By “weather” we mean the relative physical conditions present on the internet at any one time. The internet is in a constant state of flux, much like our world’s atmosphere. Demand on networks fluctuates without notice. Network connections change without warning as ISPs adapt their own networks. It’s an important feature of the internet that networks can evolve autonomously while the internet continues to function. Yet this ability to change continuously creates different network paths for streaming video to traverse. As an example, BGP Routing tables for IPv6 connections (Figure 1) show a general trend of growth over time, but connection counts have gone down and up quite dramatically, immediately changing how video traverses the internet.

As more video is streamed, and as more network changes simply happen, we should expect to see more extreme internet weather. In the Streaming Media Delivery industry, our job is to protect Streaming Service Providers from weather-related damage to their brands and revenues.

We call this capability to protect brand and revenue Broadcast-Grade Streaming. We believe this will protect Broadcasters’ future because it will satisfy and retain the large nationwide live and appointment-TV audiences that broadcasters are renowned for serving. If this is not achieved, then the customer experience of Broadcaster content will get worse than it was before. But why should Broadcasters settle for a degraded service to viewers after decades of solid performance from traditional broadcast infrastructure? And why should viewers accept this situation?

At MainStreaming we have so far defined Broadcast-Grade Streaming as the capability to:

• Deliver media with consistently high quality and low latency; and
• Scale to many millions of viewers; and
• Achieve predictable delivery costs with economies of scale.

The established and proven way to protect against the bad weather of the internet and achieve Broadcast-Grade Streaming is to use a private, managed content delivery network. Without this, Streamers risk suffering the unexpected results of “best efforts delivery”.

Netflix and YouTube set the standard early on in the Streaming era. But Live Streaming of premium sports content has raised the bar on how streaming must work. DAZN and Amazon Prime lead the way with streaming-only services regularly reaching many millions of concurrent viewers. They are the best example for the major national broadcasters of how to achieve Broadcast-Grade Streaming.

Not every Broadcaster can, or should, build their own CDN. This is why Private CDN-as-a-Service works well, at the core of a multi-CDN set-up. Private CDN-as-a-Service takes the well-established multi-CDN model to the next level in terms of performance and cost scalability.

Taking this step forwards is necessary for Broadcasters to protect their business as they move to streaming-first. While streaming-first brings new opportunities to better engage audiences and therefore increase revenues, it also brings extra threats to Content Security, Advertising Revenue, Subscription Revenue, and Brand Reputation. Threats relate not only to extreme internet “weather”, but also to sophisticated piracy practices that are more complex to manage in Streaming.

At IBC 2024 we therefore see the conversation with Streamers moving to Broadcast-Grade Streaming Plus. To our initial definition we add three new factors that are essential to prevent Subscriber Churn and maximize View-Time for Advertising-based services. Leading Streamers are intensively pursuing these three new factors.

1.  Real-Time Analytics & Actions

Do you really know, and do you know quickly enough, what your audience is experiencing when using your Streaming service?

This question occupies the minds of Streamers striving to achieve Broadcast-Grade Streaming. It is one thing to set up your workflow for high quality and low latency. But it is another thing to really know what is happening during live events and to act on it.

It is essential to have client-side analytics to know the QoE of your viewers. But before the client-side analytics there are the CDN-side analytics of streaming performance. CMCD integration is part of the CDN-side solution, incorporating Player data into CDN-side analytics. Retrieving actionable insights from CDN-side analytics, and using this to drive best possible performance, is now a mission-critical part of achieving Broadcast-Grade Streaming. It is the most proactive method to control your delivery to viewers and protect their viewing experience.

MainStreaming is now using its widely distributed Edge Network to compute smaller data sets and only return essential elements to analytics and decisioning tools in as close to real-time as possible. As an example, 1 Tbps of live streaming results in 10Gbps of raw log ingest. Identifying the pertinent data quickly reduces the data set to 1 Gbps, thereby reducing bandwidth and compute requirements and speeding up the decisioning processes.

2. CDN-Embedded Anti-Piracy Controls

Linked to Real-Time Analytics is the quick detection of piracy threats.

For important sports rights and films, the threat of piracy is stubbornly high and difficult to manage. There are simply more ways to steal content online. For example, streamed content can be siphoned off from a source in multiple ways and delivered to unauthorized outlet points such as social media, legal websites, or illegal IPTV services. Many security protocols are commonly implemented, including DRM, tokenization, and watermarking, but piracy is still tough to control, particularly during challenging economic times when people are attracted to free or cheaper services. Some reports estimate that piracy is currently costing the US and European Media industries over 30 billion US dollars per year in lost revenues, largely from Streaming piracy and illegal IPTV services.

Using its native Edge Compute architecture, MainStreaming has developed new CDN-Embedded Anti-Piracy tools with faster processing speeds to quickly identify suspected piracy activity and provide Streamers with multiple ways to protect their content. With the new tools being introduced at IBC 2024, MainStreaming aims to help the Media industry to combat these huge revenues that are being lost to piracy each year.

3. Ultra-Low Latency Delivery

The internet was not originally designed for streaming video. Therefore, ultra-low latency streaming video is even more challenging to support than regular live streaming. But in the quest to achieve Broadcast-Grade Streaming, it’s impossible for Streamers to ignore latency. Most people don’t like to be informed of a score or a result by an App before they’ve even seen the action on their screen. In Broadcast TV, this is not a problem. Yet in Streaming it is. It must be fixed.

Streaming in Ultra-Low Latency at scale relies on multiple elements from a media delivery ecosystem – Edge Network Platform topology, network management, flexible ISP-level deployments, origin request optimization, and super-fast Edge processing speed, just to name some of the key points. There is no room for error when segment-length needs to be only hundreds of milliseconds to enable just 1-2 seconds of total latency from encoder to playback in a 3-segment set-up. Not only must the Edge Network Platform itself be up to the job, but the ISP network links must be ready to deliver consistently quickly.

At IBC 2024, MainStreaming is introducing its latest software version which now achieves faster processing speeds. This will add to MainStreaming’s efficient Edge Network architecture, origin management approach, and network monitoring and routing capabilities that support best-in-class QoE. Quality AND Low Latency can be simultaneously assured, protecting a Streamer’s viewer experience in the most important broadcasting moments.

“Power Is Nothing Without Control”

Pirelli tyres are famous for using this phrase. It evokes images of high-performance driving under stringent conditions to deliver excellent traction and the best driving experience. Ferrari is a well-known user of Pirelli tyres, achieving greatness year after year in global motorsports.

Pirelli and Ferrari are analogous to Live Streaming to large live audiences for a Streamer and their primary Media Delivery partner. Streamers are constantly searching for traction (with the viewers) and control (of their content and QoE) at every single important moment throughout their broadcast events, regardless of the “internet’s weather” and other conditions that could affect performance. MainStreaming proudly supports this Streamer requirement with Pirelli-like performance.

The question is, who is your Pirelli when you’re aiming to be as successful as Ferrari?