sponsored supplement sponsored The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth 2 0 1 7 E X E CUTIV E P R E DICTIONS redicting what’s to come is a tough one, isn’t to see such a small group of very smart, very it? Some people would say, “More of the passionate people affect how so many people Psame, Joel,” and what they mean by that is worldwide consume content, and the changes the same thing that happens every year in our happen so incredibly fast. It’s a push industry, and industry—muddling toward standards, watching it’s led by the technical—the super geeks, if you vendors come and go (and seeing some lucky will. When I saw a contentious standing-room-only ones get acquired), and of course marveling at panel discussion about MPEG-DASH at Streaming the genius of losing money with entertainment Media West in November, it reminded me who’s content (I’m looking at you, OTT). But I can’t think really running the industry. So, yeah, more of the of a more exciting industry to be in. It’s amazing same, but I can’t wait for it. STREAMINGMEDIA.COM 113 While 2017 may not look that different for the areas like drones or what to watch on Netflix to try online video industry from this bird’s-eye point to get a quick traffic boost just to sell more ads. of view, we can learn a lot about the future by looking at the past. The top-read articles on Over the past 5 years, I’ve seen our site traffic StreamingMedia.com in 2016 were actually increase by over 330%, and we’re serving up articles from previous years: around 330,000 pages of content every month— all about the ecosystem of streaming. We don’t 1. “H.265: Here’s the Good News, the Bad News, publish click-bait, and we haven’t changed our and What to Expect”—from 2015, 56,307 page marketing or social strategy for advertising views in 2016 alone inventory gains. 2. “10 Best Practices for Live Streaming So why the boost in traffic? There are more Production”—from 2014, 42,005 page views technical video jobs being filled out there than ever in 2016 before, and that’s not going to slow down anytime soon. More companies in corporate America are 3. “What Is HLS (HTTP Live Streaming)?”— building out their own studios than ever before. an oldie but a goodie from 2011, 37,797 Enterprise video has always been a Streaming page views in 2016 Media staple—it’s totally measurable; it’s not an eyeball game. What about education? Are you As for articles published in 2016, these took the kidding me? Going beyond instantly learning which sponsored supplement sponsored top spots: way to wrap the plumber’s tape when playing homeowner handyman, we are going to see a boom 1. “Netflix Finds x265 20% More Efficient in accessibility of content for students of all levels, than VP9” as the classroom continues to “flip.” 2. “Comcast Hit With FCC Complaint We’ll see more SVOD and some decent live OTT Over Net Neutrality Violations” with record-breaking numbers—well, of course. But don’t get too excited just yet. That’s always 3. “A Progress Report: The Alliance for been the problem with the frontier. It takes a lot Open Media and the AV1 Codec” of hard work to make things actually happen. There are patent issues, royalties, and a whole These are the most-read blog posts by Dan Rayburn, slew of arguments on the way to consensus. I, our resident analyst: for one, am glad to see that competition is still driving the innovation that leads to change. The 1. “The Adoption of 4K Streaming Will Be Stalled best news is that we can all come together at a by Bandwidth, Not Hardware & Devices” Streaming Media conference and figure all this out, one algorithm, one pixel, and one patent at a 2. “How Transit Works, What It Costs time. Mi casa es su casa—please be a part of this & Why It’s So Important” community and be sure to send us your requests, feedback, critiques, and wish lists. Let’s make this 3. “Latest List of Vendors in another great year … together. I expect to see you the Content Delivery Ecosystem” at Streaming Media East in May. If you are reading this, you better be there, now shouldn’t you? Let’s Notice anything here? I really hope you do—with get 2017 done. all the talk about fake news since the election, these are real, useful, technical discussions that play a serious role in how the job actually gets done. My prediction is that when you need to see the rubber meet the road, you’ll continue to use us. We’ll stick with what we know, and we have Joel Unickow no plans to pretend to also be specialists in other Publisher, Streaming Media 114 STREAMING MEDIA January/February 2017 will be the year of containing HEVC decoders, 2017 to componentized, using best of 2017 network crushing will be the year distributors deploy breed codec SDKs, muxing, video bandwidth growth. H.264 has services using HEVC. The move to packaging, and DRM solutions. peaked, and it’s time for HEVC to HEVC will have a positive effect of This trend is enabling faster power consumer expectations for increasing network capacity 1.3x adoption of technologies and better quality. The uncertainty of while enabling higher resolution applications, a key to maintaining HEVC licensing set the industry and better image quality using HDR. a lead position in the market. back in 2016. But with more than The opportunity for multi-service Based on the work Beamr is doing 40 million TV’s in the US capable of operators and companies launching with service providers, platforms, decoding 4K HEVC content, and virtual TV services is to leapfrog and video distributors, this is a tens of millions of mobile devices their competitors on the vectors of universal trend that we are seeing. quality and user experience. With If you have dismissed SDK’s, it major media brands launching may be time to revisit that decision. OTT TV services, to compete in the With virtual and cloud-based market requires more than content. architectures it is becoming easier You must deliver the highest quality to create a custom video workflow video with an equally great for any application. Beamr has streaming experience. been at the head of this trend with The question then is how these our H.264 and HEVC codec SDKs new video encoding and optimization that are in use by the largest and solutions will be delivered? There is most demanding brands, streaming a move away from hardware to companies, and vendors in the software, from dedicated products industry. Sharon Carmel CEO | BEAMR ntense IP video technology priced beyond their reach a few that transcodes 200 SD streams or competition leads to lower years ago. 50 1080p streams. Iprices, with a great choice in all Most interestingly, this With the increasing popularity of supplement sponsored systems categories, hardware as inflection point in technology watching video on mobile devices, well as software, and overall price/ allows entrepreneurial people operators can reach more users with performance continues to develop with limited means to create and cost-efficient packaging equipment. very favorably. launch “niche” OTT services while DVEO’s Gearbox™, Brutus™, and 2017 will be the year of Ubiquitous competing with much larger and MultiStreamer™ transcoders and Streaming, as streaming solutions established television enterprises encoders natively serve 50 HLS become even more pervasive. Small for subscribers. users. DVEO’s ATLAS Packaging companies and non-profits can now This inflection point is also a Server family includes a system stream video with affordable good time for larger operators to that supports up to 42,000 RTMP, equipment that would have been upgrade their systems. DASH, and/or HLS users at 1 mbps. New and re-vamped products H.265/HEVC is gathering steam now deliver many more streams and offers cost savings. It doubles at a lower cost. For example, two the data compression ratio at the years ago, our Brutus™ III systems same level of video quality, or transcoded up to 40 SD streams. offers substantially improved Now they transcode up to 80, and video quality at the same bit rate. the Brutus™ VI systems transcode H.265 is available as an option on up to 200 SD streams. DVEO’s DVEO streaming products. Or, scalable solutions range from a DVEO customers can upgrade to single channel 5.5 inch wide include H.265 capabilities at a encoder to a telco oriented system later date. Laszlo Zoltan VICE PRESIDENT | DVEO STREAMINGMEDIA.COM 115 oday, increased competition of producing broadcast-quality Forward-thinking media from newer players in areas programming on digital platforms. companies that recognize this shift T like OTT and VOD is forcing Broadcast and cable providers now have benefitted immensely from traditional broadcast companies to realize the need to offer traditional outsourcing difficult and constantly re-think strategies and adjust to content digitally, but bringing evolving technical operations to modern viewing habits. For years, content from the broadcast format shared services partners like digital media companies came to to digital is an enormous and Encompass. It’s not the delivery that consumers via technology first and expensive undertaking. makes you special, it’s your content. content second. This model Most executives in any industry Invest in YOUR differentiators. struggled to provide broadcast- would choose to devote more As a leading managed service quality content to a growing, built-in resources to core business functions provider in the industry, let audience of younger, digital natives.