DAZN saw an opportunity to launch a standalone global sport streaming platform before anyone else. It went live in 2016 and is now in seven countries, with Spain and Brazil launching in early 2019 and more set to follow. But how do you go about disrupting the sport industry that is still largely bundled with linear pay TV? What content mix do you need to be successful and how do you build a streaming platform from scratch? Florian shares learnings from DAZN on its mission of global sport streaming domination.

Multiple OTT and mobile video services deliver premium content to more than 3 million customers using Medianova’s Docker-based Private CDN, which allows the services to run their own microservices on the same platform without dedicated hardware. Medianova’s EdgeCache™ technology enables long-tail content to be cached at the edge without a layered multicache structure, and—in an industry first—Private CDN offers flat-fee rather than traffic-based billing.

Will OTT ever completely replace broadcast? Probably not, but when it’s done right OTT can beat broadcast in many key areas: convenience, control, interactivity, addressable advertising, data collection, and more. Our panellists will discuss OTT’s advantages, as well as its shortcomings and how to overcome them.

Adaptive bitrate (ABR) algorithms have come a long way to take account of a multitude of content, devices, and network conditions, but they are often an overlooked part of the video stack. This talk will look at how different players handle ABR, the different parameters and criteria used to build a bandwidth or buffer-based ABR algorithm, and how adapting them to your use case can produce material improvements in quality of service.

After broadcasters announcements of ATSC 3.0 acceptance, video-based applications developers are investigating deployment of interactive services without the traditional reliance on pay TV company hardware. Is the toolkit sufficiently robust to build engaging experiences that consumers expect? As the new specification becomes a reality, this session examines components of ATSC 3.0—from HTML5 to media player specifics—exploring their potential for successful application deployment and providing guidelines (and warnings) for developers and OTT providers.

ITV, the largest commercial television network in the UK, has revolutionised the creation of catch-up assets for live programmes, moving from a single site, on-prem facility to a cloud-based platform that processes high bitrate live streams into content for the ITV Hub and partner platforms. This presentation will share the journey from ground to cloud, as well as provide insight into ITV's future plans. 

Offering immersive and interactive live experiences such as live sports, betting, social casting, and second-screen experiences requires close-to-the-live-edge playback. Other considerations for broadcasters and streaming service providers include managing low latency, ensuring that each user is able to engage simultaneously, and tackling live stream piracy. This presentation will address each of those considerations and more.

OTT hasn’t just changed how people watch TV; it’s changed how advertisers connect with those viewers. This presentation from Sky’s Deepa Kutty will look at how targeted advertising and dynamic ad insertion technology are revolutionising monetisation, the differences between TV and mobile advertising, and the future trends that will shape OTT.

Content providers are looking at emerging compression methods as a way of meeting consumer expectations for captivating video experiences, at the highest possible quality, delivered across every medium without the limitations of buffering. This session will reveal new research into the opportunities and challenges presented by the two leading codec contenders, AV1 and HEVC, including comparison testing and the state of the market today.

Some AI companies have tried categorising viewers for better targeting, raising numerous technical and privacy-related questions, especially with GDPR in place. However, AI can still help you target smarter by categorising scenes in movies or TV series to promote products relevant to particular scenes. Adjusting the ads to what is displayed leverages powerful human associations and can help copyright owners earn more, finding the best places to insert mid rolls with targeted commercials sorted by category.

The rise of OTT services and ever-increasing video bitrates is bringing increasing volumes of traffic into telco networks. What is the future role of telcos in relation to the CDNs and the bigger content players? Where will the telcos be heading, and how will the relationships between telcos, CDNs, and content players develop over time? Knowing that telcos have their own IPTV offerings, and are increasingly launching their own OTT offerings and developing their own CDN services, what will be the future position of telcos towards CDNs and content players? This fireside chat explores these issues and more.

2018 was the first full year of large-scale Ultra HD and HDR live video distribution, but there are still a number of issues seen by consumers through network impacts, device compatibility, and consumer expectations. The Ultra HD Forum and its members have been working on many of these issues, informing ongoing guidelines and interoperability work. We present the summary of these challenges and experiences, and how these issues continue to be addressed by the Forum and its members as UHD and HDR becomes mainstream and developments continue to enhance the technologies.

Even companies that are not yet actively operating on a microservices architecture are looking for vendors who at least have a strategy to cater to it for the future. This session will examine the core benefits (including redundancy, dev ops, scalability, and self-healing), the different approaches (including containerisation and orchestration via Docker, Kubernetes, and Mesos, as well as native microservices models like Erlang), and the complexities of migrating a generic architecture to a microservices architecture.

Streaming Forum wraps up with a panel discussion highlighting the technologies that are enabling the OTT revolution.

Join Information Today and your fellow delegates and speakers at an informal drinks reception at the close of conference.