NAB 2018 in Review: OTT, AI, Machine-Learning, IP Top Digital Highlights Direct-to-consumer streaming strategies were the talk of the floor as industry readies its tech By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Monday, April 16, 2018 - 2:39 pm
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If direct-to-consumer live-sports-streaming services weren't already in the mainstream, they sure are now, following the launch of both Disney's ESPN+ and Turner's B/R Live this month. Live over-the-top (OTT) technologies and the tools that make them possible were the buzz of the NAB 2018 show floor last week.
In addition, there was plenty to be shared and seen about AI and machine learning in a content-creation environment. Also, the move to IP got a long overdue boost with the recent ratification of the SMPTE ST 2110 suite of standards.
Here are highlights of digital offerings by some innovative companies: iStreamPlanet, Harmonic, Akamai, AWS Elemental, Ericsson, Telestream, Wowza Media Systems, Limelight Networks, Grabyo, and more.
iStreamPlanet recently launched its Orbis direct-to-consumer streaming platform. In addition to high-quality video support for content owners, the platform provides deep data-driven analytics. Orbis is the backbone of Turner's new sports-streaming service, B/R Live. The platform is free until June, when it will become subscription-based, and offers live streaming of major sports events, including the UEFA Champions League (English-speaking U.S. rights).
At Harmonic's press conference, Director, Market Development, Jean Macher noted that the company has seen a shift in the use of cloud-technology services. We see a change, a disruption maybe, but definitely progress in cloud adoption by our customers, he said. A lot of video is streamed over the internet, and that puts a lot of pressure on our customers. Customers have come to Harmonic, he added, because they want to benefit in the elasticity the cloud provides in terms of agility, time to market, and the ability to pay as you grow. He announced that the company now has 32,500 OTT channels deployed globally and, of those, 2,500 are in the cloud. This represents 150% growth in cloud-native OTT channels in only the last nine months for Harmonic, he added.
For a long time, OTT has been the stepchild of live broadcasting, traditionally around 30 seconds behind in latency, but that's changing, says Will Law, chief architect, media division, Akamai. The company is improving latency in its CDN, using open-standard CMAF as a path forward, to get it close to satellite-based distribution delays. Latency in the past has been used as a band-aid for covering up immature delivery systems. OTT is now maturing to the point where we can move down the latency stack and up the quality stack. 1080p is standard on OTT, and we are seeing 4K workflows come about for live OTT, which is the vanguard; the aim is 4K HDR DRM with broadcast-equivalent latency.
AWS Elemental demonstrated integration of its Media Services with AWS machine learning to help sports-video producers enhance workflows with automated capabilities. Media Services integrates with Amazon Rekognition, Transcribe and Translate, with 83%-94% accuracy. Says CMO Keith Wymbs, Media Services is a category in the AWS console that allows customers of any size to take advantage of our services in the cloud as SaaS. We are now combining that with machine learning. AWS Elemental is also debuting Quality-Defined Variable Bitrate (QVBR) control.
Ericsson is looking to launch a new era following recent investment from One Equity Partners. In terms of attractions at the booth, the company has a VR/360 demo synced with a main TV screen (in conjunction with Tiledmedia) that uses its HEVC 360 live encoder and features Formula 3 content (building on a similar demo at IBC2017, in which the encoder was not live). In addition, Ericsson debuted its end-to-end UHD ecosystem, a new contribution solution specifically for at-home production (a 1RU AVP encoder/decoder that can transport up to 16 video paths), Distributed Cloud Contribution architecture, and an MPEG-H contribution encoder for next-gen audio.
The world is going to everything streaming; OTT is going to be the future, says Scott Murray, VP, product management, Telestream. We are positioning ourselves to be the go-to company for everything live and VoD. We're already there with VoD, and now we're working on live. As part of that, we're working with Fox Sports for the World Cup. Fox Sports is sending back live content from the World Cup to Los Angeles in real time over the public internet with just a 10-second delay, so editors can create their highlights shows. This is really killer stuff. The solution comprises Telestream's Lightspeed Live Capture, plus Aspera's Faspstream, which creates a tunnel though the public internet. The cost savings are staggering, Murray adds.
Having debuted at IBC2017, Clearcaster, the new Facebook Live streaming solution from Wowza Media Systems, was on display at NAB 2018 with a bevy of upgrades. The solution provided support for shoulder programming at the recent NCAA March Madness tournament. According to Senior Solutions Engineer Tim Dougherty, Wowza Streaming Cloud also remains a popular technology among the company's sports clients.
Limelight Networks is helping lead the conversation and the innovation around low-latency streaming, especially in live sports production. Senior Director, Product and Solution Marketing, Mike Milligan cites the new WebRTC-based subsecond-latency live-streaming solution as a major feature at the company's booth. According to the company, the solution allows video to be streamed from anywhere in the world with just a single second of latency.
Cloud-based video-delivery breakout Grabyo has seen rapid growth, thanks
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NAB 2018 in Review: OTT, AI, Machine-Learning, IP Top Digital Highlights Direct-to-consumer streaming strategies were the talk of the floor as industry readies its tech By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
