Stre

amin

g

Whi

te P

aper

A

B

C

D

EF

G

STR

EAM

ING

| W

HIT

E PA

PER

2

STR

EAM

ING

| W

HIT

E PA

PER

3

1 Bell Labs Video Traffic Study 20122 BI Report: The State of Mobile Video 2012

Application Device HLS Live HLS VOD HDS Live HDS VOD Smooth

Mobile iOS 3.0+

Android 4+

Microsoft Silverlight 2+

Safari

Desktop Adobe Air 2+

Adobe Flash Player 10.1+

OVP Silverlight

OTT ROKU

XBox

Samsung Smart TV

Apple TV

TABLE 1 Device and OS overview for EdgeCast’s HTTP Streaming

A shift to multi-screen and mobileViewing habits of consumers are shifting dramatically – emerging video-on-demand platforms are disrupting legacy broadcast distribution, while mobile video con-sumption keeps increasing.

According to Bell Labs 1, video-on-demand (VOD) services will account for 77% of daily consumption by 2020, compared to 33% today. BusinessInsider.com similarly reports that, over the last two years, the U.S. mobile video audience increased 77%, adding 36 million more viewers.2

For websites and video streaming services, this means cross-device and multi-screen compatibly of video streaming are no longer optional considerations. They are essential in order to reach and engage audiences on any device, anywhere.

To enable the future of TV anywhere, EdgeCast maintains a global infrastructure that is built for high-volume, device-agnostic HTTP streaming (see table 1 below).

The Growth of HTTP StreamingCompanies in the online streaming space have always had a wide variety of platforms to choose from, though many have been incompatible. Even though there are still plenty of options, the protocol in which media is delivered is converging toward HTTP. The market is turning away from proprietary protocols for content delivery and embracing open standards, such as MPEG-DASH. Although MPEG-DASH is currently just a speci-fication and is not fully complete, the MPEG-DASH-like specifications are seeing a tremendous shift in their favor. These similar specifications include Adobe’s HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS), Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), and Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming, among others.

As streaming technology evolved, many of the emerging HTTP protocols began to address mobile access. The explosive growth of connected devices such as phones and tablets created a market that did not have a pro-tected video streaming solution. Many manufactures looked to Adobe to introduce Flash, the most popular format on personal computers, to mobile devices. However, for many reasons, among them hardware limitations, numerous chipsets, and several business-related disagreements, a common Flash runtime across connected devices never became dominant.

STR

EAM

ING

| W

HIT

E PA

PER

4

STR

EAM

ING

| W

HIT

E PA

PER

5

FMS

HTTP

HLS / HDS / SMOOTH

FMS

HTTP

HLS / HDS / SMOOTH

Content

Live

On-Demand

ECOrigin

Ingestion Point

Transmuxer End-User Client

1

1

Customer Origin

2

2

3

Edge Server

21

010101

ENCODER

3

4

EdgeCast’s Streaming SolutionGraphic 1 – By placing live and on-demand streams at the edge of our global networks, EdgeCast ensures the best possible quality, with minimal buffering and no feed or broadcast drops. Here’s how it works.

Living StreamingPublisher’s encoder sends live content ingest signal to the closest EdgeCast publishing point.

With Server Side Archive (SSA), content is maintained in servers for future access.

EdgeCast maintains the live connection and routes the stream to the edge.

On-demand StreamingPublisher’s encoder sends content to an EdgeCast customer origin server.

EdgeCast edge retrieves published content from origin server.

EdgeCast maintains the content and routes the stream to the edge.

EdgeCast can pull pre-encoded/pre-segmented streams from customer origin.

Optional StepCloud transmuxing can transform the container format to support multiple devices and formats. Supported operations: RTMP • HDS + HLS and Smooth • HLS .

Shared StepEnd-user client is directed to the optimal edge in the EdgeCast global CDN using Anycast global traffic direction.

Live Stream Flow

On-demand Content Flow

Optional/Shared Steps for Live and On-demand

1 1 1

2

2 2

3 3

4

STR

EAM

ING

| W

HIT

E PA

PER

6

STR

EAM

ING

| W

HIT

E PA

PER

7

This ingest location also has the ability to transmux (change the format of a video or audio file while pre-serving some or all of the streams from the original file; see table 2). The content is then cached at the edge in over 13 countries, tapping into the traditional performance benefits of the global reach of one of the world’s most powerful content delivery networks.

Video-on-demand Streaming EdgeCast supports live commercial encoders that both encode and serve HTTP segments. The EdgeCast CDN pulls the segments into the network and delivers the video to the end user anywhere in the world. This method of delivery supports any digital rights management (DRM) or encryption that the customer’s encoder enforces. EdgeCast can also deliver VOD content from a customer’s origin if the customer’s origin either supports a segmenting device or if the video is stored pre-segmented.

Live StreamingTo deliver live HTTP, EdgeCast can ingest one of two ingest formats directly: either Microsoft Smooth or Flash RTMP. Each of these formats ingests to a specific POP that is geographically closest to the customer’s encoder. If the ingest type is RTMP, the stream can be played back in HDS, HLS, or RTMP. HDS is a new HTTP streaming format developed by Adobe. It is a fragmented MP4 format and offers greater functionality then HLS.

HDS is intended for playback in a Flash player or appli-cation that contains the Flash runtime environment and can deliver DRM content, encrypted content, and may contain multiple audio and subtitle tracks. Live content can be stored for future access by using Server Side Archive (SSA).

PlatformsFlashEdgeCast offers an Adobe Flash platform with a wide selection of essential features and security enhancements. This platform can deliver both VOD and live content using Live StreamCast technology. Playback requires a player to support a specific FC_Subscribe call, which is currently supported through JW Player and OSMF with a plugin that EdgeCast supplies, either dynamic or static.

Live StreamCastLive StreamCast supports token authentication with many variables, including GeoIP restriction, time, referrer, whitelist or blacklist IPs, and much more. Live Stream-Cast also supports Dynamic SWF Verification, which requires player registration with EdgeCast to allow access to the content, protecting other players from accessing unauthorized content. Live StreamCast also supports Encrypted Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMPE), which is an encrypted stream that only a Flash runtime envi-ronment can unencrypt. EdgeCast supports RTMPE version 3, 4, and 5. Live Streamcast uses a live authori-zation key to protect the publishing point, only available to the account owner or a designated user. EdgeCast CDN accounts can be set up with a live authorization key unique to every string.

Flash VODFlash VOD playback contains the same features listed for Live StreamCast: Dynamic SWF Verification, RTMPE, and token authentication. Customers can use either EdgeCast’s or their own origin storage to house their on-demand content. EdgeCast will pull the content from the origin into a POP and cache the content; all subsequent requests for the content will be delivered from the edge.

3 Cisco VNI Mobile 2012

SmoothEdgeCast also offers a Microsoft Smooth Streaming platform for delivery of Smooth content. Smooth requires the Silverlight plugin for playback on Mac OS X, Windows 7, as well as earlier versions of Windows. Windows 8 devices support Smooth Streaming via a run-time environment that must be built into the application. Microsoft Smooth can be delivered in both live and video-on-demand environments.

Smooth LiveLive streams use a tokenized publishing URI to prevent unauthorized access. This differs from Flash Live Streamcast in that the actual URI is tokenized, whereas in Flash the URL just has a key appended. Live streaming features DVR capabilities of up to 180 minutes per publishing point, with the option of transmuxing the Smooth stream into HLS.

Smooth VODSmooth can deliver VOD content from either EdgeCast’s or the customer’s origin storage. To deliver from the EdgeCast origin, media is simply uploaded to the cus-tomer’s storage account. To deliver Smooth content from the customer’s origin, the origin server must support IIS 4.1, or a compatible Smooth segmentation service.

ConclusionCross-device usage and mobile video consumption are driving mobile growth. According to Cisco 3, global mobile video usage will increase 25-fold between 2011 and 2016, accounting for over 70% of total mobile data traffic by the end of the forecast period. EdgeCast’s next-generation streaming network enables content producers and distributors to reach viewers anywhere and on any device, fully taking advantage of the rapid expansion of mobile entertainment.

Source Format Ingest HLS Live

HLS VOD

HDS Live

HDS VOD

Flash RTMP Push

Flash RTMP Pull

Microsoft Smooth Push

Encoding at customer origin

Pull

TABLE 2 Transmuxing at the Edge supported for the above formats

EdgeCast’s Streaming SolutionIn an effort to continue to evolve streaming technology, EdgeCast has built out a robust HTTP Streaming network that is dedicated to video distribution.

EdgeCast’s streaming infrastructure model (graphic 1) supports emerging HTTP protocols, while still offering current industry standards and features with proven security implementations — enabling content producers to embrace the next generation of streaming technology.

EdgeCast Streaming is available for both on-demand and live delivery. All Streaming products follow a similar ingest-to-edge tier infrastructure, applicable to new products and old. In this new setup, the input source can be an encoder or customer storage, ingested at one of EdgeCast’s many SuperPOP locations.

According to Bell Labs’ Video Traffic Study 2012, service providers that adopt a distributed IP edge with CDN caches can lower total cost of ownership of their network by more than 33% compared to those that maintain a centralized architecture.

EdgeCast SuperPOPsEdgeCast’s network consists of strategically placed points of presence across the globe. Located close to primary Internet exchange points, SuperPOPs have massive amounts of computing and caching power that enables fast delivery of rich media content — ensuring a superior viewing experience for users all around the world.

The Economics of TransmuxingTransmuxing allows customers to turn one source file into three streaming formats, eliminating the need to encode all formats at the source — cutting storage costs by ⅔.

Santa Monica, CAedgecast.com