HARMONIC - Executive Predictions for 2018
OTT QoE Will Improve in 2018
According to Phenix’ Streaming Wars: Sports Report, over 70 percent of viewers who stream live sports expect “bad service,” which consists of buffering, latency, poor picture quality and actual loss of service. Approximately two out of these three viewers are reluctant to sign up or resubscribe to sports live streaming platforms in 2018 due to latency issues.
In 2018, Harmonic believes that the latency issues plaguing live streaming, especially for sports events, will be alleviated with the broader adoption of the Common Media Application Format (CMAF) standard. Moreover, OTT service providers will be able to deliver a video quality of experience (QoE) on par, or exceeding, traditional video offerings like cable and satellite. The key to improving QoE without increasing bandwidth is by deploying content-aware compression solutions like Harmonic’s EyeQ™ video compression, which reduces the bandwidth for live streaming by up to 50 percent while remaining standards compliant (AVC and HEVC) and boosting QoE.
2018 will also be the year that OTT providers rely heavily on cloud-based video processing and delivery models to distribute geo-targeted content, make ad replacements and provide UHD-HDR in order to increase monetization. With cloud-based SaaS solutions, OTT providers can launch fast and scale their services up and down. Our award-winning cloud-native VOS™ media processing applications and VOS 360 managed service are great examples of the flexibility, scalability and efficiency that can be achieved via the cloud.
Distributing local or regional channels via OTT is going to be another big trend in 2018. Until recently, broadcasters struggled with how to prepare and distribute OTT-ready local broadcast channels to MVPDs. However, cloud-based broadcast affiliate aggregation and distribution solutions from Harmonic are available that allow broadcasters to seamlessly create schedules and manage content rights, ensuring exceptional video quality via the internet and cloud.
Eric Armstrong
VICE PRESIDENT, SAAS SOLUTIONS | HARMONIC
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