Akamai Technologies Ltd

from PRO50 2017

Amagi

FASTER CONTENT DELIVERY

As the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Akamai makes the internet fast, reliable and secure for its customers. The company’s advanced web performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery solutions are revolutionising how businesses optimise consumer, enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere.

Akamai’s content delivery network is one of the world’s largest distributed computing platforms, responsible for serving between 15 and 30% of all web traffic. The company operates a network of servers around the world and rents capacity on these servers to customers who want their websites to work faster by distributing content from locations close to the user. Over the years its customers have included some of the biggest international companies across a spectrum of services and products.

Today’s viewers expect a high-quality experience when viewing content online. Massive multiplayer gaming, live events widely streamed online, or simply an organisation’s latest training video will be abandoned if the experience is anything less than flawless. Akamai’s next generation CDN platform utilises its unmatched

footprint and technological expertise to deliver the best possible experience – at scale – to leading media, gaming and software companies who know they’ll need nothing less than the best to compete in today’s ‘any device, anywhere’ reality.

EXCEPTIONAL VIEWER EXPERIENCES

A variance in the online video quality can negatively affect viewer loyalty and perceptions of a brand. Akamai can help you scale and adapt as fast as your viewers grow to provide the best online streaming for viewers, no matter the network or device type, helping you keep viewers delighted with the best video streaming.

WHEN VIDEO GOES BAD

The notion of video quality means different things to different people. It covers such a broad subjective spectrum that what is considered good by one person could actually be deemed bad by another. In an effort to formally identify what key factors affect video quality, Akamai commissioned a survey of more than 350 managers at direct-to-consumer (DTC) video service providers. If you had any reservations about how seriously these professionals take quality, respondents overwhelmingly indicated they consider it the most important factor impacting their service.

But what exactly makes for good or bad quality streaming video? Part of the survey asked that respondents list the top three factors they feel most affects video quality. The responses are listed below to create a top five list of the most prominent offenders.

REBUFFERING

Frequent and/or long video interruptions is the most surefire way to lose an audience, according to the strong majority (84%) of respondents. This can be the percentage of overall video streams affected by a rebuffering instance, or how many times on average a video play was interrupted.

AUDIO SYNC

Coming in second at 69 percent, audio that is noticeably ahead or behind video causes major annoyances. In fact, studies have shown that audio problems can be more intrusive to viewers than video problems.

PIXELATION/BLURRING

Rounding out the consensus of the top three (60%) issues impacting quality is video pixelation or blurring during playback. This issue is commonly associated with delivering improper bitrates.

LOAD TIME

Interestingly, a significant drop-off takes place after the top three factors affecting video quality. Load, or startup time, was listed in the top three with only 32% of survey respondents.

LATENCY

Often highlighted within the context of live sports, latency is the lag time between content airing on TV/cable (or reactions on social media) compared to streaming. Not necessarily correlating with the level of viewer complaints seen in the media, latency made the top three by only 26% of those who took the survey. This is primarily due to the fact that latency concerns are largely limited to live streaming and not on demand viewing.

What happens when viewers encounter a low-quality experience?

For starters, engagement drops. A study using Akamai data helped demonstrate that viewers begin abandoning a video if it takes more than two seconds to start playing. For every additional second, six percent more of the audience leaves. By 10 seconds, nearly half the viewers have left. Not only do viewers leave; they might not return. The same study showed viewers who experienced failures were less likely to revisit the site compared to those who did not encounter a problem with the video. This can adversely affect viewership as well as potentially damage the brand.

As the OTT market matures with higher quality online video formats becoming the norm (for example, 4K and UltraHD), the industry needs to rethink how it operates. Quality streaming video delivery has a direct impact on repeat business, revenue and consumer advocacy. While the stakes are high, so too are the challenges, namely, internet congestion and latency along with delivery to multiple devices and platforms. However, in return for their investment in video streaming quality, OTT providers can expect lower viewer abandonment, higher viewer engagement and a greater percentage of repeat viewers, yielding higher revenues.

At CABSAT, Akamai demonstrates new capabilities designed to improve live, linear and on-demand online video at 4K quality through improved performance and faster deliver at broadcast-level scale; in other words, highlighting OTT quality and simplicity.

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