Adaptive Streaming

Online and mobile viewing of widely-available, high-quality video content including TV programming, movies, sports events and news is now poised to go mainstream. Driven by the recent availability of low-cost, high-resolution desktop/laptop/tablet PCs, smart phones, set-top boxes and now Ethernet-enabled TV sets, consumers have rapidly moved through the 'novelty' phase of acceptance into expectation that any media should be available essentially on any device over any network connection.

The evolution of video delivery transport has led to a new set of de facto standard adaptive streaming delivery protocols from Apple, Microsoft and Adobe. Consequently, networks must now be equipped to take high quality video content from source live or file formats and "package" it for transport to devices ready to accept these new delivery protocols.

Receiving transcoded streams from RGB’s Video Multiprocessing Gateway (VMG™), RGB Networks’ TransAct Packager accomplishes exactly that. Deployed as an integrated IP video solution, this pair enables large-scale, cost-effective video delivery to any IP-enabled device.

Adaptive Streaming

Adaptive HTTP Streaming is a new paradigm for HTTP video delivery. The source video, whether a file or a live stream, is encoded into segments — sometimes referred to as ‘chunks’ — using a desired delivery format, which includes a container, video codec, audio codec, encryption protocol, etc. Segments typically represent two to ten seconds of video. Encoded segments are subsequently hosted on a regular HTTP Web server.

Clients request segments from the Web server, downloading them via HTTP. As the segments are downloaded to the client, the client plays back the segments in the order received. Since the segments are sliced along GOP boundaries with no gaps between, video playback is seamless — even though it is actually just a file download via a series of HTTP GET requests.

Adaptive delivery enables a client to 'adapt' to fluctuating network conditions by selecting video file segments encoded to different bit rates. If a higher quality stream is available, and network bandwidth appears able to support it, the client will switch to the higher-quality bit rate segment. If a lower quality stream is available, and network bandwidth appears too limited to support the currently used bit rate segment flow, the client will switch to the lower quality bit rate segment flow. The client can choose between segments encoded at different bit rates every few seconds.

Video Service Provider Deployments

Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Microsoft Smooth Streaming and Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) represent adaptive delivery protocols that enable high-quality video consumption experiences over the Internet. Content providers must now equip network delivery infrastructure with products capable of receiving standard video containers, slicing them into segments, and delivering those segments along with encryption where required. RGB Networks' VMG and TransAct Packager accomplish this goal in a manner that supports large scale centralized or decentralized deployments.

eVIA: Delivery and Monetization in an Adaptive Streaming Environment

RGB’s Enhanced Video Intelligence Architecture (eVIA) provides a suite of products that provides advanced HTTP streaming video services for delivery and monetization of video to multiple screens. The eVIA suite is designed for flexibility and scalability, with industry-leading density and high-availability designed into every component. RGB’s eVIA ecosystem utilizes advanced adaptive bitrate streaming to facilitate targeted advertising down to the neighborhood, device or even specific individual subscriber demographics, and gives video service providers a simpler, cost-effective and more scalable solution than offered by traditional methods.