The fundamentals of streaming delivery have changed little, still being bandwidth efficiency, achieving as close to broadcast-like quality of experience (QoE) across diverse platforms or device types, and revenue assurance for live sports in particular. But the tools and technologies available do evolve continuously, with cloud and AI looming larger than ever before at IBC 2024.

“We are definitely witnessing a significant surge in the adoption of cloud technologies and IP networks for video transport, moving away from traditional satellite and fiber systems,” said John Wastcoat, SVP Alliances and Marketing at Zixi. “Sports is huge, the only sure thing that everybody watches. The rights are moving away from legacy broadcasters to purely digital platforms, and being syndicated to takers around the world, creating an abundance of opportunity, and challenges, with complex worldwide workflows.”

As Wastcoat also noted, IP delivery with streaming is supporting more personalized and interactive content workflows, essential for engaging younger audiences and competing with other forms of entertainment. This is bringing in AI, especially Generative AI, for enhancing the associated workflows and cutting costs amid a global push for efficiency. “Companies, including Zixi, are integrating AI to improve product offerings with advanced error detection and failure prediction,” Wastcoat added.

Another exhibitor at IBC 2024, Appear, agreed that live sports will once again be a major focus at this year’s event, but the company’s VP of Marketing, Matthew Williams-Neale, also underlined the growing importance of embracing the whole workflow within a common software platform embracing modern microservices and containerization for most efficient evolution and enhancement of the system.

Containers enable functional software subunits to be ported readily between underlying hardware within a cloud computing environment, being able to hook to other such units. For broadcasting this helps bring cost efficiencies and stimulate innovation by allowing relevant components needed for new services to be introduced and blended in quickly.

Williams-Neale pointed out that Appear, now 20 years old, has derived inspiration in the past from attendance at IBC, highlighting the interactive element with customers and partners.  “A critical part of IBC is the chance to connect with our customer base,” said Williams-Neale. “The seeds of our new architectures were born through conversations at previous IBCs. So, we’re incredibly excited to be able to show how these seeds have germinated at IBC2024 in our demonstrations of our full contribution, live OTT, and linear distribution portfolio.”

MainStreaming has a slightly different take, identifying QoE at scale, driving monetization through innovative experiences, and revenue assurance for live sporting events, as the three major themes associated with streaming at IBC 2024. “There is a continued push for high QoE at scale with ever-greater efficiencies,” said MainStreaming CEO, Antonio Corrado. “The whole streaming industry continues to look for better performance to larger audiences with excellent value-for-money. For MainStreaming this means that we simply continue to promote our broadcast-grade streaming vision and definition, which is showcased from our work with DAZN.”

Corrado then pointed to new and innovative experiences that drive more monetization, such as interactive viewing, as being critical. “This is not a space that MainStreaming is directly involved in but is clearly a critical factor for our customers that our Media Distribution services must support.”

Especially critical is faster execution of content security during live events to improve revenue assurance, Corrado insisted. “For sports in particular, content security remains a hot topic, and no one has yet truly cracked the problem of very fast security threat detection and resolution that can be implemented during live sports events. Because of MainStreaming’s work with leading sports streamers like DAZN, this has become an important thrust to drive revenue assurance and greater profitability.”

Vendor Focus

Zixi (Stand 5.A85) is showing its Software Defined Video Platform (SDVP), along with its latest software release v18, which exploits DPDK-based High Performance Networking to boost throughput. DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit) is an open source package comprising software and interfaces for offloading TCP/IP packet processing from the operating system kernel to improve overall compute efficiency. 

The new release also employs null compression technology to cut egress bandwidth, which Zixi claimed increases throughput 10 times, while reducing total cost of ownership by 50%.

“To meet customer demand, we have added market switching, which allows content distributors to switch content based on ESAM/ESNI for regionalization of content or blackouts enabling traditional workflows in IP workflows,” said Zixi’s Wastcoat. He added that Zixi was also going to present its thought leadership in the Showcase Theatre with partners Verizon and the NHL (National Hockey League).

Appear (Stand 1.B41).  Appear’s primary exhibit will be its new VX Software Platform, aiming to fulfill all current broadcast workflow requirements while adding the ability and flexibility to deploy next-generation advanced services using containerization and microservices. “The VX Software Platform empowers Appear customers to swiftly create next-generation production workflows that distribute functionality across multiple networks and connected hardware solutions while delivering the power, resiliency, and ultra-low latency of today's hardware platforms,” said Appear’s Matthew Williams-Neale. 

He added that Appear would also be showing its existing modular X Platform.  “We are now replicating this approach in the VX platform, building all the functionality of the X Platform in individual software modules. However, this new architecture is so much more than just a replica of the X Platform in software. Visitors to our IBC booth will be able to see the functionality we offer in contribution over JPEG XS, AVC, HEVC and SRT, as well as how the VX Platform enables broadcasters and operators to quickly build, spin-up, adapt and spin down entire production workflows, and distribute this ability over infrastructure on one or more of hardware, cloud and on-premise cloud.”

MainStreaming (Stand 5.H30).  MainStreaming’s products are cast by its new definition of broadcast-grade streaming, within which consistently high delivery quality remains top priority, followed closely by cost predictability. The company will be featuring real-time QoS actions from real-time CMCD (Common Media Client Data).

“We call this CMCD+, not only using CMCD data to report delivery performance at a viewer level, but also integrating CMCD into our real-time streaming routing decisioning tools,” said MainStreaming’s Antonio Corrado.

He also underscored the importance of combatting stream piracy, with its CDN-embedded anti-piracy controls. “We are raising standards on how we protect streamers’ revenue,” said Corrado. “MainStreaming will show new toolsets for customers to identify, and then automatically block, many forms of piracy.”

Corrado downplayed the role of AI for delivery at IBC 2024, which therefore will not be prominent in its demonstrations. “AI becomes directly relevant in the media distribution space when we consider intelligence applied to how a viewer’s Quality of Experience can be optimized across complex distribution networks, but we do not see this as a major trend in the Distribution area for IBC2024,” said Corrado. “It is already what MainStreaming is doing, and our reference to CMCD+ above extends this capability.”

Conclusion

There are some differences in emphasis among vendors in the streaming delivery sector at IBC 2024, reflecting in part the shape of their own product portfolios. There is no doubt though that AI and cloud are prominent for most vendors, with the main surprise being the continued battle against live stream piracy years after forensic watermarking combined with network forensics had been touted as the solution. 

Other articles in this IBC 2024 'Show Focus' series:

The Broadcast Bridge will be at the IBC Show – on stand 8.A52. Please come and see us and share your thoughts on what we do and what you would like to see from us in the coming year.