Akamai Announces CMAF Support to Simplify Transcoding, Storage
Content delivery network Akamai isn't waiting for the Common Media Application Format (CMAF) to be approved before supporting it. While the CMAF is now it Draft International Standard status with the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), Akamai is throwing its weight behind it. Customers using Akamai's on-demand transcoding solution, part of its Media Services on Demand OTT product, now have the option to prepare content using CMAF. This is in addition to Adobe HDS, Apple HLS, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, and MPEG-DASH options.
CMAF is being created to address problems in encoding, packaging, and storage that come from having multiple versions of every video file. Using CMAF, publishers can streamline the encoding process, using far less space for storage since they only need one version of a file for video playback on any device. CMAF includes support for encryption, multiple codecs, multi-track video and audio, and captions, which should prove useful for launching services internationally.
“While we’ve made good progress as an industry toward using HTTP/S to deliver adaptive segmented content, we continue to see fragmentation thanks to competing solutions such as HLS, Smooth, HDS, and MPEG DASH," says Shawn Michels, media product management director at Akamai. “Even though the industry seems to be consolidating on DASH and HLS, content creators must still encode and store the same audio and video twice. CMAF is designed to finally eliminate those unnecessary and costly redundancies and related delivery inefficiencies by requiring content to be encoded, packaged, and cached only once, and played back on one common player.”
Related Articles
With LiveOrigin, Akamai hopes to make live linear streams as reliable as broadcast, with low latency and an emphasis on content ingestion.
18 Apr 2017
Turning last-mile delivery problems on their head, Akamai creates a customer-focused method for avoiding video congestion.
21 Mar 2017
The CDN reported a record peak of 8.7 Tbps on Friday, serving 4.6 million concurrent live video viewers for its broadcast clients.
23 Jan 2017
The Common Media Application Format (CMAF) hits a predictable roadblock with encryption, where it enables two incompatible modes. This has one columnist feeling pessimistic.
05 Dec 2016
While year-over-year growth is still strong, this quarter saw connectivity declines for many nations and U.S. states, reports Akamai.
30 Sep 2016
With a dedicated team working around the clock, Akamai aims to monitor OTT delivery and squash problems the moment they arise.
18 Apr 2016
A unanimous appeals court ruling found that Limelight was responsible for infringement, even if customers performed the final step.
14 Aug 2015