amazon Fire TV Which platforms and video players do you currently use for your content? It’s great to see that HTML5 is by far the most popular native mobile players on Android and iOS. Mobile video platform for video playback, and that only 36% of the delivery has become a key focus for developers, as video developers still leverage Flash or Silverlight plugins. The publishers are eager to support the growing numbers of second most popular platforms, after HTML5, are the viewers on mobile devices.