Ten years ago, to stream video, you needed to know how to encode to H.264 and configure Flash. Now you have to be a patent lawyer. The end of 2016 was brutal from a royalty perspective. MPEG LA did the unthinkable and launched a DASH patent pool, which will impact all OTT producers with more than 100,000 customers. Will they launch a similar pool for HLS using the same IP? Nokia sued Apple for H.264 patent infringement, asserting a novel theory that could enable royalties far beyond the $0.20/unit charged by MPEG LA and impact all producers using H.264. And in a rare act of sensibility, unfortunately unmatched by MPEG LA, HEVC Advanced waived royalties on certain classes of HEVC decoders. You can pay your patent attorney 1000 quid for an update, or watch Jan Ozer cover what's known and what's not on royalties for H.264, HEVC, and DASH.

We examine the evolution of technology trends in the streaming space over the past 20 years, and why the trend is towards virtualisation at all levels – from media encoding and transcoding to delivery – leading to higher availability, stronger security, and higher service velocity. The increasing availability of graphics processors in commodity chipsets is changing the dynamic of where and how media is treated. This session will present a case study showing how this can provide for ‘carrier-grade’ availability even if the underlying fabric is only offering commodity-grade SLAs. Panellists will discuss how virtualisation is evolving in the operator space, and how it is changing the strategy of telcos and media distributors as they seek to bring these capabilities to market.

This presentation will discuss best practices for implementing a live and synchronised OTT service that enables live OTT streams to be synced to different mobile devices, as well as synced and harmonised with regular linear broadcast TV. Learn how a synced live OTT service can open up new business models for content owners and rights holders, and how this complements existing business. See examples of how a synchronised live OTT service can be used to greatly enhance viewer experiences, either as a standalone service or in combination with regular broadcast television.

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High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Ultra High-Definition (UHD) are revolutionising TV by providing compelling improvements to the viewing experience. Live TV production, especially sports and events, is quite unlike movie or on-demand production, as it involves multiple processing stages and the combination of many different sources and formats. Covering production, conversion, signalling, and client interaction, this session will describe the needs created by these overall changes to the complete end-to-end broadcast chain.

H.264, H.265, VP9, AV1 … Nobody said OTT video was easy, but these days it seems more complicated than it needs to be. Which codec is right for your business? Do you need to use more than one? Bring your questions for your peers and encoding expert Jan Ozer in this unique, free-wheeling roundtable discussion about the state of codecs and formats in 2017.

Broadcasters face increased pressure to make, deliver, and monetise live video to keep up with new competition from the likes of Facebook Live and Twitter, and as more consumers cut the cord, that competition will only increase. But live streaming can be tricky, so this session will offer tips and best practices for building out a live streaming platform to deliver a high-quality viewing experience, covering topics from transcoding and transmuxing to analytics and protecting the live stream.

With the announcement that MPEG-DASH will carry royalties, and the continued confusion over what the royalty picture will look like for HEVC, content publishers are making technology decisions hand-in-hand with business decisions. How are you dealing with the royalty quandary? Share your thoughts and experiences, and bring your questions for this roundtable discussion.

In this session, University College London and Wowza Media Systems share a real-life use case that shows how educational institutions and other publishers can embrace virtual reality and 360° live streaming to further deepen the connection between teachers, students, and learning, with lessons that can be applied to video publishers in every market.

Throughout the last three years, cable broadcasters and on-demand content providers have answered consumers’ desire for content at any time with OTT apps across various devices. The issue that the OTT world is now facing is a unified process to develop apps, shortening conventional methods for app roll-out from months to weeks. This session will explore the OTT industry’s need for unification in app development and streamlining the process for devices and platforms to respond to consumer needs.