Over-the-top (OTT) video platforms have drastically transformed the video and entertainment landscape with
new technologies, and it’s projected to keep up this shift. In this new media consumption era, the viewer’s are
the king, and their expectations of content and experience decide the fate of a platform. The race to please the
viewer is quite evident by the fierce fight of OTT platforms for
high-quality
content,
immersive
experiences and
value to
the viewers. The motivation is the boom of the OTT industry and a very fruitful projected revenue of
$129 Billion by 2023 with a user base of
777 million.
Throughout the years, OTT services have been synonymous with Video-on-Demand (VoD), but with innovations in
delivery methods, technology, features, and user preferences, the industry is witnessing a shift. Viewers are
now demanding the convenience and experience of VoD for linear channels and live events as well; this makes it
crucial for OTT platforms to establish a solid business model targeting multiple screens. This growing demand
for live content on the go is why many new VoD and digital multichannel video-programming distributors (dMVPDs)
are also entering the arena.
Differences: VoD vs Live
As compared to VoD, Live OTT workflows differ vastly. The variances start from the initial step of video
ingestion to the final step of delivery of the stream. Besides the workflow, Live OTT also requires a different
set of features, such as catch-up or personal video recorder (PVR) from the user side, and blackouts, program
substitution, and ad-insertion from the business side. Although many of these features have been available in a
linear TV platform for quite a while now, the expectation of a high quality of experience (QoE) from an OTT
service, and low switching costs in the industry means that brands must deliver a seamless live experience over
multi-screens as well.
Coverage of live sports or popular events may lead to millions of users hooked on the stream at the same
time. This can cause multiple implications, ranging from scaling for content processing to the scaling of
bandwidth. Streaming of valuable live content comes attached to the question of security; studios, broadcasters
and event organizers want their content to be protected with the best security measures to circumvent illegal
access and piracy.
As live video streams cannot be as easily recovered from a data loss and delays as VoD content, the chances
of loss and failure are inherently higher in Live OTT. From a business perspective, live event streaming
failures can ruin the experience for end-users as well as the brand image of the provider.
Another aspect that makes live OTT unlike VoD is the presence of time-based metadata. In VoD, the metadata
comes in the form of assets, such as duration, title, language and much more, whereas in Live scenario the
metadata also consists of timestamps or markers (SCTE-35) that help with ad-insertions, blackouts, and nPVR.
Expectations from Live OTT Platform
Automation
To manage a large number of linear channels, attached metadata or simultaneously broadcasted events,
end-to-end automated workflows become essential. This requires automated workflows for all processes:
ingestion, transcoding, encryption, packaging, and publishing of the content.
Robustness
A stutter free, high-quality and consistent video is the fundamental requirement for any platform. The
platform must be highly-performant to deliver the live stream with zero downtime to have an optimal
experience for the viewer.
Resilience
Smaller faults during processing or delivery of live streams can pile-up and cause more massive failures.
Real-time monitoring, fault tolerance, and greater support must be imbibed in the platform to guarantee a
very high uptime to the viewers.
Scalability
As stated earlier, live OTT might mean serving hundreds of linear channels and catering to potentially
millions of users when it comes to live events. The platform should be able to scale up the delivery and DRM
solutions to accommodate the millions of requests for the video stream.
Extensibility
Capability to accommodate the changing user preferences backed by the drive through analytics, prompt issue
resolution, and achieving new monetization opportunities should be possible within the platform. The
platform must be extensible to allow addition and modification of features, device compatibility, and
services (external or internal). There should also be a provision for adjustment and customization of the
workflow.
Modularity
Modern digital media solutions should be built on containerized micro-services and serverless architecture,
enabling them to be highly modular as well as scalable. Such an architecture facilitates the platform owners
to choose, integrate, operate and scale services that fit perfectly with their technical and business goals.
Protection
Content protection and security are becoming a growing concern for broadcasters and event owners. A live
OTT platform must facilitate protection of content using digital rights management (DRM) standards, forensic
watermarking and entitlement services. Multi-DRM service that respects cross-platform compatibility and can
secure content across devices must be in place to attain continuous security of the content.
Monetization
The end-goal for businesses is to generate revenue from their OTT initiatives, with Live TV the
monetization opportunities are limited to ad-insertion and selection of service model. However, in the case
of advertisements, modern browsers and devices can circumvent many of the ad-insertions techniques;
therefore, the platform must allow for dynamic server-side ad-insertion or ad stitching.
Axinom Live OTT Architecture
Axinom live OTT platform is composed of several individual components that do all the complex tasks ranging
from receiving the stream from vendors to serving it to the end-user devices. In a modern, scalable and
extensible platform, these components reside as containerized micro-services. The figure below the process for
easy comprehension.
The basic media workflow for a live OTT starts with the process of ingestion where a video stream, provided
by the vendor, is transcoded into streamable file formats. The source file metadata also include SCTE-35
messages; alternatively, the editor can specify the markers in the CMS for signaling the period and duration for
ad insertion into the streams. While packaging the content into adaptive streaming solutions such as DASH and
HLS, the packager inserts SCTE-35 metadata into a manifest file or emsg boxes in case MP4 containers are used.
A third-party ad-service utilizes the client manifest generated in the previous step. The ad-service can
dynamically inject advertisements based on the SCTE-35 markers; this processed manifest is then passed on to a
Cloud Delivery Network (CDN) for playback of the live streams and the inserted ads on the user devices.
The multi-DRM service that comes with a developer-friendly unified API allows encryption using the popular
modern technologies such as Microsoft PlayReady, Apple FairPlay Streaming and Google Widevine with CENC
encryption scheme. Key rotation can also be performed to change the encryption key associated with the live
content.
Live OTT with Axinom
Axinom, with its modular and robust products and many industrial partnerships, provides the full media
workflow that accompanies the live OTT as well as VoD. Axinom CMS can manage any video content, be it linear TV
channels or the EPG and time-based metadata associated with it. Catch-up duration, advertisement configuration,
blackout regions, and business and content rules can be defined within the CMS, along with providing access to
multiple users or external participants.
Axinom BIS takes care of all the integrations needed as well as the execution of business rules defined
previously. The middle-layer facilitates ad-insertion, querying, filtering, verification and access to content
assets and streams. In addition, it has several other features, such as authentication, entitlements, full-text
search with filtering, DRM licensing, advertisement support, reporting, payments, monitoring and many more.
Axinom’s digital solutions have enabled media and broadcast organizations in reaching a global audience with
their content. With the right mix of robustness, scalability, and extensibility, Axinom products fulfill viewer
expectations in the choice of content and device, with unlimited localisations, not to mention supporting
business goals with a spectrum of monetization and operating models.
To get to know more, please chat with us.
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