INDUSTRY WATCH
Media CIOs understand IT’s pivotal role in
content delivery. The benchmark for content
libraries and user interfaces has been set but
has also become standardised. Focus has
now returned to the backend and ensuring
quality and reliable playback. Buffering, poor
picture quality, or content that simply won’t
load are unforgivable experiences on a cut-
throat consumer battleground.
Technical teams are acutely aware that for
any platform to emerge as a global content
champion, the ability to track consumer
behaviour, take advantage of cutting-edge
tools and ensure content can be targeted at
any number of different devices is important.
The make or break factor for success,
however, is a content delivery infrastructure
that can stream content, without fail, to any
device, in any market.
Achieving low-latency: What’s
the cache?
But how important is ultra-low latency
content to a brand really? Beyond
reputational damage, it can be the key to
survival in the digital age.
This is increasingly the case for live
streaming content in genres where real-
time user engagement is critical to revenue.
Live shopping, gambling or auction-type
programmes are moving to OTT platforms.
A drop-off from frustrated viewers, roughly
three-quarters of whom won’t return to
a service that’s faced multiple buffering
issues, could be enough to send a business
under. Think of a YouTuber whose revenue
is dependent on them holding viewers
during a live stream but amplify it to an
entire channel dependant on real-time
engagement to drive sales.
So how does a brand ensure they
meet the needs and expectations of
streamers on a global scale?
Firstly, content distribution needs to be
optimised by putting streaming servers
exactly where they are needed to give the
best user experience and lowest possible
latency. These servers need to be configured
to meet the needs of the specific audience.
The UK’s requirements are very different to
mobile-first markets like India, so ‘off-the-
shelf’ solutions won’t suffice.
For content services to perform seamlessly
and deliver content reliably, they must also
be able to handle massive amounts of data.
A video content platform with an intelligent
cache allows content providers to offload
traffic that would have previously hit the back-
end. The result is reduced latency and the
elimination of the dreaded buffering wheel.
Caching was once only discussed in relation
to web domains, where it’s used for site
acceleration. However, caching has moved
into the video streaming space as a means
of delivering content fast, on-demand and
at scale.
Lars Larsson, CEO at Varnish Software
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INTELLIGENTCIO
A well configured CDN with intelligent
caching rules in place not only handles
the ‘day-to-day’ demand – if there even is
such a thing anymore – but crucially, those
unexpected peaks in activity. It’s no surprise
that so many people streamed Stranger
Things season three on launch day but
predicting the success of a show isn’t always
so easy in a social media age where content
can ‘go viral’ overnight and gain momentum
through word of mouth.
A prime example is BBC America’s Killing
Eve, which was released in the UK in one
fell swoop and became a hit once word
spread. Villanelle might be a deadly
assassin in the show, but even she is no
match for the ‘spinning wheel of death’.
Having a flexible infrastructure that’s
designed to cope with these peaks and
troughs in demand is vital in today’s
media landscape.
The next challenge –
the same solution
Achieving reliable, ultra-low latency
should be the goal for all content owners,
but the media industry is constantly
changing. Technical officers know that
getting the delivery network right will
pay dividends for the next wave in
streaming advancements. As the industry
approaches another IBC in Amsterdam,
talk is centring on how to maintain
optimised distribution when providing
better personalisation and moving to 4K
and 8K streaming in future. This level of
picture quality is already being touted by
TV manufacturers and just as with 1080p
HD before it, it’s not long before it will be
customary on mobile devices either. If
consumers want it, OTT platforms have to
be able to provide it.
The battle for eyeballs is more contested
than the climax of Avengers Endgame;
there will only be more brands moving
into streaming in future. Whether it’s an
all-encompassing content library, superior
picture quality or personalised content
that allows a victorious brand to emerge,
the fact remains that if a platform
can’t deliver content reliably with as
low latency as possible, consumers will
disappear quicker than Thanos can snap
his fingers. n
www.intelligentcio.com