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TVBEurope Supplements
September 2015
PREVENTING CHURN
101
Video intelligence
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Video analytics what you don’t know will hurt you Kurt Michel, senior marketing director at video assurance specialist IneoQuest, examines the role of OTT and multiscreen in today’s environment, and the increasing importance of video analytics OTT and multiscreen in today’s environment
writers, producers and directors by giving them the creative freedom to produce incredibly
he role of OTT and multiscreen is increas-
T
compelling original content. And viewers are
ing in importance every day. In fact, for
being asked to vote. Viewers, in particular binge
younger generations, it is almost the way
viewers, are discovering programmes in the OTT
of consuming. Over time, we won’t distinguish a
environment that they were overlooking when
television set from what we call ‘digital devices’.
broadcast in the traditional linear fashion.
They will all simply be ‘devices’. The industry has really turned a corner as the
So if content availability is not an issue, what is? I believe it’s the quality of the viewer experience.
predominant revenue model continues to pivot
What the industry needs is an awareness of the
from ad revenue to subscription revenue. In my
quality issues that viewers are still dealing with
mind, this became a tipping point in the industry,
and an understanding of that in the context of
Kurt Michel
when many content providers realised that they absolutely had to have a digital OTT presence. Interestingly, this is putting more pressure on the broadcast side of things, because there is an increasing opportunity for churn as existing barriers to switching providers have lowered. In the past, if I signed up for a cable subscription, I would sign a long-term contract and make a commitment to that provider for an extended period of time. In contrast, now I have the oppor-
‘If you really want actionable insights, to know what individual viewers are watching and why, you need visibility, transparency and above all, intelligence about what is happening to content at every link in the video delivery chain’
tunity to pay for content on a monthly basis. If I’m
ty is in subscriptions and the associated revenue. And a reliable, broadly accepted third-party Nielsen analogue – a basic foundation of an ad-supported monetisation system – does not yet exist. It’s not that Nielsen, along with others, isn’t trying to do that. By way of example, after a significant event such as a World Cup or Super Bowl, when the numbers are announced by the rights holder/broadcaster the next day – ‘Oh
not happy with my online service provider, I can
this was a huge game, a huge event and we
easily switch: immediately. I can take advantage
the OTT space. For example, if you think of the
had, in the case of the Super Bowl here in the
of a 30-day free trial, and if I’m not happy with
business of television, the currency, the standard
US, 110 or 112 million viewers who watched on
that, I can go to another 30-day free trial. Add
that drove that business was ‘viewership’ and
broadcast television’ – that number is
the number of content providers coming into the
ratings. There was third-party validation, such as
established by Nielsen and everybody agrees
mix, and the fact that there are only so many
Nielsen ratings, to indicate how many people
on and understands what that means. Then they
viewers out there, and it’s easy to see that cus-
were watching what in certain demographics,
say, ‘and we also broke the record of having 2.3
tomer churn is a huge concern in the industry.
so the industry could establish advertising pricing
million unique visitors over IP, based on our
based on those ratings. Content providers could
measurements.’
Improving the multiscreen experience, reducing viewer churn
make decisions on whether or not they would renew a programme for the following year based
ad-driven business model similar to that of
One of the fascinating dynamics in the OTT
on this same viewership currency.
broadcast television, they need the visibility and
space is that providers such as Netflix and Amazon are attracting some of the industry’s best
TVBE Sept Supplement_final.indd 25
Not so in OTT and multiscreen. In the OTT space, the primary measure of content populari-
If the OTT industry is going to support an
transparency that only an objective third party can provide. We simply are not there yet.
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Video intelligence and quality of experience If you find you have a quality issue, you need to be able to identify the root cause. The root cause is the answer to the ‘why’ questions, and finding that answer is the real challenge. And you can’t get that by just using measurement software in the player. You also need to understand the quality of content (QoC); whether the content coming from your origin looks good and is packaged properly (in dozens of different variations) to deliver to all those end users on their different devices and networks. Next up in the distribution chain is the actual delivery of the video packets. Measurements in this area are referred to as quality of service (QoS), and since the demands of video streams are much higher and require more bandwidth than pretty much anything else in a network, the importance of a solid QoS perspective cannot be overstated. Finally, information can be gathered at the end device for both QoS and the resulting viewer response. By collecting and correlating the information collected across the distribution system, true understanding of the viewers’ quality of experience (QoE) can be gained, and the video business leaders can find the answers to the nearly infinite number of ‘why’ questions that are needed to effectively drive their businesses.
Quality: an end-to-end game If you really want actionable insights, to know what individual viewers are watching and why, Viewership validation is one area where I think OTT needs to catch up to broadcast, but it’s important to note that OTT viewership numbers require some critical context to have the same kind of weight as Nielsen ratings. That context is the quality of the viewer experience. Traditional broadcast leverages a purpose-built network, made expressly for video content, which is much
you need visibility, transparency and above all,
‘Without understanding the quality issues, without understanding that the viewers were experiencing re-buffering or poor picture quality, without that context, the viewership numbers are not meaningful’
less complex than multiscreen OTT. This OTT distri-
intelligence about what is happening to content at every link in the video delivery chain. Every step, from where it originated, throughout the entire network, and ultimately to each individual device’s playback software, contributes to the quality of the experience. Traditional broadcast networks built in this capability. It is part of the ‘broadcast quality’ foundation. OTT has a vast opportunity to meet the de-
bution complexity adds quality risk which the industry continues to wrestle with. And that means
mands of global viewers. Those demands are
that viewership numbers must be filtered through
And if so, why? Maybe it was because
driving the industry faster than many expected.
a ‘delivered quality’ lens. As an example, if
a poorly packaged advertisement was
But if we are to achieve a level of quality and
you’re a content provider collecting real-time
inserted into the stream, and it created
reliability that approaches the gold standard of
viewership numbers – made possible through
playback issues. Or maybe some part of
‘broadcast’ in the complexity of an unmanaged,
digital distribution – you can see that you have
the network started behaving badly and
multivendor distribution ecosystem, the concept
a million viewers; but then half way through the
the picture started to pause or become
of end-to-end analytics with clear demarcation
event or content you lose 25 per cent of them.
blocky, or ‘pixelated’, making the
points and key quality indicators must be em-
Something is wrong. But what is wrong? Why did
content unwatchable.
braced. And those key quality indicators and the
they abandon? Why did you lose them? Did
Without understanding the quality issues,
knowledge gained would be made accessible
the audience lose interest in the content, or did
without understanding that the viewers were
to the video business operators, resulting in a true
the playback quality degrade? Did they switch
experiencing re-buffering or poor picture
‘currency of quality’. And in this case, that knowl-
off, or drop due to buffer issues? Did you lose a
quality, without that context, the viewership
edge truly is the power that will propel the OTT
certain region, or local network, or device type?
numbers are not meaningful.
industry to ‘broadcast quality’ and beyond.
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OTT and video quality Where content, complexity and viewer expectations collide TVBEurope spoke to three major players in the OTT end-to-end video distribution space: senior management from Elemental Technologies, representing video processing and origin services; Akamai Technologies, representing the content delivery network; and VisualOn, representing device video player technologies. Each gave their perspective on how the industry can drive toward the broadcast-quality viewer experience their audiences expect in the brave new world of OTT, and the role that ecosystem partners play in that growth. he OTT industry is being propelled forward
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in order for the system to deliver on the enor-
at a rate that few, if any, in the industry
mous business promise of OTT video.
viewer demands, and the industry has respond-
TVBEurope: “Consumers don’t stand still. We
ed with new innovations in compression and
must meet their expectations, and the only way
delivery, faster device development, and an
to do that is via a software-defined video (SDV)
explosion of available content.
approach that allows the industry to change at
expected. It is being driven primarily by
Meanwhile, viewer expectations for quality, set over 50 years by the broadcast industry,
Keith Wymbs of Elemental Technologies told
the speed of viewer demand.” Deepak Das of VisualOn noted that there is a
present an enormous challenge for the online
“shared responsibility of everyone in the ecosys-
video sector. OTT is also trying to address some
tem to create appropriate handoff mechanisms
of the same challenges that the broadcast
with specific criteria to handle the complexity of
industry faced over that half-century, but in less
the OTT delivery system.”
than a decade. For example, the functional silos in the traditional distribution network have been supplanted by multiple vendors providing services together in the unmanaged media distribution path. In addition, consumer driven growth continues. According to Ray Gilmartin of Akamai Technologies, publisher of the State
Deepak Das, senior director of marketing VisualOn, Inc., a multimedia software company that enables video and audio across connected devices
‘Viewer expectations for quality, set over 50 years by the broadcast industry, present an enormous challenge for the online video sector’
Keith Wymbs chief marketing officer Elemental Technologies, the leading supplier of software-defined video solutions for multiscreen content delivery
of the Internet report, “We are estimating that in order to meet the future quality expectations for OTT as video progresses to 4K and 8K, the industry will require 1000x the capacity it has today. Given this projection, the challenges are
These and other leaders in the OTT industry are
daunting to ensure the future of broadcast-like
working to improve their respective domains
experiences for OTT.”
within the streaming distribution pipeline. In-
In this context, all of them spoke to the need
creasingly, they are leveraging software-based
for a more flexible, more open multi-vendor distri-
solutions that support the rapid innovation that
bution ecosystem balanced with and defined by
has driven the success of OTT thus far. However,
clear demarcation points.
this next stage in the maturity of OTT as a viable
More importantly, however, was their unani-
business model will require greater collabora-
mous agreement on the need for open, accessi-
tion to improve video quality and consistency
ble KPIs (key performance indicators) supported
across the system as a whole. The lynchpin: an
by consistent and transparent quality measure-
agreed-upon set of standards for quality at each
ment at every one of these demarcation points
stage of the pipeline.
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Ray Gilmartin senior director, product marketing, media, Akamai Technologies, the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services
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Over the top, into the future To discuss IneoQuest’s perspective on the world of OTT, and the likely road ahead for the wider video industry, TVBEurope sat down with the company’s VP of corporate strategy, Stuart Newton
viewer devices there are multiple different types of broadband access networks; so the video could be carried via cable, xDSL, fibre (xPON), a public Wi-Fi or WiMax infrastructure, or over a mobile infrastructure using 3G, 4G or LTE. And then
How did IneoQuest become involved with the OTT sector? neoQuest [IQ] has been around for about 14
I
with video headends and across the HTTP deliv-
of course there is the domestic Wi-Fi network,
ery system to provide end-to-end monitoring of
which is often used to extend these other access
those services.
network connections within the viewer’s home.
years. We spent the first eight years producing
All of these different ‘last mile’ technologies have the potential to affect quality levels and
time we worked with the majority of the leading
What do you see as the main challenges in the OTT sector today?
telecommunication and cable companies
I like to think about this by relating back to the
controlled video delivery where everything was
around the world. Some of these companies
architecture of IPTV. If you look at the original lin-
managed by one or a few entities from the hea-
were the pioneers in adaptive streaming video
ear IPTV video delivery via broadband or cable,
dend through the core network, the broadband
deployments, and asked if we could help them
it was all end-to-end MPEG transport streams. In
pipe and out to the set-top box, to a world of
to learn why some services weren’t working.
that system, you can you look at MPEG packets
multiple different networks (the internet), vendor
all the way through the network – whether on
silos, protocols, technologies and bit rates of the
we applied the tools we had to see what we
ASI at the headend, in the IP core network or
same video stream to many, many devices. It’s
could do. We put our probes and solutions in
going over the last mile DSL, cable or whatever
a huge change that is constantly increasing the
place, put our best engineers on the problems,
it happens to be. But with HTTP-based adaptive
complexity of delivering video.
and eventually developed a new set of metrics
video, the model is completely different. The vid-
that actually started to make some kind of sense
eo starts in one original format, and is converted
out of the issues facing HTTP delivery of adaptive
into many different forms based on what device
How are you specifically addressing those challenges?
video, such as start-up problems and critical
the viewer is using, the software/apps on that de-
For the past few years, we have been applying
delivery timing of the video packets.
vice, the quality of the connection it has, and the
our understanding of packet-based video
demands of the content itself. Converting and
measurement to create tools and services
the last six years we have become a leading
managing all of these different formats, bitrates,
that provide an end-to-end perspective for
provider of service assurance and analytics
and protocols can introduce unique, complex
HTTP adaptive video streams, with a focus
solutions for adaptive media delivery quality.
problems. To complicate things further, between
on the unique needs and quality indicators
We work with the majority of the operators today
the content delivery networks (CDNs) and the
across different parts of the delivery chain.
the first video-quality assurance solutions for
IPTV and cable video deployments, and in that
Since we offered video analytics at that point,
As a result of these early collaborations, over
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viewer experience. We have basically moved from a world of
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an absolute imperative to have the ability to
rapidly performed a U-turn and refocused on
gather video analytics from the end-to-end of
operational service assurance data as a priority.
the chain of video delivery.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a huge
More recently, as the industry has matured,
learning curve for the OTT industry, resulting in
advanced customer experience management
greater focus on quality assurance. So we offer a
(CEM) is gaining increased attention. Video ser-
comprehensive analytics solution: both foun-
vice providers want to put a much stronger focus
dational service assurance tools, as well as the
on reducing churn and improving their brand
audience behavioural tools.
recognition for video delivery. To do that, they
the audience – and any individual viewer expe-
Looking to the future: where will this sector be in three to five years’ time?
rience – in real time across different geographies
It’s going to be fascinating. I don’t think the rate
based on network, device, player, and many
of innovation is going to change; potentially, it’s
other factors leads to much more efficient, timely
only going to increase. I think there are three ma-
problem resolution.
jor topics that video is going to be affected by,
need a much better view of which customers are affected and when. Being able to profile
“As a company, we’ve embraced a significant number of new technologies and capabilities in virtualisation, mobile delivery and analytics in order to prepare: it’s certainly going to be an interesting few years ahead”
and be attracted to, over the next few years.
Are broadcasters giving enough serious thought to their multiscreen services? Are they missing out on opportunities to monetise their offerings? I think broadcasters are giving a lot of serious
The first is advanced customer experience: making sure you reduce churn, generate excellent brand awareness, and provide the best experience you can. I think real-time analytics will be key to enabling that kind of future. Secondly, network-function virtualisation (NFV)
thought to this, and many have been playing
is going to be realistically deployed in a two to
with multiscreen services for the last few years.
five-year timescale. If video service providers
It’s evident to me from some of the services that
want to provide future services that are going
The headend or ‘origin’ is the first part to get
I’ve seen – and in conversations with colleagues
to be highly adaptable and dynamic, then NFV
right because if you don’t, every viewer will
and friends – that you get a very clear picture,
is certainly going to be employed alongside
be affected. So we started by developing OTT
very quickly, about which services are good and
software-defined networking (SDN) for video
headend solutions which can monitor and
which aren’t. You can see the broadcasters that
services. Again, real-time analytics is going to
compare the incoming and transcoded bit
have put a bigger focus on it now. Some of
be a critical part of the control and feedback
rate streams, and then we moved our focus
those broadcasters have been offering these
loop to enable that.
to the needs of publishing points, post-origin,
additional OTT/multiscreen services for free until
intra CDN, post cache, and then eventually
now, but as they improve the quality and start
casted growth of video over mobile. The mobile
produced a cloud-based active testing solution
rolling out other content, they are going to
operators deliver a lot of free OTT content today,
post CDN. Over time we have expanded these
want to charge for it.
but as the amount of premium content grows,
passive monitoring and active testing solutions,
In fact, last year I gave a presentation on mon-
On a third level, there is the enormous fore-
customer expectations will rise. Those mobile op-
and recently added the ability to collect video
etising the video experience. It was about the
erators will need the same level of visibility as the
quality analytics and viewer response from
monetisation cycle where you really need to do
traditional IPTV and cable operators to ensure
the end device’s player itself, completing our
the service assurance and ensure the delivery of
solid service delivery and SLA compliance.
portfolio’s end-to-end measurement capability
the content before you can go on to fine tuning
across the video delivery network.
the content, advertising, and providing addi-
you’re a video service provider, you will need to
These three areas are not mutually exclusive. If
tional services. And this is a dynamic problem,
be delivering HTTP-based video over mobile and
Why are video analytics a core requirement for OTT?
because as you are attracting new subscribers,
fixed infrastructures in the next several years. You
you affect the performance of the delivery infra-
will be affected in both fixed and mobile by the
Video analytics are a core requirement for any
structure. It requires awareness and infrastructure
move to NFV and SDN, and there is only going to
video delivery service, whether it’s IPTV, cable,
flexibility. And we have found over the years is
be increased pressure on customer experience
satellite, or OTT. Without them, the provider is
that the biggest concern for many operators is
management. We are evolving for all of these,
flying blind. Video will reveal issues in a network
how to deliver the video with the right quality
and have solutions to cover all three aspects as
like no other data: it is extremely time-sensitive,
consistently. Even though they want to know who
they start to converge and merge.
whether linear or adaptive. If you don’t deliver
is watching on what device in order to better
It will be an exciting future. Any one of these
video in a precise fashion to keep the end-play-
monetise, it is all a waste of time and money
topics is a huge consideration in itself. As a com-
er buffers full, viewers will get a black screen,
if the viewer’s video quality is poor. Consistent
pany, we’ve embraced a significant number of
rotating rebuffer symbol, or another fault that
delivery quality is always ‘step one’.
new technologies and capabilities in virtualis-
makes people complain (often in social media),
We have seen several content providers and
ation, mobile delivery and analytics in order to
demand their money back, or in arguably the
operators who were initially focused on obtaining
prepare: it’s certainly going to be an interesting
worst case, simply cancel their subscription. It’s
the behavioural data measurement tools who
few years ahead.
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