Media streaming: it's an OTTortunity
If you're old enough to remember dial-up access to the Internet, you'll recall that even downloading a simple image could seem to take forever. It seems remarkable, then, that the first live sports event to be streamed was back in those 56K days, when ESPN SportsZone streamed a live radio broadcast of a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees to thousands of its subscribers back in 1995.
We've come a long way since then. Just two years after that first ever OTT broadcast, Netflix was founded. Today, it has close to 160 million subscribers worldwide - and is adding around 5 million every three months. Its annual revenues are rapidly approaching $20 billion.
Streaming media, Video on Demand, OTT - call it what you like - is now an established way for us to consume content. From Netflix and Amazon Prime through YouTube to traditional' broadcasters' catch-up services, non-linear rapidly becoming the de facto standard for what we used to call watching TV.
Good news
Which is good news for us at Bridge Technologies. According to research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, the OTT monitoring and compliance market will see significant growth - from today's $62.0 million to $149.7 million in 2024. That's a hell of a business opportunity.
It was back in September 2012 that we announced our OTT Engine was shipping for all our probes, giving true end-to-end OTT monitoring capability alongside monitoring of cable, satellite and terrestrial services, without adding unnecessary extra layers of infrastructure. A year later, we updated it to provide support for MPEG-DASH.
The rise of OTT services, and how operators manage the change in the way TV is consumed in a non-linear way, was at the forefront of the creation of the OTT Engine. It was specifically developed to bridge existing understanding of packet- and chunk-based media, distributed over standard http protocols and servers. We knew that enabling broadcasters to readily understand this maturing technology within known and familiar frameworks, event and alarming structures, would be extremely important for successful implementation of any OTT platform.
It's interesting that the first example of streaming media involved sport - because sport in particular, and live events in general, are credited with driving much of the growth in OTT. In the UK, for example, Sky Sports and BT are paying around £5 billion for the rights to show live Premier League matches as a way of attracting subscribers. It's been demonstrated that major sporting events - like the recent Rugby World Cup - create a spike in subscriptions (even if many are cancelled when the tournament has finished )
High bar
But, when it comes to sport especially, the bar - in terms of image quality - is set high. Viewers have become used to the pristine delivery of content by terrestrial broadcasters: no buffering, no jitter, no image break-up. The same is true for all content (although with movies and box sets, for example, it is, perhaps, less critical): viewers have become used to perfect image quality, and they're not prepared to compromise, even for the advantages of programming on demand, multiple camera angles or social media integration. The potential issue is only exacerbated by the multi-screen phenomenon in which the TV set in the corner of the lounge is only one of many devices in play - and, it seems, a device that's diminishing in importance as we turn to the joys of mobile, watch anywhere media.
There is, of course, a further challenge: when it comes to the distribution medium, OTT operators and streaming companies are far from being masters of their own destiny. Neither the Internet nor 4G (and, eventually, 5G) can guarantee perfect connectivity. Given the kind of investment companies are putting in to OTT services, acquiring new subscribers is a hugely expensive undertaking. The last thing those organisations want or need is churn resulting from inadequate image quality.
And that, of course, is where our monitoring tools come in. The OTT Engine is the most complete and sophisticated solution for monitoring OTT services, extending from ingest right through to the viewing device, enabling providers to have real active monitoring of all channels, whether for live or VoD content. It is compatible with all our IP probes for HLS, MPEG-DASH, Smooth Stream, HDS and RTMP assets.
Appropriate
All Bridge Technologies probes have OTT/ABR capabilities that are appropriate for monitoring in adaptive bitrate streaming systems. For example: for the VB120/VB220, the total number of OTT streams that can be monitored is 250 (25 engines). For the VB330, the figure is 500 (50 engines). Each OTT Engine operates autonomously and only requires knowledge of the URL from which the media is being fetched. The OTT Engine then parses the manifest file provided by the origin or edge-server, extracts the different profiles served, validates syntax, checks chunk counters and then does the same for the individual profiles.
Another extremely helpful quality check delivered by the VB288 appliance enables OTT operators to inspect massive amounts of content services and spot any issue that would not be immediately apparent to the human eye. The VB288 supports unreferenced MOS, blocking, blurring, noise, contrast and brightness reporting, for a deep dive into any video analysis.
All consuming content
OTT has enabled whole new ways of consuming content - and even helped create new kinds of content: it's hard to imagine that esports and online gaming would even have been possible without it. In addition, 2018 was the first year that online streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon produced a greater number of original shows than traditional broadcasters. Streaming is now a proven, reli
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
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...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
20/01/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
20/01/2026
December, the first month of winter and the holiday season, has traditionally encouraged families to spend time together in front of the television. During this...
20/01/2026
During December, streaming's share of TV viewing in Mexico settled at 24.3%, an increase of 0.1 share points from the previous month.
Disclaimer: YUMI TV,...
20/01/2026
Christmas Day is Most-Streamed Day Ever with 55 Billion Viewing Minutes, led by...
20/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/01/2026
Disguise and ASB GlassFloor today announced a strategic partnership that turns the arena floor into a fully customizable interactive digital surface. This will ...
20/01/2026
Last summer, ITV celebrated the tenth anniversary of its popular reality dating show, Love Island. To ramp up the excitement of series 12 (launched in the UK on...
20/01/2026
Berklee's Mark Ethier Named One of SPIN's Most Influential People in Mus...
20/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/01/2026
Emergent, a provider of AI-powered media production solutions, today announced its presence at ISE 2026 in Barcelona, taking place February 3 6, where it will u...
20/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery Amend Agreement to All-Cash Transaction
Business
20 January 2026
Global
Link copied to clipboard
All-C...
20/01/2026
Back to All News
Now You Can Play a Role in Our Live Events With Real-Time Voting
Elmar Nubbemeyer
VP, Member Product
Product
20 January 2026
Global
Link...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: Indiana Football's Digital Crew Generate Hyp...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: Van Wagner Relies on Experience for Indiana-Miam...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: Game Creek Video Fields Premiere IP Compound for...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: For a Slew of Studio Shows, ESPN Turns Hard Rock...
19/01/2026
CFP National Championship 2026: ESPN's Sweeping Live Game Production Leverag...
19/01/2026
The new L3Harris NOVA binocular system is the every-soldier goggle' - and the beginning of a new era for night-vison capability....
19/01/2026
The Majority of Those Surveyed Prefer to Buy Brands Who Advertise in Content Tha...
19/01/2026
Back to All News
Straight to Hell' Sets April 27 Premiere: Teaser Trailer,...
19/01/2026
New Workflow Enhancements for All Broadcast Pix Systems, Plus 4-Channel ISO Recording for Hybrid and Roadie Tyngsboro, Mass. - January 2025 - Broadcast Pix ann...
19/01/2026
Monday 19 January 2026
Sky News reinvents News at Ten for the modern audience with The Wrap
Sky News today announces The Wrap, a bold evolution of its 10pm ou...
19/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces the Series Nights & Days, Directed by Kamila...
19/01/2026
DPA Microphones is striking a new chord in piano miking with the debut of its DPK2015 Piano Stereo Kit, an out-of-the-box, plug-and-play miking solution that ta...
19/01/2026
DPA Microphones will present its 4099 CORE Instrument Microphone and redesigned...
19/01/2026
Trianel relies on Arvato Systems for future-proof data center operations
Moving to the cloud: Arvato Systems implements extensive IT migration project
Migrat...
19/01/2026
Celebrating 21 Years of the RT Choice Music Prize
RT Choice Music Prize
In association with IMRO and IRMA
Irish Album of the Year 2025 - Shortlist Announce...
18/01/2026
January 18 2026, 21:30 (PST) Dolby Cinema Arrives in Bengaluru: Dolby Laborator...
17/01/2026
Lightware, an industry leader in signal management, is helping to elevate the Google Meet experience with the introduction of an integration with Taurus UCX. Th...
17/01/2026
Clear-Com announced a strategic partnership with NETGEAR AV to offer four high-performance networking switches as original equipment manufacturer (OEM) solutio...
17/01/2026
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest contribution solutions, today announced a new U.S. distribution partnership wit...
17/01/2026
NUGEN Audio announces the latest evolution of MasterCheck, its industry-trusted optimization plug-in for cross-platform mastering and loudness verification. Des...
17/01/2026
BHV has announced that it will highlight its new SportsBox remote vision mixer and picture processor at ISE in Booth #4H900 marking its official introduction in...
17/01/2026
Clear-Com will return to ISE 2026 to demonstrate its latest intercom solutions for broadcast, live production, and AV professionals. Exhibiting at Stand #4P700...
17/01/2026
Grass Valley, a leading provider in live production solutions, will exhibit at ISE 2026 in Barcelona from February 3 6, presenting its vision for how modern Bro...
17/01/2026
Utelogy Corporation, the global leader in connected workplace management, monitoring, control, automation and analytics closes out a record-breaking 2025. The c...
17/01/2026
FOR-A, a cutting-edge video broadcast technology company backed by more than 50 years experience, will showcase its innovative production solutions at ISE 2026 ...
17/01/2026
Techex, the UK-based expert in live video solutions over IP and cloud, today announced that Tim Jackson has joined the company as Senior Director of Sales and B...
17/01/2026
Redflag AI, an AI-powered content protection platform, and Akamai, the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online, today...
17/01/2026
Encompass Digital Media has today announced the appointment of David Hunter as Chief Operating Officer (COO). As a highly respected technology and operations le...
17/01/2026
Glensound is set to showcase its audio and intercom solutions supporting broadcast, live events and professional AV environments at ISE 2026 (stand 7H800, Fira ...
17/01/2026
As Matrox Video marks its 50th year of innovation, the company will use ISE 2026 to showcase the latest advancements across its AV-over-IP ecosystem, highlighti...
17/01/2026
The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) today announced the nominees for the 2026 HPA Awards Innovation & Technology, marking an expanded evolution of the ...
17/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
Media streaming: it's an OTTortunity
