2019 TranSPORT: How OTT Platforms Aim To Match the Quality of Linear Broadcasts Streaming pros shared strategies to combat latency, enhance the user experience By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Monday, November 4, 2019 - 1:47 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
As the end of 2019 nears, cord-cutting is still a relevant topic, and the pay-TV route is seen as a viable option. With increased advances in the OTT space, the line between linear viewing and digital streaming becomes a little less noticeable.
From left: Endeavor Streaming's Phil Green, SinclairDigital's Jason Justman, TAG Video Systems' Abe Zerbib, and Fox Corp.'s Ben Ziskind discuss the blurred line between linear and OTT with SVG's Brandon Costa.
At the 2019 TranSPORT conference in New York City, industry executives on the front lines of this battle discussed ways in which viewability of a live stream can be enhanced to mimic the authenticity of a linear broadcast and how organizations can continue to navigate real-time problems in an evolving digital world.
Behind the Scenes Work
SinclairDigital Senior Principal Architect Jason Justman on the merging of traditional and next-generation OTT methods
What we are really interested in doing over the next two to three years is establishing convergence between OTT and OTA with ATSC 3.0. I've been very active with our media team on the East Coast to support convergence between traditional OTT and next-generation distribution with ATSC 3.0, NMT, and an open-source framework to support all of the ATSC 3.0 standards. It's a very exciting time and a great opportunity to take a look at how the industry is going to change and how we can help deliver a more successful product to market by delivering the content that audiences are interested in.
Fox Corp. Executive Director, Live Video Platforms, Ben Ziskind on implementing TV-like offerings to OTT applications
We've been creating a unified platform that started with entertainment and has expanded to sports to power all of the live streams associated with that. The big thing that we've been working on over the past year is rolling out 4K, so that started this year with the FIFA Women's World Cup. We streamed 52 4K UHD games, and that's extending to MLB with the ALCS in UHD and Thursday Night Football. We're really excited to be one of the few places where you can get UHD football content right now in the OTT space.
We have moved most of our infrastructure to the cloud [for Thursday Night Football], so, when you're talking about doing 4K encoding in the cloud, that has some additional challenges. You need a lot of more computing for that, more bandwidth to get the streams there, and, because it's live, you're still dealing with all of the challenges around latency.
TAG Video Systems CEO Abe Zerbib on developing fail-safe solutions
Besides being a technical issue, it's a matter of establishing a culture. [Hypothetically], a broadcast engineer will plan the design with zero failure, while an IT engineer will know that it is definitely going to fail but will also know how quickly they need to repair it. We luckily work with both broadcast and IT engineers, so we understand the tension and anxiety of how to create these solutions. For broadcast media groups, it's fail fast, win fast. It's about needing to fail in order to learn for the next time.
Justman on altering the idea of personalized content
When [a user] has 15 minutes of downtime, the trick is how to take that two- to three-hour tennis match and tell a narrative story in that 15-minute time frame. Hyperpersonalization is not necessarily the answer; narrative personalization in the allotted time [is]. Maybe I have 17 minutes from when I leave my apartment to when I get to work: what can I engage, experience, and add value to the activities that I subscribe to? It's about finding the right storytelling foundation to be able to personalize the content for the time, perspective, and coverage that's there.
Endeavor Streaming SVP, Partnership Development, Phil Green on categorizing video material for the sake of the user
It's about using the technology to solve business challenges. There are more than 1,200 OTT apps around the globe and 200 in the U.S. alone. How do you make sure you are increasing retention for these subscription products to get pay-per-view signups? A big focus for us is [not only] increasing the ability of renewal rates and how to fight piracy but also the piece about personalization. How do you personalize by device or by region in order to have smart personalization that is manageable?
Performing in the Real World
Green on the transition from the NeuLion property and the subsequent relaunch of the WWE Network
For the past 12 months, there has been a lot of fantastic change [coming] from our end. It started with our rebrand back in January, and, since then, our entire technology and product stacks and our communication internally as well as with our clients have improved by leaps and bounds. In addition to working with our existing clients, we've also brought new, big partners on board, such as UEFA and a bigger splash this past summer with WWE and the relaunch of the WWE Network. It was a massive undertaking to migrate their subscriber base and huge video-on-demand archive as well as to manage their three major live events during the summer (Summer Slam, Clash of Champions, and Hell in a Cell).
For the WWE, it was about moving over to a more flexible platform and rolling out different tiers of subscription since, originally, it was one price fits all. They're [also] going to have the ability to download video to bring content with you, a more modern user interface, and a better overall video experience.
Ziskind on learning from streaming issues duri
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
2019 TranSPORT: How OTT Platforms Aim To Match the Quality of Linear Broadcasts Streaming pros shared strategies to combat latency, enhance the user experience By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
