Linear live streaming services offer subscription TV providers the opportunity to compete more effectively with emerging OTT content providers. Gone are the days, however, when video processing systems were changed every three years to catch up with the latest in technology.
Keith Wymbs*
Currently, video consumers have the power. In essence, it is they who decide when, where and how they watch their videos. Consequently, subscription TV providers are accelerating their IP video services to compete more effectively with OTT content providers. But many of the operators' ubiquitous TV plans have an Achilles' heel: very few, if any, offer live channels.
Linear live broadcasts of sports, news and entertainment content are becoming a competitive necessity for subscription TV operators. Recent studies show that consumers – even those who got rid of their cable or satellite TV subscription and those who have never paid for one – place special importance on the possibility of have access to the live content they love. In a 2013 report by The Diffusion Group (TDG), it was reported that 64% of online viewers surveyed would be willing to pay higher monthly fees to access content offered by their subscription TV operators from devices other than the TV monitor.
To maintain a competitive advantage, subscription TV operators need a strategy that allows them to easily prepare their technology infrastructures for linear live streaming at the lowest possible total cost of ownership. That strategy starts with permanently upgradable video processing and a broadcast structure that can bring premium live video content to viewers. no matter what device they are using, or where they are.
Hardware-based infrastructures
Many of the basic infrastructure and video components are appropriate to deliver successful implementations of live linear streaming services. However, there are drawbacks: especially with the finite nature of fixed infrastructure based on conventional hardware, which for decades has defined the video processing industry.
The specialized hardware-based infrastructures of traditional video processing providers will fail to withstand the accelerated process of innovation that is occurring in audio processing, color depth, content protection and tracking, and innovations in video encoding. Subscription TV operators who decide to invest in existing technologies may enjoy the convenience offered by the familiar, but they could soon be burdened with outdated equipment that needs to be replaced. Acquiring a new fixed-function hardware-based infrastructure might deliver good performance at first, but it is possible that very soon such infrastructure will be overtaken by cheaper and highly adaptable options that keep pace with the change in the industry.
As the ubiquitous TV era unfolds, it becomes clear that hardware-based solutions lack the agility and elasticity needed to do their job well.
Pay-TV Software
Subscription TV providers that enrich their current services with premium live linear streaming services can strengthen their competitive position and accelerate time to market by implementing software-defined video processing architectures in their next-generation infrastructures. A software-defined video processing platform is a new form of video infrastructure that meets the changing needs of global IP video applications. These platforms can be accessed independently of the chosen processing architecture (serial, parallel) or the deployment model (terrestrial, virtualized, in the cloud).
A software-defined video processing platform offers far more flexibility and scalability than specialized video equipment, while extending the life of infrastructures as the industry progresses. By leveraging the most powerful general-purpose programmable processors, the power and efficiency of a software platform can follow the same level of performance and cost improvement as a conventional IT infrastructure. There is no hardware lag, which means that new features can be deployed in the span of days, not months, or years.
With this new approach, support for new video services and formats can be seamlessly integrated through software updates. What is used today to process MPEG-2 video can seamlessly migrate in the future to H.264 or HEVC. What is used for 8-bit 4K test processing could evolve to 10- or 12-bit processing in a real implementation. The only thing that limits the possibilities are the lines of code of the software, not the designs of the chips in conventional hardware systems.
By supporting third-party integrations, a software platform can enable full integration of DRM, ad servers, and other video features into a unified system. Modular software-based platforms can also support a multitude of additional options, including device profile-specific video processing, just-in-time selection, or audio transcoding. Live and on-demand video features such as personal network video recorders (nPVRs) and day-to-day television can also be supported using modular software components. Other possibilities could include video analytics, content protection systems, and ad servers.
The flexibility of a software-defined video processing solution allows subscription TV providers to offer premium live content, while extracting as much value as possible from that same content. They can enhance basic live linear streaming services with the day-to-day TV and multi-screen broadcast feature. And through advertising integration and insertion features, operators can even generate additional revenue through targeted advertising.
Increase value with multiple displays
Multi-screen video gives subscription TV providers the opportunity to expand their linear and on-demand offerings to more audiences and advertisers. But it poses the challenge of simultaneously creating and broadcasting content across multiple devices (sometimes more than 1,000). among others, tablets, PCs, smartphones, game consoles and connected TVs.
Adaptive Speed Streaming (ABR) converts a primary video source into multiple video streams, at different resolutions and bitrates, so that the video broadcast system can switch between different levels of image quality in real time to compensate for fluctuations in end-user bandwidth availability. A specialized video processor could work in simple multi-screen applications. But as soon as a subscription TV provider decides to offer additional streams or support new types of devices, hardware costs and time to market begin to rise dramatically.
Software components can be distributed over an entire network in order to bring multi-screen transmission systems closer to users. Instead of handling all ABR flows from the header of a subscription TV provider, selecting formats for specific devices can be achieved on local network edge servers. This can greatly improve the efficiency of video broadcasting while at the same time reducing bandwidth consumption, as only a single stream per profile is required between the header server and the local edge server. All of these components, including cloud or terrestrial video processing services and content delivery network caching, can be managed locally using a single software-defined video platform.
Virtual Data Centers and Cloud
Because a software-defined video processing platform is designed to work on conventional computing equipment, regardless of its location, it is ideal for public and private cloud environments (virtualized infrastructure).
Optimal software-defined video processing platforms are a heterogeneous solution designed to optimize video processing by selecting the most appropriate processor for the task (i.e. GPU or CPU). Integrated cloud platforms can accelerate and slow down resource allocation, depending on demand, thus avoiding infrastructure overinvestments. This also frees operators from geographical restrictions, in terms of infrastructure availability within specific regions or markets. The platform must be flexible enough to operate in purely intelligent infrastructures, as well as in data centers accelerated by graphics processors.
As innovation in cloud computing continues to accelerate, subscription TV providers with software-based platforms will have more and more options. In some cases, private infrastructure can be used in the cloud. Virtual machines can be assigned for video processing and broadcast tasks alongside other commercial applications such as DRM and BSS/OSS. As the processing and storage capacity of cloud infrastructures improves, video processing can take advantage of the increase in performance, while existing hardware can be readjusted for applications that need less capacity.
Perfect combination for optimal results
Subscription TV operators can decide whether to run video processing partially or entirely in the cloud. Combining both terrestrial and cloud resources, they can choose what level of system support they would like to maintain internally, in contrast to external service infrastructures. In many cases, vendors want to maintain basic internal video processing and internal broadcasting with cloud resources employed to process large spikes in demand, testing new services and offering a redundant system. To decide on the appropriate cloud, terrestrial, and software deployment infrastructure configuration, it is necessary to consider technical and financial planning considerations.
The increase in virtualization made possible by end-to-end software architectures also has the potential to reduce storage capacity and bandwidth needs. This is critical to delivering value-added features, such as day-to-day TV and the option to restart shows, to extend the life and value of live streamed content. Key functions in revenue generation, such as just-in-time selection and advertising insertion/replacement, as well as content delivery network (CDN) expansion, integrate seamlessly with the ecosystem, all via software.
Through the implementation of elemental cloud, subscription TV providers can organize the flexible use of the public cloud and own resources, either separately or hybridly, to run all the functions built into their live services and elemental's software-based solution on demand. Because Elemental Cloud integrates seamlessly with user video operations, video providers can flexibly scale the ability to respond to changing consumer behavior patterns and market changes with complete feature parity and redundancy across all resources.
The cloud management features of Elemental's software-based solution can also be applied to physical facilities, whether or not public cloud resources are part of the network. This functionality is especially important for subscription TV operators with large-scale video processing applications, which are rapidly shifting to a data center model for head operations. Large headers must process constant fluctuations in video processing requirements, especially in live video streaming. The Elemental platform has the ability to dynamically allocate resources across on-demand and live applications, using the same types of automated workflow management configurations used with the public cloud.
Unlimited roadmap
In many ways, software-defined video processing represents the promise of an unlimited roadmap for the subscription TV operator. Virtualized data centers and cloud-based infrastructures have come to dominate much of the IT space over the past five years. As the infrastructure has become more mature, it has begun to remove many of the barriers that prevented video processing from residing in a cloud environment. This expands the opportunities for subscription TV operators to accelerate their business results as well as their competitive advantages.
By committing to a software-defined architecture as the foundation of their next-generation video processing infrastructure, subscription TV providers can feel more confident to offer live linear streaming, enhance it with innovative features, such as up-to-date TV and program restart option, and explore new broadcasting models, such as HbbTV (hybrid broadband television). And they can do it all while lowering the costs of opening up to new projects, markets, and applications.
*Keith Wymbs, Vice President of Marketing, Elemental
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