Video Breakthroughs

Video service providers have become enamored of adaptive bit rate streaming as a way to deliver video to tablets and smartphones, but not everyone believes the technology will become the primary way video is delivered to the home.

HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) "is not ready for primetime TV," declared Pieter Liefooghe, chief solution architect and solution line manager at the video solutions and integration organization of Alcatel-Lucent, during a panel on the topic at last week's Managing & Monetizing OTT Video event in Boston. HAS is "okay for a single-stream, OTT-style of service, but as a basis of a primetime TV service, it's a challenging proposition," he added.

But this doesn't mean HAS will never be suitable for primetime TV, as the shortcomings identified by Liefooghe relate to "out-of-the-box" HAS technology. He said, for example, that AlcaLu has identified some technologies and techniques that can be done on the routing platform and the content delivery network (CDN) to boost HAS performance enough to address some of its technical shortcomings. And he insisted there are ways to pare delays down to six seconds while still guaranteeing continuous playback.

"There's a future for HAS as the new RTP," Liefooghe concluded.

Consistent multi-platform audio and video content delivery presents an ongoing challenge for broadcasters. Explosive smartphone and tablet growth on varying operating systems —Android, Apple iOS, or Windows Phone—threatens to create a user-experience divide between users on mobile devices, at the desktop or in the living room.

Tim Siglin's white paper explores fragmented MP4 files (fMP4) and considers whether the fMP4 format can replace legacy file formats.

Tim's blog page : http://workflowed.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-is-mpeg-dash-so-important.html

White-paper : http://184.168.176.117/reports-public/Adobe/20111116-fMP4-Adobe-Microsoft.pdf

Intertrust Technologies Corporation today released Wasabi Express, a standards-based next generation DRM platform for mobile and desktop applications. Wasabi Express together with the Company’s DRM Cloud Services provides a single solution for service providers that want to distribute content using a Marlin DRM-compliant media player.

Service providers, technology solutions providers and developers using Wasabi Express will have access to technologies that enable them to implement new content distribution business models for delivering over-the-top content to mobile and PC platforms. Wasabi Express offers extensive support for download and adaptive streaming media distribution models (including MPEG-DASH and HLS). It also enables content portability and compatibility with other Marlin clients and services.

Wasabi Express is protected by tamper resistance technology from Intertrust’s whiteCryption subsidiary.

Additional details on Wasabi Express are available at: http://www.intertrust.com/solutions/wasabi_express