How can you optimize IPTV content delivery for low-bandwidth networks?
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Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is a technology that delivers video and audio content over IP networks, such as the internet, instead of traditional broadcast or cable systems. IPTV offers many advantages, such as interactivity, personalization, and on-demand access, but it also poses some challenges, especially for low-bandwidth networks. How can you optimize IPTV content delivery for low-bandwidth networks? Here are some tips and best practices to consider.
One of the most important factors that affect the quality and performance of IPTV content is the encoding format, which compresses the video and audio data to reduce the file size and bandwidth consumption. There are many encoding formats available, such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, and HEVC, each with different features and trade-offs. You should choose the encoding format that suits your content type, audience, and network conditions. For example, HEVC (also known as H.265) is a newer and more efficient format that can reduce the bitrate by up to 50% compared to H.264, but it also requires more processing power and may not be supported by older devices.
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Thierry Fautier
Managing Director
An increase in streaming capacity has driven OTT service providers to look for ways to reduce the cost of video streaming without decreasing the overall quality of experience (QoE). Through the latest streaming optimizations, video service providers can achieve significant bandwidth savings, while retaining exceptional video quality. Details here : https://ottverse.com/boosting-the-efficiency-of-ott-delivery-with-state-of-the-art-streaming-optimizations/
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Georges Bery
Sales engineer
That is not good enough. If you need to go low , you have to know how much your signal was already damaged upstream and by what. If I take the example of a very well produced European football game that is delivered internationally the path of the signal is a 220MBs J2K from OB to commentary and graphics off site. a next one of the same from production to sat uplink with a 32Mbs H264 to finally go to the broadcasters and cable and IPTV platforms who will then do the job of squeezing even more . It will look mushy at best with a 10Mbs HEVC compression. now is you pick up the signal after the first hop and deliver directly into your network it will look better at 5MBs than the above version.
Another way to optimize IPTV content delivery for low-bandwidth networks is to use adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR), which is a technique that adjusts the bitrate and resolution of the video stream according to the available bandwidth and device capabilities. ABR allows you to deliver the best possible quality to each viewer, while avoiding buffering, stuttering, and pixelation. ABR works by creating multiple versions of the same content, each with a different bitrate and resolution, and switching between them dynamically based on the network conditions. You can use various protocols and standards for ABR, such as HLS, DASH, and Smooth Streaming.
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David Justin
CEO | Board Member | Advisor | Helping Media & Entertainment technology companies translate innovation into revenue
Adding AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) and Just in Time encoding to the ABR technique further enhances the capacity to adapt in real time to the network conditions. Just in Time encoding will allow you to reduce storing requirements and AI/ML can help anticipate changes in network conditions.
Caching and edge computing are two strategies that can help you reduce the latency and bandwidth consumption of IPTV content delivery. Caching is the process of storing frequently requested or popular content on servers that are closer to the end-users, such as content delivery networks (CDNs) or local ISPs. This way, you can avoid sending the same content over long distances and improve the response time and user experience. Edge computing is the concept of moving some of the processing and logic from the central servers to the edge devices, such as routers, gateways, or set-top boxes. This way, you can offload some of the tasks and functions from the core network and enhance the performance and scalability of IPTV content delivery.
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Mark de Jong
Chairman @ CDN Alliance, VP Business Development & Strategic Partnerships @ CompiraLabs, CEO @ Axello: Your contact for innovation, technology, business and strategy for CDN, OTT, Streaming Media and Infrastructures
Adding the right congestion control algorithms to your caches/edges on how fast to send packets from those caches/edges to the actual eyeballs. The longer and more network parts the route needs to travel from the cache/edge to the eyeball, and the less control you have over the network, the more important this gets and can have significant effects. Standard caches/edges will support TCP Cubic but there are free alternatives like commonly used BBR1 and BBR2 from Google or commercial alternatives like those of CompiraLabs that offer a dynamic ML-based version of PCC to get the best possible algorithm.
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Camilo Villamil
General Management | Strategic Planning | Project Management | Change | Sales | Engineering | Marketing | Networking | Leadership | Business Strategy | Mentoring/Coaching | Six Sigma | Process Improvement | Network Infr
And why are managing these resources and strategies of such importance. Well because you want to make sure you enable monetization by providing a premium end user experience with ads or without ads. Remember is not how the solution behaves under optimum conditions, is how it behaves under real life constraints.. Also Ad insertion will benefit from an excellent experience derived from the AI/ML techniques to best manage ABR , catching in public and private CDNs . Imagine if you can properly predict expected network behavior during high demand live events and therefore ensure your OTT delivery is unlike any other ? Will this be a desired end user outcome ? What's important , resolution or. enablingbest possible experience through AI/ML use
Finally, you can optimize IPTV content delivery for low-bandwidth networks by optimizing the network infrastructure and configuration. This includes ensuring that your network has enough capacity, reliability, security, and quality of service (QoS) to handle the IPTV traffic. You should also monitor and analyze the network performance and usage patterns, and identify and troubleshoot any issues or bottlenecks that may affect the IPTV content delivery. You should also configure your network devices and protocols to prioritize and optimize the IPTV traffic, such as using multicast, VPN, or SD-WAN technologies.