By Kalle Henriksson, research and innovation, founder, Edgeware
Contributor 2 hours ago
By Kalle Henriksson, research and innovation, founder, Edgeware
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> By Kalle Henriksson, research and innovation, founder, Edgeware
https://www.tvbeurope.com/features/taking-control-of-your-ott-content-delivery title=Share via Email class=share-email>
As consumers increasingly opt to get their TV through OTT services distributed over HTTP-based CDN networks rather than traditional packages, many service providers now need to use multiple networks to deliver their content. Ovum predicts that spend on CDN services will grow from just under $11 billion in 2018 to nearly $16 billion in 2023. This upsurge is because multi-CDN environments provide increased reach, redundancy and flexibility around peak traffic. So having a choice of CDNs to use becomes critical to ensuring fast, buffer-free streams that meet viewers' increasingly high standards.
There are, however, some very real issues when distributing TV content over the internet in a multi-CDN environment. The quality of the OTT TV delivery, for example, is left in the hands of the CDN provider. Content distributors, therefore, have limited visibility and no means to instantaneously fix any potential issues that may arise during the streaming session.
So what are the key challenges facing OTT TV providers and how they can be overcome?
Limited control and measurement options
By relying on multiple third-party CDNs rather than having their own CDN infrastructure, OTT TV providers are losing overall control and insight of the end user experience when streaming media.
In OTT streaming, the vast majority of decisions are negotiated between the client and the CDN. This means that even the service providers themselves are outside of the decision loop. The client autonomously takes decisions about what media to fetch from a menu of variants, significantly limiting visibility into the customer experience and making it difficult for the content provider to know what actions to take in order to fix possible quality issues.
Quality of Experience (QoE) information and insight into how viewers are experiencing content can be provided using client-side solutions, but this requires client integration, which can be a considerable drawback. And with today's explosion of client devices, it's hard to reach 100 per cent coverage. The current client landscape is more fragmented than ever, consisting of an ever-growing mix of brands, models and versions. Integrating with client devices, therefore, becomes complex, time-consuming and costly - often ending with the provider sampling a subset of clients instead of all of them.
This is all made even more complicated by the fact that each CDN comes with its own features and capabilities. Because these are not standardised, there is a risk that one CDN's capabilities cannot be provided by another. This makes it difficult to create one overall control functionality that works independently of which network is delivering the content.
Limited options to impact the service quality in real time
A multi-CDN approach typically involves relying on third-party CDN services, rather than distributing the content over a fully managed network. This means broadcasters and content distributors are in the hands of the CDN provider when it comes to acting on potential problems with the quality of the TV service.
The issue is that they lack instant access and the ability to act on key session data. This can include bitrate, the timing between segment requests, the type of device used, the video format and performance data from all delivering CDNs. As a result, a potential service complaint could easily end up in an SLA review, but won't be resolved during the ongoing TV show. This will heavily impact that customer's quality experience and may put them off from using the service in the future.
So, the ability to proactively identify potential drops in performance and manage the OTT TV delivery in real time - before a potential quality issue arises - is very limited.
These two challenges highlight some key questions for content providers. Firstly, is there a way to gain visibility into their customers' QoE without having to integrate with the client devices? And secondly, is there a way to control OTT TV content delivery across multiple CDNs even if they don't own and manage the CDN infrastructure themselves?
How content providers can take control
The good news is that the answer to both of these questions is yes.
In today's age of OTT TV where QoE is one important success factor, content providers have to find a way to take back control of the delivery of their content and gain visibility into the QoE without having to go down the client integration route.
One of the most effective ways of doing this is to introduce a control plane-based model that can, in real time, select the optimal delivery on a per-segment granularity, independent of both client and CDN.
Such a model can provide a new level of control when it comes to multi-CDN delivery and bring content providers back into the loop, between the client and the CDN. Sitting in the control plane allows the content provider to orchestrate the delivery of streamed media and decide - at a granular level - where each segment request should be directed, i.e. which CDN should deliver it.
Giving content distributors independence towards both CDN providers and clients for both features and quality, thus avoiding any complicated client integration, is a strategic position to be in. Every segment request can be measured and should a problem occur, the session can be moved to another CDN to overcome it. What's more, the common denominator for the sessions experiencing a pro
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...
By Kalle Henriksson, research and innovation, founder, Edgeware
