38
September 2017
Surfing the OTT wave
It is undeniable: consumer viewing patterns
are changing all around the world. Once
dominated by a TV set in the corner of our
living rooms, increasing amounts of media
are being consumed on different devices, in
different contexts. Nothing new here, you might
say.
But how does a modern broadcaster adapt
to this trend? All modern broadcasters have
over-the-top (OTT) offerings, are active on
social media, and target specific consumers
with niche services. They generally follow the
principle that “if it has a screen, or is connected
to one, and can display video, we need to be on
it”. What is the solution? Throw money at the
problem?
Today’s broadcaster does not typically have
the resources to spend extensively to address
OTT and streaming requirements, but making
this happen in an economically viable manner
is far from easy. Broadcast is easy — use DVB:
all the systems interoperate; they all fit together.
The technology is readily available, and by-and-
large reasonably priced.
OTT is quite a different story. Can I encode
my content once and make it available on any
device? The answer is no. MPEG-DASH helps,
but it is not universal across all devices. How
do I ensure that my systems will work with
the digital rights management (DRM) systems
increasingly a pre-requisite for licensing
premium content?
These couple of issues are just the start,
there are many others.
Interfacing with different network providers
is complex, ensuring that you have access to
reasonably priced and reliable content delivery
network (CDN) services is another issue. And
all this costs a lot of time and money. All this
would be easy if OTT services generated lots of
revenue. Alas, they do not for most play