The Video Content Question: To Stream or Not to Stream?

As more brands produce content to engage people, the technology to share this content has also evolved to meet the increased demand. Not only has streaming continued to evolve, so to have device playback capabilities, end-user bandwidth, compression technologies, and screen resolutions. CES 2015 provided a great showcase for all of these, especially when combined in demonstrations of streaming to 4K Ultra HD TVs. In fact, streaming provides the most efficient way to deliver on-demand 4K content today, and the only way to deliver live 4K content.

Historically, video delivery over IP networks started with classic downloads, then progressive download playback, and then streaming. As broadband availability has increased and compression standards have become more efficient, streaming has become a hugely popular way to publish high-quality live and on-demand video.

Today, content producers also have access to adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR), one of the most recent forms of video streaming, which delivers a few seconds of video at a time as small, cacheable HTTP files. ABR is broadly used to deliver video, as it adjusts media stream quality (resolution and bitrate) to match the local bandwidth and playback capabilities of each viewer, thus providing the best possible streaming experience for everyone.

If you’ve watched HD on-demand video from such companies as Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Instant Video, or perhaps recent Olympic Games, World Cup, or Super Bowl broadcasts in a browser or app, then you’ve already experienced the capabilities of ABR streaming. On-demand 4K Ultra HD content is starting to appear in the market, and it too is being delivered using ABR.

If ABR is a new term to you, perhaps you’ll recognize it by one of its more common trade names: Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Microsoft [HTTP] Smooth Streaming (MSS or HSS), Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS), or MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). Due to the popularity of Apple iPhone and iPad devices, HLS is currently the most widely-deployed ABR format. However, DASH is the first true international standard for ABR, and is gaining rapid adoption among broadcasters and TV equipment manufacturers for delivery and playback of HD and Ultra HD streams.

With ABR technology, organizations have access to the best of both the streaming and web download worlds, combining the bandwidth efficiency and instant playback of classic streaming with the networking simplicity of distributing standard HTTP files. If you already have a content delivery infrastructure optimized for efficient delivery of either traditional streaming or Web content, you can build upon that base to now deliver ABR streaming.

Benefits of streaming

With access to multiple cutting-edge technologies that can be used to seamlessly and effectively stream video, organizations can be challenged to choose the best solution for their needs. So why should organizations stream content versus download content? When adopting video technology at your organization, consider these six benefits that build a case for streaming technology.

• Ensure network availability: Streaming only sends small snippets of video that are needed at that moment, rather than whole video files that download as fast as possible, but may cause network congestion. Within a private network (enterprise, Telco ISP network, etc.), using multicast for live or linear streaming reduces the impact on networks of any size to as low as the bandwidth required for a single stream. If multicast is not feasible, several other tried-and-true streaming options are available that mimimize network loading, including origin-edge streaming, distributed HTTP caching, and peer-to-peer streaming. Similarly, if delivering to viewers outside your private network, consider whether your Internet connection is sufficient to handle numerous simultaneous viewers without congestion. If not, consider offloading delivery from your network by virtualizing your streaming distribution server in the cloud, pushing streams to a CDN, or using a third-party streaming service.

• Reduce data transfer costs: If you plan to deliver large quantities of video online, determine what the potential cost impact will be for data transfer, whether delivering from an on-premises server or from a cloud-based server. Most downloaded videos today are delivered immediately as a large, high-quality file, as fast as the user’s connection will allow – regardless of whether the viewer will watch the whole video, or just the first 20 percent of it. Because streaming servers only send the video packets needed for the next few seconds, there is no wasted delivery, which can significantly lower transfer costs.

• Engage a broader audience with live streaming: Another benefit to streaming is that you can share live events in real- or near-real-time with your audience. Live streaming allows businesses to give their audience exclusive access on any device to events that are happening at the moment — such as news, sports, lectures, concerts, webinars, corporate presentations, and more. Leading organizations are embracing live streaming, as it cost-effectively generates increased engagement and loyalty by making events more accessible to those who cannot physically attend.

• Keep content secure: Streaming ensures that content is not downloaded or cached on users’ devices, lowering the likelihood of unauthorized use. Additional streaming security measures include network encryption, secure tokens, geo-location, IP address filtering, and data encryption. For even tighter security, digital rights management (DRM) and digital watermarking can also be applied on the fly and personalized for each stream or user.

Seek content faster: Streaming technology provides better instant-seek functionality. On-demand content can be indexed during encoding, allowing viewers to use fast-forward and rewind on their player, jumping to whatever part of the content they need without waiting for all of the content to download first. With live streaming, viewers can use DVR-like features to pause, seek back to any previous point (including the beginning of the event), see instant replays, and seek forward within the stream. Such capabilities provide a richer experience, especially for live events, making your content interactive and keeping your viewers coming back for more.

• Avoid end-user buffering: Streaming technology uses bandwidth more efficiently than downloading, ensuring that users can watch video without disruption by reducing network congestion. ABR is even more efficient, because it sends data at only the highest speed at which the viewer’s player can render it correctly. This helps prevent overloading the viewer’s network connection and overwhelming the playback capabilities of any given device, ensuring the best viewing experience possible. As 4K Ultra HD content grows in popularity, this will become even more critical because you don’t want to deliver 4K content at 15 Mbps to a viewer with only a 720p screen or a 1 Mbps data connection.

Ultimately, streaming technology benefits not only the organizations delivering video content, but also the people watching it. By creating a seamless, cost-effective content delivery workflow and ensuring the best possible viewing experience, streaming offers the most attractive video delivery option.