Video encoding is running up against a complexity barrier that is raising costs and reducing scope for further improvements in quality.
Playout automation has been enabling fewer people to control more channels for decades but we’re not quite at the point where human interaction can be eliminated altogether. Since most linear broadcasters will either move to a software-based deployment for their channels themselves or give them to a service provider that carries out that transformation for them, The Broadcast Bridge assesses the benefits and the challenges in so doing. Part II examines the crucial role of IP and the workflows and skillsets needed to operate such infrastructure.
In 2017, at that year’s VidTrans conference a regional gathering of members of the Video Services Forum (VSF), a new protocol for delivering audio and video over lossy IP networks (including the public Internet), was born. It was an idea that many had been skeptical of, since the open Internet brought with it all kinds of quality, security, latency and reliability issues.
High dynamic range and wide color gamut combined with 4K resolution and progressive frame rates have catapulted broadcast television to new levels of immersive experience for the viewer. As HDR and WCG are relatively new to television, we need to both understand their application and how we monitor them to enable us to surpass the levels of quality and immersive experience cinematographers demand.
Computer systems continue to dominate the landscape for broadcast innovation and the introduction of microservices is having a major impact on the way we think about software. This not only delivers improved productivity through more efficient workflow solutions for broadcasters, but also helps vendors to work more effectively to further improve the broadcaster experience.
Video service providers of all types must step up their engagement with subscribers and enrich their personalized recommendation through advanced voice capabilities if they are to meet the challenge of increased content fragmentation.
The prospect of sustained growth in OTT video consumption over the next five years at least has been reaffirmed in a study by Digital TV Research predicting that online TV episode and movie revenues will more than double from $68 billion in 2018 to $159 billion in 2024, with $17 billion added in 2019 alone.
OTT distribution is worlds apart from traditional unidirectional broadcasting in terms of its fundamental operation and viewing preferences.
The internet is a rapidly expanding collection of service providers, many in direct competition, transferring broadcaster video and audio streams alongside many other types of often conflicting data.