
By Shawn Carnahan, CTO, Telestream
Contributor 2 hours ago
By Shawn Carnahan, CTO, Telestream
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> By Shawn Carnahan, CTO, Telestream
https://www.tvbeurope.com/features/video-streaming-publish-or-be-damned title=Share via Email class=share-email>
When we look back over 2019, we see a year of really significant change. One of the biggest areas is the rise and rise of video streaming across a diversity of viewing platforms. We have been witnessing some basic changes in consumer behaviour for some time. From their perspective, consumers are seeking to transition to more flexible ways to consume content.
The MSO/Aggregator model is steadily being replaced by direct relationships between content creators and their consumers. This is fragmenting the market. This cord cutting' idea that going OTT is cheaper for consumers is a myth. Consumers will replace one major subscription with multiple individual subscriptions, and I don't see any significant cost savings to be made.
However, this will drive the market since now we see content creators standing up their own distribution channels. These can be their own standalone channels or through third-party platforms, such as Brightcove and BAMTech. In this environment content creators are in control of their brands to a far greater extent.
Then there is a large group of linear TV broadcasters that are seeking to replicate their channels in OTT. These factors are definitely driving the technology companies to support these moves. At Telestream, it is driving our roadmap, and in conversations with colleagues at Harmonic and other companies, they say the same thing. Our collective challenge is how to build more cost-effective, flexible and elastic origins.
Is it an OTT-first approach, and if so, how important is a quality consumer experience?
Looking at one of our core markets - owner operated linear multi-channel broadcasters - they are almost exclusively focussed on OTT build out. Currently, virtually everything we are doing with them is in response to the challenge of how to create an OTT network that is on a par with linear television in terms of quality of service and experience.
The transition from OTT being a novelty to having the same consumer expectations as the linear TV experience in your living room is massive.
The bigger operators in this market want to control the viewer experience and build their brands. Today, the technology is not experimental: there has been a shrinking in the options for how they distribute content across all the consumer platforms that they need to cover.
It's not as much of a mystery for them as it once was. So, I believe that many of the bigger players will build their OTT channels out internally, whereas earlier, the strategy was to wholesale outsource the challenge. This internalisation process will include the entire workflow including App development for these platforms. This will enable them to better control consumer behaviour, consumer experience, monetisation and analytics of the process.
From a technology perspective, you can't just throw the QoS responsibility at companies such as Akamai, who really don't want to be in the media business - they want to be in the data business.
As they learned from the IPTV transition, there is a massive difference between IP for data and IP for media. At Telestream, the development of our iQ portfolio is driven by the problems that are unique to the delivery of media over IP. This continues to be true for OTT delivery - it's just a different set of problems. Our customers seek control over this, and also to control costs. When OTT was an experimental novelty, organisations weren't staking revenue on these new channels. But as they transition to OTT becoming the core business then bottom-line profitability is directly related to costs.
For Telestream, this speaks to the level of integration we have within our customers' workflows. As a technology vendor, we can do so much more depending on the amount of the whole process that we're participating in. OTT is not as componentised as television was in the past. We must have a broader portfolio of system solutions. We're not there yet, but strategically it is where we are heading.
In practical OTT applications, the more that you're involved with across the entire workflow, the more value you can add, especially in the absence of standards. Take latency as an example. If you can inject instrumentation into the signals that you're encoding early in the process, this allows you to pick up problems as they travel through the distribution food chain, particularly when you lose sight of the signals.
If you can instrument your signals up front it enables you to measure latency and find problems further out in the network. Our customers won't find this level of integration in a multi-vendor scenario unless the vendors get together and generate standards that they can all interoperate with.
Is latency still an issue in live streaming?
Absolutely, latency is still an enormous issue - for all the reasons that have been explained ad nauseam! If it's sports, or anything that is timely, you need to reduce latency as much as possible. If the consumer is switching between live linear TV and OTT it is essential.
The big question is what are your expectations? The elegance of http-based OTT is that it enables media distribution through content delivery networks that don't treat media any differently than a web page. We're leveraging an infrastructure that is very broad based as long as we can make everything look like chunks of data that can be accessed via http. With this comes a requirement to segment the video into chunks that can be cached on http. This is where the latency is introduced.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
28/04/2026
The audio team for the entertainment event must blend speech intelligibility with full-range music reproduction while considering the broadcast
Last week's...
28/04/2026
The Pac-12 Conference has released an updated primary mark and logo as the starting point of the new league's brand identity. The mark was soft-launched acr...
28/04/2026
The DP World Tour and Amazon Leo have signed an agreement making Amazon's lo...
28/04/2026
Pixellot and HELIOS have announced an integration that automatically converts full-game hockey video into individualized shift videos for each athlete, without ...
28/04/2026
Daktronics has partnered with the Asheville Tourists to manufacture and install a new LED video display. The installation was completed in late 2025 and is now ...
28/04/2026
Eutelsat has announced the renewal of its partnership with PCTV, a content aggregation and distribution company in Mexico and part of Megacable Holdings, for co...
28/04/2026
Daktronics has partnered with the Gary SouthShore RailCats to install a new LED video display at U.S. Steel Yard, replacing the previous Daktronics display inst...
28/04/2026
Telos Alliance and the College Radio Foundation have announced that WWSU-FM of W...
28/04/2026
Golf viewership is growing. The 2025 Ryder Cup drew five million viewers in the UK, a 45% increase over the 2023 event. The US Open was the most streamed golf e...
28/04/2026
The CW Network and WWE, part of TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO), have announced t...
28/04/2026
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) has announced that the Internet Protocol Media Experience (IPMX) suite of standards and specifications has been named...
28/04/2026
The 2026 NAB Show is in the books and the show once again served up a cavalcade ...
28/04/2026
Gray Media and RAJ Sports have announced Rose City SportsNet (RCSN), a new netwo...
28/04/2026
Today, we announced our First Quarter 2026 earnings, starting the Year of Raising Ambition with strong momentum across the business and continued innovation acr...
28/04/2026
I dag presenterade vi v rt resultat f r det f rsta kvartalet 2026. Vi inleder ret med starkt momentum i hela verksamheten och fortsatt innovation p plattforme...
28/04/2026
New handheld promises studio performance for the stage
Mojave have just introduced a new live-focused handheld vocal mic created by award-winning designer D...
28/04/2026
Max for Live device offers AI-powered stem separation
Dynamic Split Module (DSM) is a new Max for Live device created by Ostin Solo, a developer and musican...
28/04/2026
First interface equipped with ISA preamps
Focusrite have just announced the launch of a new high-end audio interface that features a pair of their legendary...
28/04/2026
Triton Digital's Podcast Metrics Demos+ Data Integration Enables Comprehensi...
28/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/04/2026
TAG Video Systems, the leading IP-native Realtime Media Platform, today announced that Lens, its visual service health interface for broadcast operations, recei...
28/04/2026
Open AV-over-IP Standard Recognized in IT Networking/Infrastructure and Security Category
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) today announced that the ...
28/04/2026
VFX History: Slit Scan
Graham Quince April 28, 2026
0 Comments
How did 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Doctor Who and Star Trek: The Next Generation...
28/04/2026
These DaVinci Resolve Effects Will Make You a More Creative Colorist
Kasia Jarco April 28, 2026
0 Comments
Creativity in color grading is not about ha...
28/04/2026
A Simple Introduction to Cavalry: Indexed Circle
Simon Ubsdell April 28, 2026
0 Comments
In this new introductory tutorial for Cavalry we're going...
28/04/2026
Rise, the award-winning advocacy group for gender diversity in the broadcast and media technology sector, is pleased to announce a new global training programme...
28/04/2026
Clear-Com has appointed Brian Grahn as Market Outreach Manager of the Americas and Ben Turnwell as Business Development Manager for EMEA live, expanding their ...
28/04/2026
LiveU is inviting MPTS visitors to step into the companys new Q Era on Stand D32, at The Grand Hall, Olympia, London (May 13-14). The company will showcase its ...
28/04/2026
IBC today announces the launch of the IBC2026 Innovation Awards, with nominations now open for projects, programmes and initiatives that exemplify breakthrough ...
28/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/04/2026
Introducing Nx 3-Strip v2 - A Physics-Based Technicolor Reconstruction for DaVin...
28/04/2026
April 28th, 2026 Press Materials Available Here
TRIBECA FESTIVAL MARKS 25 YEAR...
28/04/2026
In 2023, Norwegian climber Kristin Harila set out to break a mountaineering reco...
28/04/2026
LinkedIn Top Companies 2026: Where Career Growth Is Happening Now Published on Apr 28, 2026 Categories: Data and insights
LinkedIn Corporate Communication...
28/04/2026
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on how developers, 3D practitioners, and enterprises can transform their workflows ...
28/04/2026
AI agent systems today juggle separate models for vision, speech and language - ...
28/04/2026
RT News is pleased to announce the appointment of Sean Whelan as its new London Correspondent.
Sean has held the role of Washington Correspondent for the last...
28/04/2026
Joseph O'Connor, Eileen Walsh, Louise Duffy, Mick Lynch, Gormfhlaith N Thuairisg and Dermot Bannon take a personal look at life 100yrs ago in new TV docume...