Asia-Pacific Broadcasting (APB) January-February 2017 Volume 34, Issue 1 | Page 25

January-February 2017
X-PLATFORM 25

Social media and streaming : Changing the broadcast landscape

The ability to do live streaming on social media platforms such as Facebook Live or Snapchat has “ dramatically changed the landscape ”, Steve Davis , VP and general manager of Asia-Pacific for Ooyala , tells APB . For the first time , consumers have the power to stream live content anywhere and anytime they want , and broadcasters and content providers are taking notice , he says .
“ As one of the first media solution partners for Facebook Live , we are excited with the possibilities that live streaming on social media platforms offer to the industry ,” Davis reveals . “ With solutions like Ooyala Live , broadcasters can now syndicate their live feeds to Facebook Live in a single click , and most notably are no longer beholden to using smartphones or tablets to capture live feeds . They ’ re able to directly syndicate their broadcast-grade feeds , using their broadcast-grade cameras and equipment to the social platform .”
He reports “ great success ” from early adopters , namely , sports teams , particularly when they are unable to live stream their matches to their fan base as the rights have been sold to a broadcaster .
Using tools like Ooyala Live , and the ability to syndicate to Facebook Live , gives these users the ability to reach new global audiences with behind-the-scenes content such as player interviews , on-site commentary and news . “ From there , broadcasters can capitalise on the new fan base that they have built to generate even more engagement ,” Davis adds .
Streaming live content on social media platforms has the power to increase viewer engagement , says Chem Assayag , EVP , marketing and sales for Viaccess-Orca . He cites some numbers from social media platforms as examples : “ According to Twitter , there were 618,725 tweets per minute at the end of a final football match back in 2014 , which at the time was a social media record .
“ More recently , Facebook reported 55 million views of debate-related Facebook Live videos of the first US Presidential debate . Also , 18.6 million people in the US generated 73.8 million likes , posts , comments and shares .”
Viaccess-Orca anticipates that live streaming on social media platforms will continue to be a major trend in 2017 and beyond . “ Such platforms will likely need to offer the same features that are available from traditional TV operators , including catch-up TV , video-on-demand ( VoD ) and recommendations ,” Assayag predicts .
There is , however , a downside : social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are commonly used by piracy groups , as he explains : “ Piracy is becoming a serious issue , especially during live sporting events . It ’ s important that broadcasters employ a trusted piracy service that complements security measures enabled by conditional access and digital rights management systems by actively monitoring live video restreaming over the Internet : first , by detecting streams suspected of piracy and monitoring the content , then sending legal notices to pirates to cease and desist .”
Despite that , live streaming on social media platforms and second-screen applications can “ undoubtedly ” help to attract more viewers and increase viewer engagement , says John Wastcoat , VP , business development , Aspera , who also points to the company ’ s FASPStream solution as particularly “ well-suited ” for direct distribution in applications where media needs to flow through the distant cloud platforms that support social media services to transcode the live stream into many formats and bit rates concurrently .
At the 2014 football World Cup , FASP- Stream was used concurrently with EVS ’ C-Cast second-screen system to capture 14,000 hours of live video from multiple camera angles . This was then ingested in real time using Aspera FASP from Brazil to a cloud data centre in Ireland for live transcoding by Elemental Technology ’ s live transcoding system , yielding approximately three million minutes of transcoded content , Wastcoat shares .
Social media is a boon for live streaming , concurs Chris Wagner , EVP , NeuLion . “ Live streaming on social platforms is great . These platforms have significant numbers of users .
“ Take Facebook , for example . It has a network of 1.65 billion active users each month , so to be able to tap into that audience certainly attracts a lot of eyeballs . We can see this with some of our customers . They are using live streaming on social
Social media platforms such as Facebook uses live video streaming to share latest news with its users .
media as a way of attracting new audiences , that they then can bring over to their own services .”
A model case study is the Ultimate Fighting Championship ( UFC ) franchise , which streams all its weigh-ins and preliminary fights to its “ 5 million + followers ” on Facebook and Twitter , Wagner highlights .
“ For the main fight , UFC promoted a click-through to its own site where audiences pay to watch the live stream . “ It ’ s a great marketing tool ,” Wagner concludes .
They can personalise exactly what they want to pay , what they want to watch and how they want to watch it .”
But while technology has strengthened the robustness of exist ing live streaming technologies , are there still some challenges broadcasters are facing when they try to do live streaming ?
Aspera ’ s Wastcoat cites some of the technical difficulties : “ Traditional TCP-based approaches such as ABR streaming over HTTP are too slow over commodity Internet WANs . As network distance increases , the average Round Trip Time ( RTT — the time for IP packets to traverse the path and return along the same path ) between the two end-points increases and the probability of packet loss increases .
“ Standard TCP , the reliable transmission mechanism used in HTTP-based streaming , reduces its transmission rate in response to packet loss , and the reduction increases with increased RTT , which limits its effective transfer speed .
“ For streaming , this reduction in speed requires that the sender either reduces the sending rate ( by reducing the video quality with a lower bitrate ) or wait until enough of the stream has arrived
The transition to a more datacentric world creates more challenges for broadcasters , because it creates a particular need for greater viewer privacy and ‘ safer ’ data management , cautions Chem Assayag ( pictured ), EVP , marketing and sales for Viaccess-Orca .
to start playing ( buffering ), and can cause the stream to glitch during playback .”
Wastcoat says that ABR works by detecting the amount of bandwidth available , and adjusting the video bitrate down to match . But ABR still relies on HTTP transport , which in turn relies on TCP , so ABR is affected both by the amount of bandwidth available and by the latency and packet loss on the network .
“ For streaming over longer Internet distances or ‘ bad ’ network connections , the HTTP stream reduces its transmission rate , and in turn causes ABR to reduce the bitrate , resulting in lower quality video and a diminished user experience . It is also operationally
complex , requiring all video sources to be encoded into many bitrates with additional storage and encoding costs ,” he concludes .
For live streaming of sports , there should be no room for error , stresses NeuLion ’ s Wagner . He cites the unhappiness viewers are likely to experience should they miss a goal , a touchdown or a key passage of play due to a streaming error , adding : “ It is therefore critical to control the entire end-toend delivery of live content from acquisition to delivery .”
Wagner recommends implementing a “ rigorous workflow ” that efficiently manages how video is collected in the stadium ; how it is put into the right formats for different devices ; and how each of those formats is then delivered through the Internet to a viewer ’ s smartphone or PC — all of this in a ‘ live ’ format .
Viaccess-Orca ’ s Assayag , on the other hand , zeroes in on privacy as a streaming challenge . “ Viewer privacy is a key challenge . With live streaming , there are also new opportunities . Broadcasters can collect a massive amount of data about viewers . When analysed , this data can help operators understand the increasing complexity of consumer behaviours and open up
new business models .”
Yet , the transition to a more data-centric world creates more challenges for broadcasters , Assayag cautions , with a particular need for greater viewer privacy and ‘ safer ’ data management .
Understanding the changing market and legal requirements is thus essential to the successful monetising of the live streaming experience , he recommends .
For Ooyala ’ s Davis , he reckons that the biggest challenges with live streaming are two-fold : monetisation and matching services for audiences — both of which can be tackled in tandem . Understanding how audiences want to pay for content — either by ad-supported services ( AVoD ), subscriptionbased services ( SVoD ) or transactional , or pay-per-view models ( TVoD / PPV ), will help focus in on the challenges .
He highlights : “ If you ’ re an SVoD or TVoD service , ease-ofaccess and a simple logging-in process are paramount . Beyond that , the streams should load quickly and in high quality , especially when customers are paying high price points to access it . A poor experience will cause churn and unsatisfied customers .”
Ad-supported streams , however
, present challenges of their own , especially when it comes to how ads load and are inserted into the live stream .
“ The best foot forward is to have a live server-side ad insertion solution that ‘ stitches ’ the ads in with the content ,” Davis advises . “ The result is a single , seamless stream that ’ s both buffer-free and provides customers with a true TV-like experience .”
Analytics can also help broadcasters improve streams in real time and in the future by monitoring the health of the stream , tracking the number of concurrent users , pinpointing reasons when there are high rates of viewer drop off , and better understanding the relationship of ad load to their content .
Davis concludes : “ As live streams are increasingly global , broadcasters need to keep in mind that the quality of streams are consistent across different geographic locations . However , infrastructure capabilities , such as bandwidth , are not the same across all markets .
“ Broadcasters need to ensure that their live streaming platform can cater to different needs and adjust accordingly to provide the same level of experience — regardless of the viewer ’ s location .”