OTT and TV Everywhere enabler Xstream A/S launches a new live video streaming tool that enables service providers and broadcasters using its award-winning MediaMaker™ OTT/VOD platform to tap into the lucrative live video streaming events market such as concerts, festivals, sports events and conferences.
“Viewers today spend more time watching live streaming events compared with standard video content and that can only rise,” says Jacob Barlebo, Xstream’s sales and marketing director. “This tool enables our global customer base of service providers and broadcasters to tap into this booming market and offer viewers the highest quality live streaming content.”
Barlebo’s comment is made in the background of recent research undertaken by Dubai-based Go Globe showing streaming video today accounting for more than 67% of Internet traffic and is expected to jump to 82% by 2020. It also shows that 45% of live video audiences would pay for live, exclusive or on-demand video from a favourite team, speaker or performer.
Xstream’s Live Streaming tool is an extension of the end-to-end MediaMaker OTT cloud platform and provides a complete set of live content monetisation scenarios: Live channel streaming, Live event streaming, Live stream to video-on-demand conversion (Live to VOD) and Video-on-demand to live stream conversion (VOD to Live).
Live channel streaming
The live channel streaming module fetches live streams from defined sources. It supports adaptive streaming by transcoding streams into all required resolutions and bit rates. The streams are packaged into multiple containers such as DASH, HLS and SS and delivered to viewers via a content delivery network (CDN).
The entire live channel streaming process is managed on the MediaMaker platform, including an automated infrastructure setup, channel metadata, parental control and monetisation management.
Its electronic program guide (EPG) provides information on each individual program such as playout times and parental control grading and can be fetched from third party remote services or constructed on the MediaMaker backend system.
Several live stream monetisation options are provided such as pay per duration of time and pay per event.
Live event streaming
The Live Event Streaming module provides operators the ability to schedule streamed live events at a specific time for a certain duration. The fully automated cloud-based system dynamically reserves the required infrastructure capacity and removes all the resources once the event is over.
Live stream to video-on-demand conversion
The Live stream to video-on-demand conversion (or live-to-VoD) module enables recording of live content into catch-up segments for later video-on-demand viewing. The catch-up content assets are stored in a MediaMaker catalogue and can be monetised just as any other media asset.
Several variants of live-to-VoD are provided:
- Catch-Up with rolling buffer: stream fragments are stored on the CDN and made available for playback. In a rolling buffer, a fixed number of segments are available and the oldest fragments are removed when new ones are added.
- Time-shift with rolling buffer: viewers can pan-scan through a stream and rewind back in time. The shifting is limited by the size of the rolling buffer.
- Start-Over with rolling buffer: viewers can watch a program already started from the beginning. The system only allows watching the current program.
- Catch up with archiving: programs are stored based on the EPG and imported to the VoD catalog for later playback. The availability of assets is not limited to the rolling buffer size.
Video-on-demand to live stream conversion
The Video-on-demand to live stream conversion (VoD to live) module allows operators to construct live channels from video-on-demand content assets stored in the catalogue. The live stream can be monetised in the same way as the regular live channels. MediaMaker provides an EPG editor and live source editor for configuring live media streams.
Showcasing at NexTV Conference
Xstream will showcase the new Live VOD streaming tool at the upcoming NexTV Conference (Berlin December 6-7th) alongside other MediaMaker OTT cloud features. During the second day of the conference, Xstream’s Barlebo will participate in a panel discussion and speak about the opportunities OTT players can obtain on reaching end users directly.
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