We concluded the event with our first annual Bitmovin Innovators Network partner awards to recognize and celebrate the amazing work of our partners who embrace the fact that the industry is “Better Together”, by creating solutions with partners that are designed to simplify customers’ video workload needs and advance the viewing experience for audiences.

I am incredibly proud to share the winners of the Bitmovin Innovators Network partner awards below, and the contributions they’ve made: 

Accenture – Global Systems Integrator of the Year:

Accenture and Bitmovin exemplify the “better together” approach through their close strategic partnership, including an ongoing collaboration with the world’s largest motorsports content owners that led to joint engagements with several of the largest sports and media brands in the world.

Broadpeak – Global ISV Partner of the Year:

Broadpeak embodies the “Better Together” spirit through its unwavering strategic collaboration with Bitmovin. This powerful partnership has yielded several key benefits. Together, they have developed solutions that integrated with Bitmovin’s encoder, player, and analytics, resulting in improved workflows for customers; created a consistent two-way communication between sales teams which has resulted in successful deals with European media brands, and joint marketing and PR initiatives at local events to strengthen their joint brand presence.

MediaKind –  Global Service Provider Partner of the Year:

MediaKind and Bitmovin have developed and maintained a robust strategic partnership that has launched sports applications for world-renowned sports leagues. These applications, including launching an app with a sports league on Apple Vision Pro that garnered rave reviews at the Apple launch event, have significantly boosted market visibility for both brands.

Microsoft Azure Marketplace – Cloud Marketplace of the Year:

Bitmovin has had unprecedented success with the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, including more than 200 new customer wins since June 2023. Azure Marketplace has quickly become Bitmovin’s largest and most successful sales channel.

Nomad Media – Americas Regional Channel Partner of the Year:

Nomad Media has deployed over 30 customers on the Bitmovin Play platform in 2023 alone as part of its Nomad Media platform. Nomad Media has also innovated on the player capabilities with dynamic multi-view capabilities. These advancements were showcased to major US clients, propelling both companies forward. This collaboration not only built a strong pipeline but also significantly boosted brand recognition in the US market.

G&L Geißendörfer & Leschinsky – EMEA Regional Channel Partner of the Year:

G&L is a proactive and committed industry partner, who has worked with Bitmovin on both successful sales and marketing initiatives. The collaboration between the two companies resulted in joint revenue, a new logo, and G&L also exhibited on the Bitmovin stand at IBC 2023 where it highlighted how the two companies’ solutions work together. Bitmovin and G&L also hosted a joint CMCD webinar together, which attracted attendees from key German broadcasters and various telecoms and content providers, and it recently published an e-commerce case study with Home Shopping Europe.

Viet Communications – APAC Regional Channel Partner of the Year

Vietcoms was the first licensee for the Bitmovin Player in the Asia Pacific region. Vietcoms was selected for its hard work and efforts in securing our impressive player business in Vietnam and developing agile operational models to meet the specific customer and TelCo business needs and technical requirements.

Once again, I’d like to give huge congratulations to all the winners. A huge thank you to everyone who attended the Bitmovin Innovators Network Partner Executive Networking Event, and to every single one of our partners who continue to embrace the spirit of “Better Together.” IBC is just around the corner, and we will have some exciting initiatives and announcements coming soon to share with you ahead of the show.

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Streaming video is . . . complicated. 

As the streaming industry continues to evolve toward early mainstream adoption, cloud-based streaming has increasingly shifted from “builder” customers with deep, long-standing video expertise to “buyer” customers. This is particularly true for streaming in non-media industry verticals, but it is equally the case for Media & Entertainment customers as well. “Buyer” customers often lack the technical expertise and internal resources to build and maintain such complex, bespoke workflows. Over the past 18 months, mounting pressure to reduce operating cost, improve subscriber retention, and generate new advertising revenue has also caused a sizable number of “builder” customers to transition from in-house development to managed services. 

In short, this means that multi-vendor solutions and technical integrations have become increasingly valuable and important for streaming customers large and small in every industry.

“Better Together” with the Bitmovin Innovators Network

The Bitmovin Innovators Network is more than just another partner program. Launched in 2022, the Bitmovin Innovators Network is a community of industry-leading technology vendors, resellers, consultants, device manufacturers, cloud providers, and academic researchers that collaborate to provide pre-integrated solutions to simplify streaming video. 

I often say, “Customers buy simplicity rather than features.” Sure, feature functionality is important, but industry maturity and in some cases commoditization have made product development, product marketing, product selling, and product support much less of a differentiator than just five years ago. Today, customers place a premium on solutions that solve challenges for a wide range of use cases. Solutions development, solutions marketing, solutions selling, and solutions support are table stakes. “Better together” rules the day.

“Better Together” at NAB

We are pleased to announce a multitude of “Better Together” solutions with our partners at NAB, each designed to simplify customers’ video workload needs. These are some of the joint solutions that Bitmovin and our partners are showcasing at this year’s NAB Show:

Joint Customer Success Stories 

Bitmovin once again hosts its exclusive semi-annual Bitmovin Innovators Network Partner Executive Networking Event on Saturday, April 13 from 3:30 – 6:00 pm. We are excited to share several customer success stories, including Quickplay presenting a “better together” customer success story regarding a large Regional Sports Network (RSN); and a fireside chat with OneFootball and Akamai. We conclude the afternoon with the first annual Bitmovin Innovators Network partner awards and the most impactful executive networking event at this year’s NAB Show!

“Better Together” on the Bitmovin Stand

We are thrilled to share that two partners will have dedicated demo stations on the Bitmovin stand (W3013):

Edgio showcases its collaboration with Bitmovin, featuring Bitmovin Playback and Edgio Uplynk‘s Live Multi-CDN Switching in an all-encompassing solution for customers to ensure seamless video delivery.

Google Ad Manager will highlight how they are building a more flexible and interoperable Ad Manager to help publishers create sustainable advertising businesses by giving publishers actionable insights, powerful optimizations, and flexible integrations all within an end to end video-first ad serving experience.

“Better Together” at Partner Stands and Meeting Suites 

Several Bitmovin partners are demonstrating “Better Together” solutions to help customers with cost optimization, subscriber retention and growth, and ad revenue generation.

“Better Together” Social Activities with Partners 

Akamai and Bitmovin co-host an exclusive launch event at the Sphere, Las Vegas newest and most iconic entertainment destination, on Sunday, April 14, 2024 at 6:00 pm. Registration for this event is already closed.

Edgio and Bitmovin are co-hosting a networking reception and happy hour on the Bitmovin stand (W3013) on Tuesday, April 16, 2024 from 5:00 – 6:00 pm. Visit Edgio or Bitmovin for an invitation!

This year’s NAB Show promises to deliver a wealth of knowledge and innovation. Schedule a meeting with us to learn more about these and other solutions to help you reduce operating costs, retain and grow subscribership, and generate new ad revenue. 

We look forward to seeing you at the show!

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The Corporate Star Awards: where tech and social good converge

This year, there was another Environmental, Social and Governance-led highlight in the IBC calendar with the addition of the Corporate Star Awards that aims to recognize and celebrate the fantastic ESG achievements in the Broadcast, Media and Entertainment Sector. Bitmovin was proud to win the award for Best Campaign to Improve Diversity for the progress we’ve made in making our recruitment process more inclusive, increasing representation of women and people of color at leadership levels across the company and hosting workshops that focus on helping Bitmovers become better allies to underrepresented groups. Receiving the award was a huge honor! However, we also understand that DEI is a journey, not a destination and that we must continue driving change across Bitmovin and the media and entertainment technology industry.

There are numerous studies about how more diverse teams improve a company’s bottom line, but organizations should want to be more diverse and inclusive because they care about people, not profits. Additionally, becoming more diverse and inclusive does not mean hiring a few more women and people of color and calling it a day, it means examining the company’s culture and identifying and changing behaviors and practices that could alienate underrepresented groups. All of this requires real time and resource and support from leadership teams.

The Corporate Star Awards are bringing additional, much-needed focus on ESG In the media technology industry, so I asked Lisa Collins the awards’ co-producer, to share some more background on the aim and long-term vision for the awards. Lisa said, “Our vision for the Corporate Star Awards is to unify the diverse segments of our industry. In a completely impartial setting, we aim to spotlight the often-overlooked ESG initiatives that may not glitter as brightly as product launches but are equally, if not more, important. 

The Broadcast Media industry is still in its nascent stages of aligning with the 2030 ESG goals established by the UN. To truly lead in this space, it’s essential for us to foster best practice sharing and holistic industry collaboration. The Corporate Star Awards are designed to be the catalyst for this shared ambition.”

Celebrating leaders of change

While we were over the moon to win a Corporate Star Award, we were also inspired by all the winners and finalists dedicated to leading positive change across the industry. Irdeto, a world leader in digital platform cybersecurity and a company we are a proud technical partner of, also won a Corporate Star Award for the Best initiative to strengthen global partnerships for its work to support the mass adoption of electric vehicles by helping provide a seamless and secure system for authenticating and authorizing EVs during charging.

Alongside its sustainability initiatives, Irdeto is also a champion of DEI in the media and entertainment technology industry. Lisa Spencer, VP of Marketing at Irdeto, said, “Innovation in tech is driven by new ideas, which is why it is essential tech companies need diversity of thought. But diversity in tech shouldn’t be justified simply because it supports innovation. Ultimately, it’s just the right thing to do, and Irdeto believes the media technology industry should reflect the wider world, celebrate people’s differences and tackle the challenges facing underrepresented groups.“

Exceptional support for Exceptional Minds

Another winner at the Corporate Star Awards was Exceptional Minds for Best Charity. Exceptional Minds is an academy and studio preparing young adults on the autism spectrum for careers in animation, visual effects, 3D gaming and other related fields in the entertainment industry. It provides technical and general work readiness training tailored to help students fulfil their artistic and professional potential. 

Renard Jenkins, who sits on the advisory board of Exceptional Minds, said, “Making the media and entertainment technology industry more diverse hinges upon inclusion, which in turn requires equity by ensuring people receive the right support based on their unique background. This is something we’ve strived to achieve with Exceptional Minds by giving young, neurodivergent people the opportunity to pursue their dreams in the entertainment world.”

The journey to a more diverse and sustainable industry continues.

While it is important to celebrate the achievements of the corporate and non-profit organizations working hard to bring positive ESG-led change to the media technology industry, it’s also important we don’t become complacent. 

My fellow Bitmover, Anuja Vagh, Head of Integrations, said that the biggest changes she’s seen from the industry are “recognising that DEI and sustainability are important and valid issues to be tackled.” Yet, Anuja also noted that “There is a lot more we can do in the industry. We need to think about changing the culture and attitudes that are deeply embedded in society that we often don’t recognise them for they are. At this year’s IBC, there were still many instances of casual sexism against women, which show that we as a collective, not just women, need to create an environment where it is unacceptable.”

So, ultimately, we here at Bitmovin are proud of the changes we’ve made and also our fellow Corporate Stars Award winners and finalists for making the industry more diverse, inclusive and sustainable. However, we also understand that we, as a company and an industry, we are embarking on a journey. So instead of continuously asking, “Are we there yet!?” let’s commit to evolving and learning so we can become the change the world needs.

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Dr. Christian Timmerer is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Information Technology (ITEC) at the University of Klagenfurt and one of the co-founders of Bitmovin. We asked him a few questions to learn more about the goals and motivation behind the ‘GAIA’ project. 

When you co-founded Bitmovin back in 2013, was there any focus on sustainability? What changes have you seen over the last 10+ years?

Christian: With our research background, we always tried to utilize the latest technology and research results which includes our focus on video codecs. For example, our first FFG-funded project termed “AdvUHD-DASH” aimed at integrating HEVC into our video encoding workflow; later, we were among the first to showcase AV1 live streaming (2017 NAB award); and now we’re already successfully experimenting with VVC (Collaboration with Fraunhofer HHI). 

Each new generation of video codec reduces the amount of storage by approximately 50%, which contributes to sustainability goals. Over the past 10+ years, there has been a shift to focus on more efficient usage of the available resources, where in the beginning of video streaming over the internet, much was solved using massive over-provisioning. I think this is no longer the case, and people are starting to think about environmental and climate-friendly video streaming solutions in the industry.

GAIA is a two-year joint research project between Bitmovin and the University of Klagenfurt. What is the end goal, and how soon do you think there will be actionable results and recommendations?

Christian: The results of the GAIA project will (i) enable complete awareness and accountability of the energy consumption and GHG emissions and (ii) provide efficient strategies from encoding and streaming to playback and analytics that will minimize average energy consumption.

In the beginning, we will mainly focus on collecting data and benchmarking systems with regard to energy consumption that will hopefully lead to publicly available datasets useful for both industry and academia at large, like a baseline for later improvements. Later we will use those findings to optimize encoding, streaming and playback concerning energy consumption by following and repeating the traditional “design – implement – analyze” work cycles to iteratively devise and improve solutions.

Will the results of this research be exclusive to Bitmovin?

Christian: We will showcase results at the usual trade shows like NAB and IBC., while scientific results and findings will be published in renowned conferences and journals. We will try to make them publicly available as much as possible to increase the impact and adoption of these technologies within the industry and academia. 

This is the fourth time Bitmovin and the University of Klagenfurt have collaborated on a research project. What makes this one unique?

Christian: Environmental-friendliness was always implicitly addressed within the scope of previous research projects; GAIA is unique as it makes this an explicit goal, allowing to address these issues as the top priority. 

You can read more details about the GAIA research project here

Ready to make your own video workflows more eco-friendly with HEVC or AV1 encoding? Sign up for a free Bitmovin trial today!

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Leading-edge Innovation over the cloud

Live and on-demand streaming video have become ubiquitous for every use case ranging from Over-the-Top (OTT) video services such as Apple TV+ and HBO Max to eLearning platforms, religious services, music and sporting events, social media, and even internal corporate communications. With their video libraries growing exponentially and most video workflows increasingly adopting cloud-based systems, many search for an easy-to-use, off-the-shelf video encoding solution that they can purchase and deploy in minutes but have trouble finding one. This is where the AWS Marketplace comes in.

Frictionless procurement of video encoding software

To help open Bitmovin’s solutions to a broader audience, we have made Bitmovin Video Encoding available in AWS Marketplace! We chose to list Bitmovin’s Video Encoding in AWS Marketplace because it gives customers using AWS Marketplace to piece together their workflow a frictionless, self-service procurement option with the added benefit of being billed directly through their AWS account.

Bitmovin’s Video Encoding is a fully-managed Software as a Service (SaaS). Powered by massively distributed processing and content-aware encoding, it allows you to deliver stunning viewing experiences at the highest possible visual quality and the lowest bitrates. Unlike other encoding products, Bitmovin Video Encoding supports file-based transcoding, live encoding, and packaging in a single, easy-to-use product.

With support for industry-standard encryption from more than 15 Digital Rights Management (DRM) vendors, studio-grade forensic watermarking, and video resolutions of up to 8K Ultra-High Definition (UHD), you can cost-effectively and securely deliver video to viewers on any device anywhere in the world.

Deliver the highest quality, binge-worthy viewing experiences at a lower cost

Bitmovin’s Video Encoding supports over 50 audio and video codecs and file formats to ingest video from nearly any source. Multi-codec outputs, including H.264, HEVC, AV1, VP9, and others, mean that your audience can watch your content on mobile devices, smart TVs, streaming video player devices, set-top-boxes, web browsers, and game consoles using the most-efficient video codecs for each device type. 

Our content-aware transcoding capabilities, both per-title and per-scene, let you further optimize your Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) ladder to reduce your Content Delivery Network (CDN) cost significantly. It even supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, allowing you to captivate your audience with an immersive sound experience. Similarly, support for High Dynamic Range (HDR), including Dolby Vision, Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG), and HDR10, as well as the ability to convert Dolby Vision inputs to HLG and HDR10, let you deliver visually spectacular video to any HDR-capable viewing device. You can even up-convert Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) video to HDR to rejuvenate your existing content library.

Stream video for any use case

Bitmovin’s Video Encoding is well suited for any industry that streams video over the internet, such as organizations within Media & Entertainment, Broadcast, Publishing, eLearning, Sports and Events, esports, social media, and even Telcos. Additionally, large customers with AWS Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) agreements benefit from purchasing SaaS products through AWS Marketplace because those purchases apply to their EDP commitment.

Check it out!

See how Bitmovin’s Video Encoding, available in AWS Marketplace, can help you quickly and easily harness the power of video streaming for your use case!

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Bitmovin is one of the fastest-growing privately-held companies in the United States! 

I am incredibly proud to share that Bitmovin made the Inc 5000, which is a prestigious list of the most successful US businesses this week. It’s the second time we’ve appeared on the list, but I am still just as honoured and excited as the first time. I would also like to congratulate every business that made the rankings. Bitmovin is in great company, and I can’t wait to see what you achieve in the coming years.

This year’s Inc 5000 ranking feels even more special because we’ve continuously innovated and kept growing despite facing global challenges. The past year hasn’t been easy for businesses, and difficulties still lay ahead, which is why I think it’s important to celebrate successes and achievements – no matter how big or small. When we founded Bitmovin 10 summers ago in Klagenfurt, we were hugely excited about the growth of video streaming and the opportunity to help media and entertainment businesses deliver the best viewing experience for their audiences. Bitmovin originated from a small town in Austria, but we had global ambitions. Today we’ve realized many of those ambitions and established ourselves as the Emmy® award-winning category leader in video streaming infrastructure. In the media and entertainment space, we work with globally renowned brands, including the BBC, DAZN, discovery+, fuboTV,  Globo, and The National Rugby League, and help them deliver superior viewing experiences. Bitmovin, which started as a handful of people, has become an international team of almost 200. 

I am incredibly proud of our achievements, but it is also important to acknowledge the fact that the road to our current destination wasn’t easy. We’ve faced the same growing pains as any young company, coupled with a global pandemic; the war in Ukraine, inflation, huge market corrections, increasing interest rates, and a looming recession. 

However, despite facing several challenging macro trends, I am still confident that Bitmovin will continue demonstrating growth. This is because we have a clear strategy to maintain our position as the category leader in video streaming infrastructure in the media and entertainment space while also continuing to expand into the New Media sector, which is ripe with opportunity. Companies in the eLearning and Edtech, Health and Fitness,  eCommerce and Religion and Culture sectors are quickly understanding the importance of making video central to their business strategy. To an extent, most businesses will become media companies, and we intend to be the go-to partner for making that a reality. For this reason, New Media will be central to our growth strategy in the coming years and, hopefully, our hat trick for returning to the Inc 5000 next year!

I would like to finish off by saying a huge thank you to every Bitmover, customer, partner and industry friend who’s helped shape the Bitmovin story so far – I cannot wait for the next chapter.

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How have eLearning & EdTech Streaming Workflows Evolved with Video?

eLearning &EdTech originally stemmed from the opportunity to give learning experiences through different means, and normally didn’t include Streaming, requiring EdTech SaaS companies to focus on other pieces of the eLearning experience for their services. With the integration of video into eLearning &EdTech workflows, this has changed dramatically over the past few years, with almost every platform now offering a wide range of on-demand content (VOD) and live experiences to their users to differentiate themselves from competitors. Additionally, many EdTech providers added streaming functionality to their SaaS platforms to keep up with this transition. This has ultimately forced companies to learn more about streaming workflows and even rely heavily on EdTech vendors to offer the complete solution so they don’t have to spend time setting up each piece separately.

What Challenges are eLearning & EdTech Platforms experiencing with Streaming?

With video now firmly in the mix, the challenges eLearning platforms face having also changed or increased along with their workflows to be more video-centric. Depending on the platform, they could be offering just VOD, live, or both to engage their users, and the challenges that face each use case can vary. An example of one of the major challenges that is across every use case is delivering the highest quality of experience (QoE) for their learners, anywhere in the world. The factors that face this challenge run through the entire workflow and can range from how the content is prepared and encoder utilized, to the player UI and bandwidth users have available to them. 

Some of the challenges faced by eLearning platforms and EdTech providers
Many of the factors can be solved easily, especially streaming anywhere in the world, as this relies heavily on available bandwidth in each location. If the location’s bandwidth is limited, Adaptive bitrate (ABR) settings can be applied to the player which enables users to watch content in the highest quality possible to them. The rest of the challenges, which you can see in the image above, have significant or limited roles, depending on the workflow the platforms have set up or the EdTech offerings are looking to provide along with their solutions. 

Back to basics – three important pieces that help address these challenges

There are many significant pieces to a streaming workflow that are needed to address the challenges listed above. 3 factors that stand out within the streaming workflow are Encoding, Player, and the APIs that connect the workflow and help platforms control each piece of it. Below we will go into how these 3 topics work across VOD and Live if they improve quality and decrease cost.

Encoding

For EdTech SaaS solutions, the encoding feature is integrated into their offering, while eLearning platforms, that own or have access to the content, would need an encoder to facilitate both VOD and live streaming workflows. In regards to VOD, this type of content will normally be in its original state at the highest quality in a local or cloud storage and may take up a large amount of space. As the size and format of the content make it difficult to stream in its original state, it will need to pass through an encoder to compress the file down and make it available at multiple bitrates while also maintaining the content quality. This is important as, depending on the available bandwidth, the content can be packaged in a streamable protocol (HLS and DASH) and played in the resolution distributed to the learner, however, this creates multiple variations of the content which in turn, increases storage usage and ultimately cost.
A solution to solve the challenge of lowering the cost around current workflows is per-title and 3-pass encoding. They both enable video to be optimized for content type while maintaining or increasing the quality when a learner plays the video. These two solutions help save dramatically on costs related to storage, as well as CDN delivery, by minimizing the storage space needed for each resolution through compression and lowering bitrates for playback while enabling viewers to see a higher quality video. This is a major improvement to QoE, as typically without these optimizations, viewers would experience buffering or see the content in a lower quality.
These benefits are especially true at Bitmovin, where our encoding tech can help eLearning platforms reduce costs up to 90%, depending on what type of content is being streamed.

In regards to live encoding, it is somewhat different in the initial parts as it doesn’t involve a local or cloud storage like VOD. Instead, eLearning companies would need to have the live source active and feed the ingest into a local or cloud encoder. The encoder, as it comes in, then takes that live source and makes it available in multiple bitrates which are then packaged in HLS or DASH. Once this is done, the content is then distributed through the origin and the CDN to the learner requesting the content. As eLearning platforms typically don’t stream 24×7 and instead focus on single events, these are usually more stable and can be done with a live cloud encoder.

Player

The next important piece is the video player that users on eLearning platforms will be interacting with the most and from open source to commercial offerings, many options can be implemented. Players are fundamental as they: 

• Support different formats required to play the content on different device types
• Interact with DRMs and other security measures 
• Request the content from the origin 
• Enable offline playback 
• Adjust the quality to meet the streaming environment of the user 
• + much more

As we mentioned in an earlier section, quality of experience (QoE) is important and the player has a major role in seeing that come to reality. Depending on the workflow needs, one of the ways players can help ensure the QoE for learners is through support for specific devices and platforms, which will come in the way of SDKs that help ensure a better, more stable end-to-end experience. These SDKs are essential as they help increase audience reach and enable developers to support devices faster for Web, iOS, Android, and others, giving them more time to create feature-rich applications. 
A modular player is another solution that EdTech and eLearning platforms can utilize, as at Bitmovin, we’ve seen our Player be able to reduce load times on applications by up to 40%, helping address the challenges of meeting workflow needs, scalability and QoE. Along with the modular player, eLearning platforms also can increase quality by applying ABR settings for low bandwidth situations as we described in an earlier section, and increase their in-app experience through the personalization of the player UI. Additionally, through external factors, the player can integrate ads into the Playback experience while keeping content safe through encryption or with DRMs such as Fairplay (iOS) Widevine (Android), and Playready (Microsoft).

APIs to control each part

APIs can and will be a big piece of each step in EdTech and eLearning streaming workflows, especially when it comes to the encoder & player. For the encoder, the APIs can be used to control:

• Input/output storage configurations: Live (ex: SRT, Zixi) and/or VOD (ex: FTP, S3, Object Storage)
• Encoding configuration (Ex. Cloud/region, audio/video codec, renditions, Per-title, DRM, subtitles, thumbnails)
• Manifest configuration (Ex. DASH, HLS)

In regards to the player, they can manipulate the behavior parameters and allow applications to instruct the player to perform certain actions such as selecting a specific audio track or video quality. The Player APIs typically allow applications to control player functionality in:

• Core Playback (Ex. subtitles, play, pause, & buffer durations)
• Advertising (Ex. ads to play, inclusion of CT URLs, ad timing & restrictions)
• DRM (Ex. type, provider, URL & persistence)
• Network (Ex. manipulations of requests & responses)

During playback, the APIs can also be configured to send events to the applications, which helps trigger business logic that has been implemented and can base decisions on the metrics provided by the player. Events can be:

• Download of progress updates
• The beginning or end of a live casting session
• Video quality changes
• Playback errors

These events are critical for applications as it gives them the ability to apply dynamic viewing experiences to interactions made by the viewer.

All in All

As you can see through the challenges and solutions listed above, streaming quality in eLearning is vital because it directly affects learners and helps avoid churn. Implementing these simple benefits that involve each piece of your streaming set up, can help you maintain the highest quality of experience while reducing the cost and complexity of your workflow. 
If you’re an EdTech or eLearning platform and would like to try out Bitmovin’s Encoding, Player, and/or Analytics for your streaming workflow, sign-up for a trial today.

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Chapters:

• The History of MPEG-DASH?
• What is MPEG-DASH (in a Nutshell)?
• Media Presentation Description (MPD)
• Segment Referencing Schemes
• Conclusion and Further Reading

1: The History of MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, ISO/IEC 23009-1)

MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, ISO/IEC 23009-1) is a vendor-independent, international standard ratified by MPEG and ISO. Previous adaptive streaming technologies – such as Apple HLS, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, Adobe HDS, etc. – have been released by vendors with limited support of company-independent streaming servers as well as playback clients. As such a vendor-dependent situation is not desired, standardization bodies started a harmonization process, resulting in the ratification of MPEG-DASH back in 2012.

Key-Targets and Benefits of MPEG-DASH:

• reduction of startup delays and buffering/stalls during the video
• continued adaptation to the bandwidth situation of the client
• client-based streaming logic enabling the highest scalability and flexibility
• use of existing and cost-effective HTTP-based CDNs, proxies, caches
• efficient bypassing of NATs and Firewalls by the usage of HTTP
• common Encryption – signalling, delivery & utilization of multiple concurrent DRM schemes from the same file
• simple splicing and (targeted) ad insertion
• support for efficient trick mode

In recent years, MPEG-DASH has been integrated into new standardization efforts, e.g., the HTML5 Media Source Extensions (MSE) enabling the DASH playback via the HTML5 video and audio tag, as well as the HTML5 Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) enabling DRM-protected playback in web browsers. Furthermore, DRM-protection with MPEG-DASH is harmonized across different systems with the MPEG-CENC (Common Encryption) and MPEG-DASH playback on different SmartTV platforms is enabled via the integration in Hybrid broadcast broadband TV (HbbTV 1.5 and HbbTV 2.0). The usage of the MPEG-DASH standard has also been simplified by industry efforts around the DASH Industry Forum and their DASH-AVC/264 recommendations, as well as forward-looking approaches such as the DASH-HEVC/265 recommendation on the usage of H.265/HEVC within MPEG-DASH.

Here is a table showing MPEG-DASH Standards:

Today, MPEG-DASH is gaining more and more deployments, accelerated by VOD platforms such as Netflix or Google which have adopted this important standard. With these two major sources of internet traffic taken into account, 50 % of total internet traffic is already MPEG-DASH.

2: What is MPEG-DASH (in a Nutshell)?

The basic idea of MPEG-DASH is this: Chop the media file into segments that can be encoded at different bitrates or spatial resolutions. The segments are provided on a web server and can be downloaded through HTTP standard-compliant GET requests (as shown in the figure below) where the HTTP Server serves three different qualities, i.e., Low, Medium, and Best, chopped into segments of equal length. The adaptation to the bitrate or resolution is done on the client-side for each segment, e.g., the client can switch to a higher bitrate – if bandwidth permits – on a per-segment basis. This has several advantages because the client knows its capabilities, received throughput, and the context of the user best.

Here’s an example of an MPEG-DASH workflow:

In order to describe the temporal and structural relationships between segments, MPEG-DASH introduced the so-called Media Presentation Description (MPD). The MPD is an XML file that represents the different qualities of the media content and the individual segments of each quality with HTTP Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). This structure provides the binding of the segments to the bitrate (resolution, etc.) among others (e.g., start time, duration of segments). As a consequence, each client will first request the MPD that contains the temporal and structural information for the media content, and based on that information it will request the individual segments that fit best for its requirements.

3: Media Presentation Description (MPD)

The MPEG-DASH Media Presentation Description (MPD) is a hierarchical data model. Each MPD could contain one or more Periods. Each of those Periods contains media components such as video components e.g., different view angles or with different codecs, audio components for different languages or with different types of information (e.g., with director’s comments, etc.), subtitle or caption components, etc. Those components have certain characteristics like the bitrate, frame rate, audio channels, etc. which do not change during one Period. Nevertheless, the client is able to adapt during a Period according to the available bitrates, resolutions, codecs, etc. that are available in a given Period.

Furthermore, a Period could separate the content, e.g., for ad insertion, changing the camera angle in a live football game, etc. For example, if an ad should only be available in high resolution while the content is available from standard definition to high definition, you would simply introduce your own Period for the ad which contains only the ad content in high definition.
After and before this Period, there are other Periods that contain the actual content (e.g., movie) in multiple bitrates and resolutions from standard to high definition.

What are AdaptationSets?

Typically, media components such as video, audio or subtitles/captions, etc. are arranged in AdaptationSets. Each Period can contain one or more AdaptationSets that enable the grouping of different multimedia components that logically belong together.
For example, components with the same codec, language, resolution, audio channel format (e.g., 5.1, stereo), etc. could be within the same AdaptationSet. This mechanism allows the client to eliminate a range of multimedia components that do not fulfill its requirements. A Period can also contain a Subset that enables the restriction of combinations of AdaptationSets and expresses the intention of the creator of the MPD. For example, allowing high definition content only with 5.1 audio channel format.

This graph shows an example of an MPD Model

An AdaptationSet consists of a set of Representations containing interchangeable versions of the respective content, such as different resolutions and bitrates, etc. Although one single Representation would be enough to provide a playable stream, multiple Representations give the client the possibility to adapt the media stream to its current network conditions and bandwidth requirements. This guarantees a smooth playback.

Of course, there are also further characteristics beyond the bandwidth describing the different representations and enabling adaptation. Representations may differ in the used codec, the decoding complexity and therefore the necessary CPU resources, or the rendering technology, just to name a few examples. Representations are chopped into Segments to enable the switching between individual Representations during playback. Those Segments are described by a URL and in certain cases by an additional byte range if those segments are stored in a bigger, continuous file.

The Segments in a Representation usually have the same length in terms of time and are arranged according to the media presentation timeline, which represents the timeline for the synchronization, enabling the smooth switching of Representations during playback. Segments could also have an availability time signalled as wall-clock time from which they are accessible for live streaming scenarios. In contrast to other systems, MPEG-DASH does not restrict the segment length or give advice on the optimal length. This can be chosen depending on the given scenario, e.g., longer Segments allow more efficient compression as Group of Pictures (GOP) could be longer or less network overhead, as each Segment will be requested through HTTP and with each request a certain amount of HTTP overhead is introduced. In contrast, shorter Segments are used for live scenarios as well as for highly variable bandwidth conditions like mobile networks, as they enable faster and flexible switching between individual bitrates.

Subsegments

Segments may also be subdivided into smaller Subsegments which represent a set of smaller access units in the given Segment. In this case, there is a Segment index available in the Segment describing the presentation time range and byte position of the Subsegments, which may be downloaded by the client in advance to generate the appropriate Subsegment requests using HTTP 1.1 byte range requests. During the playback of the content, arbitrary switching between the Representations is not possible at any point in the stream and certain constraints have to be considered. For example, Segments are not allowed to overlap, and dependencies between segments are also not allowed. To enable the switching between Representations, MPEG-DASH introduced Stream Access Points (SAP) on which this is possible. As an example, each Segment typically begins with an IDR-frame (in H.264/AVC) to be able to switch the Representation always after the transmission of one segment.

4: Segment Referencing Schemes

Segments are typically referenced through URLs as defined in RFC3986, using HTTP or HTTPS restricted possibly by a byte range. The byte range can be signaled through the attribute range and must be compliant with the RFC2616. Segments are part of a Representation, while elements like BaseURL, SegmentList, SegmentTemplate, and SegmentList can add additional information, such as location, availability, and further properties. Specifically, a representation should only contain one of the following options:

• one or more SegmentList elements
• one SegmentTemplate
• one or more BaseURL elements, at most one SegmentBase element and no SegmentTemplate or SegmentList element.

SegmentBase

SegmentBase is the most trivial way of referencing segments in the MPEG-DASH standard as it will be used when only one media segment is present per Representation, which will then be referenced through a URL in the BaseURL element. If a Representation should contain more segments, either SegmentList or SegmentTemplate must be used.

For example, Representation using SegmentBase could look like this:

<Representation mimeType="video/mp4"
                   frameRate="24"
                   bandwidth="1558322"
                   codecs="avc1.4d401f" width="1277" height="544">
  <BaseURL>http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500k.mp4</BaseURL>
  <SegmentBase indexRange="0-834"/>
</Representation>

The Representation example above references one single segment through the BaseURL which is the 1500 kbps video quality of the corresponding content. The index of the quality is described by the SegmentBase attribute indexRange. This means that the information about Random Access Points (RAP) and other initialization information is contained in the first 834 bytes.

SegmentList

The SegmentList contains a list of SegmentURL elements which should be played back by the client in the order at which they occur in the MPD. A SegmentURL element contains a URL to a segment and possibly a byte range. Additionally, an index segment could occur at the beginning of the SegmentList.

Here is an example of Representation using SegmentList:

<Representation mimeType="video/mp4"
                   frameRate="24"
                   bandwidth="1558322"
                   codecs="avc1.4d401f" width="1277" height="544">
  <SegmentList duration="10">
    <Initialization sourceURL="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/init.mp4"/>
    <SegmentURL media="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-0.m4s"/>
    <SegmentURL media="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-1.m4s"/>
    <SegmentURL media="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-2.m4s"/>
    <SegmentURL media="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-3.m4s"/>
    <SegmentURL media="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-4.m4s"/>
  </SegmentList>
</Representation>

SegmentTemplate

The SegmentTemplate element provides a mechanism to construct a list of segments from a given template. This means that specific identifiers will be substituted by dynamic values to create a list of segments. This has several advantages. For example, SegmentList based MPDs can become very large because each segment needs to be referenced individually. Compared with SegmentTemplate, this list could be described by a few lines that indicate how to build a large list of segments.

Here is a number based SegmentTemplate:

<Representation mimeType="video/mp4"
                   frameRate="24"
                   bandwidth="1558322"
                   codecs="avc1.4d401f" width="1277" height="544">
  <SegmentTemplate media="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-$Number$.m4s"
                      initialization="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/init.mp4"
                      startNumber="0"
                      timescale="24"
                      duration="48"/>
</Representation>

The example above shows the number-based SegmentTemplate mechanism. As you can see, instead of having multiple individual segment references through SegmentURL as shown in the SegmentList example, a SegmentTemplate can describe this use case in just a few lines. This is what makes the MPD more compact. This is especially useful for longer movies with multiple Representations where an MPD with SegmentList could have multiple megabytes. This would heavily increase the startup latency of a stream, as the client has to fetch the MPD before it could start with the actual streaming process.

Time-Based SegmentTemplate

The SegmentTemplate element could also contain a $Time$ identifier, which will be substituted with the value of the t attribute from the SegmentTimeline. The SegmentTimeline element provides an alternative to the duration attribute with additional features, such as:

• specifying arbitrary segment durations
• specifying exact segment durations
• specifying discontinuities in the media timeline

The SegmentTimeline also uses run-length compression, which is especially efficient when having a sequence of segments with the same duration. When SegmentTimline is used with SegmentTemplate then the following conditions must apply:

• at least one sidx box shall be present
• all values of the SegmentTimeline shall describe accurate
  timing, equal to the information in the sidx box

Here’s an example of an MPD excerpt with a SegmentTemplate that is based on a SegmentTimeline

<Representation mimeType="video/mp4"
                   frameRate="24"
                   bandwidth="1558322"
                   codecs="avc1.4d401f" width="1277" height="544">
  <SegmentTemplate media="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-$Time$.m4s"
                      initialization="http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/init.mp4"
                      timescale="24">
    <SegmentTimeline>
      <S t="0" d="48" r="5"/>
    </SegmentTimeline>
  </SegmentTemplate>
</Representation>

The resulting segment requests of the client would be as follows:

• http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/init.mp4
• http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-0.m4s
• http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-48.m4s
• http://cdn.bitmovin.net/bbb/video-1500/segment-96.m4s
• …

5: Conclusion and Further Reading

MPEG-DASH is a very broad standard and this is just a brief overview of some essential features and mechanisms.
We continue to write informative posts about the MPEG-DASH standard. In the meantime, you can try out MPEG-DASH on your own and encode content to MPEG-DASH through a Cloud-based Encoding Service.
More Readings:

• Multi-Cloud Video Encoding
• Encoding Definition and Adaptive Bitrates 
• HTML5 Video Tag Guide 
• HEVC vs VP9: The Battle of the Video Codecs
• Quality of Experience (QoE)

Did you know?

Bitmovin has a range of video streaming services that can help you deliver content to your customers effectively.
Its variety of features allows you to create content tailored to your specific audience, without the stress of setting everything up yourself. Built-in analytics also help you make technical decisions to deliver the optimal user experience.
Why not try Bitmovin for Free and see what it can do for you.
We hope you found this guide useful! If you did, please don’t be afraid to share it on your social networks!

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• Build a platform with the developer in mind
• Enable open and frictionless access to our products
• Make our products commercially accessible

Built for developers, by developers

Obviously, our platform is built by many very capable developers. However, up to now, our Enterprise-heavy model meant our external communications weren’t open or transparent, nor were we getting much feedback from the developer community at large. We’re now turning this upside down, starting with the launch of our Bitmovin community site. This will be an open site to which everyone can come and ask questions, share things they’ve achieved, and more. Our goal is to get everyone up and running quickly so that users can implement their use cases on their own websites and/or apps while benefiting from our scalable video technology.

Open and frictionless sign-up

Next up, our platform wasn’t broadly accessible, held behind a closed approval process. We’ve removed all barriers, and now anyone can access a free 30-day trial to see how easily they can achieve their use case with our solutions. In addition, we added SSO sign-up with Google, Github, and Slack, to reduce time-to-launch.
The trial lets you experiment with our platform by encoding videos, embedding our video player on your website or app to serve your first impressions, or tracking an analytics session to see how your video is performing. A very useful place to start is with our Starter Documentation, which will give you an idea of how the system works and how to get started in each area. Under the hood, we’re constantly adding features to make life easier as well, for example, you can test your own stream directly within our dashboard now. Stay tuned for more ongoing feature announcements.
 

Making our products commercially accessible

While accessing trials and getting started is great, we had another hurdle with our Enterprise packages. Many sites don’t have the traffic volume that would warrant a full-blown Enterprise license. To address this, we’ve launched more affordable plans that are completely self-service, which you can subscribe to on a yearly or monthly basis, with lower volume commitments. In the case that the subscription plan isn’t right for you, we also offer a pay-as-you-go option by request. This gives you the full flexibility to purchase whatever you feel comfortable with for whichever stage your company is at. We’re here to grow with you and can explore which plans make more sense for you at each stage.
If your team is working with video and you’re still wondering if our video technology solution is right for you, give it a try! You can explore some of Bitmovin’s case studies in various verticals such as Broadcast, Media & Entertainment, Health & Fitness, eCommerce, Gaming, Sports & eSports, e-Learning, Telco & Cable.

So, what’s next?

While we listed quite a few things, we’re hard at work to evolve the platform. Keep your eyes out in February for our community site, more APIs to explore, and a rewards program.

Community Site

Bitmovin’s community contains a wealth of public projects, open & solved questions, a forum, hundreds of new resources, and will be an excellent location to exchange information with your peers or share your opinions about our products.

Fun rewards/referral program

Our world-famous swag kit is here! And you don’t need to see us in person or attend a virtual event to get your own. We’re having a limited window of time in February during which you can activate your trial, and then Encode a minute of content, serve a Player impression, or record an impression in Analytics – and get your swag.
We’ll follow that up with a referral program, through which you can get bigger swag with more referrals. More on that later.

New APIs

We have listened to our valued customers, their wish for an easier way to do video encodings and just launched a new approach to Encoding, our Simple Encoding API. It greatly reduces the complexity of Encoding videos at first, while letting you unlock the full potential of Encoding in the future. We’re working hard to improve live encoding solutions, mobile player SDKs, launching what we call the “Stream Lab”, and much more!

Second chance trials

Did you try Bitmovin in the past? Do you want to give it another go? No worries! We’re delighted to talk, Contact Us to extend your trial.

Feedback

We live an open feedback culture within and outside Bitmovin. Share with us what you think and what you want to see next in our products via the contact form shared before or on Twitter or LinkedIn using the hashtag #DareToStream

Video technology guides and articles

• Back to Basics: Guide to the HTML5 Video Tag 
• What is a VoD Platform?A comprehensive guide to Video on Demand (VOD)
• Video Technology [2022]: Top 5 video technology trends
• HEVC vs VP9: Modern codecs comparison
• What is the AV1 Codec?
• Video Compression: Encoding Definition and Adaptive Bitrate
• What is adaptive bitrate streaming
• MP4 vs MKV: Battle of the Video Formats
• AVOD vs SVOD; the “fall” of SVOD and Rise of AVOD & TVOD (Video Tech Trends)
• MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP)
• Container Formats: The 4 most common container formats and why they matter to you.
• Quality of Experience (QoE) in Video Technology [2022 Guide]

The post Enabling Video Technology for Developers appeared first on Bitmovin.

What is the Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award?

The Emmys®, a world-renowned awards ceremony was founded in 1955 by the National Academy of Television & Sciences (NATAS) as a method of recognizing the advancements of arts and sciences and the promotion of creative achievements within the television industry. However, what you may not know is that this creativity-oriented ceremony was predated by the Technology and Engineering award of 1948 that recognized the companies, organizations, and individuals for breakthroughs in television technology. 
As time has progressed, so has the Technology and Engineering award – in the age of streaming, innovations are no longer oriented towards traditional broadcast media alone, but also towards those who have a significant focus on television engineering online. As such, the award categories expanded from focuses around recording, transmission, and “simple” storage technologies towards complex topics such as the development of Open Perceptual Metrics, Content Delivery, Standardizations of Media Formats, and Massive Processing Optimized Compression Technologies.

The Award for Development of Massive Processing Optimized Compression Technologies

As the number of households consuming content online (as opposed to traditional broadcast) soars to new heights, alongside the number of available services to stream new content, there’s an equally growing demand for efficient transmission of the millions of hours of content worldwide. As of summer 2020, there was an estimated count of 105,000 available hours of content in the US alone on average per household. Given the recent launches of HBO Max, Peacock, Discovery+, and more, one can assume that the number has drastically increased over the course of the last year. 
Delivering that much content at scale is no easy achievement, especially when it comes to maintaining a high perceptual quality, in a timely fashion, and across all varieties of available bandwidth. That’s where Massive Processing Optimized Compression Technologies (encoding) come into play to ensure that as much content is delivered as efficiently as possible for as many organizations as possible. Thus, a new Emmy® Award was born to display the innovations in chunk and/or shot-based encoding mechanisms that transmit information into finer and smarter segments. As of February 2021, Bitmovin is the honored recipient of the Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award for Development of Massive Processing Optimized Compression Technologies.

How did we get here?

Our educational roots

Bitmovin’s DNA and our original founding story came from contributing to the development of the open-source MPEG DASH adaptive bitrate standard through our founder’s Ph.D. research and as active members of the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). Our innovative mindset towards improving streaming quality has been at our core since our founding in 2013 in the form of public research, shared development of open-source standards and code, and real-world deployments of proprietary commercial implementations at scale.
This came to fruition when the other two Bitmovin founders, Chris Mueller & Christian Timmerer, and I, contributed to the development of the MPEG-DASH standard which became the de facto video streaming standard used today by the largest online broadcasters in the world Netflix, Google, YouTube. Bitmovin’s earliest products essentially referenced implementations of this standard in development for both processing (Encoder) and playback (Player) when Bitmovin was founded as a spin-out of the University of Klagenfurt, Austria in 2013.

Our encoding product is born

Quickly after its founding and release of commercial stable products in 2014, Bitmovin saw stunning growth as evidenced by its roster of some of the world’s largest online broadcasters such as Hulu Japan, the BBC, and hundreds of others.
As of 2016, Bitmovin released the next generation of video streaming innovation with its Per-Title encoding service – one of the first commercial solutions available for broadcasters to leverage the power of perceptual quality measurement as applied to video encoding bitrate optimization. Again, Bitmovin grew its roster of global scale online broadcasters with this technology including Hulu, HBO, and Stan – officially premiering the solution at the 2018 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC).

Developing technology for the future: Per-Title Encoding

The joint project established a dedicated research team to investigate potential new tools and methodologies for encoding, transport, and playback of live and on-demand video using the HTTP Adaptive Streaming protocol that is widely used by online video and TV providers. The resulting findings will help empower the creation of next-generation solutions for higher quality video experiences at lower latency, while also potentially reducing storage and distribution costs while leveraging the human-centered perceptual quality metrics.
Most recently, Bitmovin further improved its parallel encoding compute capabilities by launching additional cloud-based processes with Cloud Connect Encoding. Bitmovin’s Cloud Connect encoding supports massively parallel encoding to achieve significant multiples over real-time deployed on the 3 most popular infrastructure services: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. Each of these services has different API specifications as well as for instance (hardware) configuration particularities.
All of these innovations culminated with Bitmovin as an honored recipient of the Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award for Development of Massive Processing Optimized Compression Technologies. But that’s not the end of the story.

What does this mean for the future of Bitmovin & Online Video?

Bitmovin will continue to develop and evolve our per-title encoding solution with plans to create real-time implementations of quality-based encoding at low latencies as it is still an early-stage technology and lacks widespread accepted industry standards. We also expect to see further adoption and improvements to AI and machine learning for video quality measurements that will allow organizations like Bitmovin to apply even more optimal encoding parameters. However, it may take a few more years to see material impacts on the market from AI/ML applied to encoding, as it’s in the early research and experimentation phase.
Our research wing at the Klagenfurt of University aims to improve the “hackable” predictive quality measurement models of video with deeper metrics and analytics. And we look forward to closing the video workflow loop by connecting Encoding with Analytics. After encodings are created it is important to “close the loop” to monitor the actual performance of the encoded assets such as exploring usage patterns to note correlations with positive and negative performance.

The post You May be Wondering How We Got Here: Emmy® Award for Innovations in Online Broadcasting appeared first on Bitmovin.