Did Adaptive Rate Streaming Get Enough Attention during the OTT Spotlight in 2010?

As the end of 2010 draws closer, we’d like to take a few minutes to examine some of the technologies and trends that have significantly impacted the market in 2010.

You’ll notice that OTT has been a common theme throughout our blog posts this year – we have tackled issues ranging from the likelihood of traditional TV operators embracing OTT video as a service to how service providers can capitalize on advanced OTT technologies to enable new streams of business to the growing support for HTTP Live Streaming.

In addition to helping operators maximize the effectiveness of their existing bandwidth, ARS also offers many advantages over previous video delivery techniques over the Internet. For instance, it naturally supports home firewall transparency, and a wide variety of use cases — it can deliver video across a combination of wired and wireless networks, through any combination of home broadband devices and firewall devices.

In our opinion, this is extremely important because the protocols that we’ve been using for IPTV, in particular, don’t have those properties, and as a result they don’t work very well around the home. In comparison with previous video techniques used on the Internet, such as progressive download, we see both improvements in operational cost savings for the service provider and in the quality of consumer experience.

And the improvements to the quality of the consumer experience are tremendous. This is so important because user experience is perhaps the most important determinant of success for businesses that rely on video delivery. People don’t expect their video material to stop and start and for the audio to drop; they expect a very seamless, continuous experience, and they are not very forgiving of delivery issues. ARS provides that seamless experience even when conditions deteriorate sharply or if sharing of bandwidth occurs.

In partnership with Harmonic, we worked with Ben Schwarz to author a primer talking about the impact of ARS. You will find a high-level technical description that leads to the technology trade-offs of the different flavors of ARS (from Apple, Microsoft and Adobe). It is written as a guide to help operators make sound selection parameters and consider business implications based on those decisions. You can download the primer at www.verimatrix.com/HLS

We think ARS is one of the year’s most significant enabling technologies, and we’re excited to see what’s in store for 2011. What ARS advancements do you think we will see in 2011?

Sign up for our Authorized Access newsletters to stay informed on the latest news on revenue security, conditional access and digital TV developments.

-- Content submitted by Vermatrix