The last step to adulthood
In a previous blog post we explained how broadcasting a live video channel via satellite using an IP-native adaptive bitrate streaming packaging format (such as HLS or MPEG-DASH) revolutionizes video content distribution to all types of screens. The conclusion of that blog post: the industry needs a standard to accelerate market adoption. You may be wondering how mature multicast ABR streaming over satellite is. This new post sheds some light on actual field deployments, demonstrating the readiness of the solution, its benefits for various use cases, and reaffirms that the time is right for an industry standardization effort.
Game-changing applications
Applications of IP-native live video delivery via satellite are numerous, spanning from multiscreen consumption of satellite pay-TV content in homes to e-learning in remote places, as well as live video distribution to communities, hospitalities, cruise ships, planes and many more.
A few months ago, Broadpeak announced the successful launch of a nanoCDN™-based complete solution for delivering IP-native live TV channels via satellite to budget hotels, busses and campuses, leveraging a “bring your own device” (BYOD) model for content playback. The recipe for success is to package high-popularity live TV channels, using an ABR streaming protocol prior to satellite distribution. This makes it easy and cost-effective to deliver live TV channels to consumer-owned handheld devices over WiFi in hotels, busses and campuses.
This announcement was the latest in a series that began three years ago when Broadpeak and Eutelsat jointly revealed the launch of Eutelsat’s SmartBeam, a game-changing solution powered by Broadpeak’s nanoCDN for extending access to live video content on mobile devices, first deployed by Tricolor in Russia.
Further evidence of the maturity of nanoCDN technology is the recent decision by Broadpeak’s longtime partner Eutelsat to blend SmartBeam into its CIRRUS™ hybrid satellite-OTT video delivery solution, addressing the growing number of IP-native screens to offer rich video content and a high-quality user experience. Eutelsat CIRRUS leverages ubiquitous coverage of satellites to help broadcasters and pay-TV operators create a network that is completely dedicated to IP-native terminals, including tablets and smartphones. The solution can be deployed at home as well as in public venues, such as hotels, bars, shopping centres and airports.
The last step
Multicast ABR streaming over satellite allows operators and content providers to contain their bandwidth requirements to only a few megabits per second in order to multicast high-quality live TV services to millions of simultaneous devices. Therefore, by effectively managing video consumption peaks that are not supported by terrestrial broadband network infrastructures, multicast ABR streaming is poised to become the natural successor to the 25-year old MPEG-2 transport layer. In the same way that ATSC 3.0 defines a new link layer protocol to natively support IP video services, we believe that the ongoing DVB TM-IPI initiative should quickly adopt multicast ABR streaming as the last step toward adulthood.
In the meantime, you can experience nanoCDN in action at IBC2019 on the Broadpeak stand 5.B78 as well as on our partner Eutelsat’s stand 1.D59. You can find out more about CIRRUS here.
