From a camera battery to an OBtruck and everything in betweenBroadcast.Systems.Equipment sales: 020 7871 0700Systems: 0113 238 3494www.wtsbroadcast.comBroadcast equipment sales | Studio integration | OB vehicle manufacture
I N T E R N A T I O N A L N E W SWWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 38 - DECEMBER 2014InMEDIADelivering & Monetising MultiscreenServices – Now And In The FutureDelivering multiscreen services brings complexities never faced in the video world before…By Stuart NewtonVP of Corporate Strategy,IneoQuest28With different video assets,protocols, deliveryinfrastructures, encoding,encryption, locations and theexponentially growing intricaciesof video-capable devices, thereis a web of complexity that isincredibly difficult to plan for. Thus,it is essential to have a strategyfor rolling out multiscreen services.Fortunately, there are guidingprinciples from the past to helpmanage multiscreen deploymentstoday while planning for futureexpansion.Today, consumers want towatch video whenever they want,wherever they are, and on whicheverdevice they choose to use. Thetrend of devices being used alsovaries dramatically throughoutthe day. As a result, the deliverynetwork is shifting and creating anumber of challenges that soonbecome obvious:• There is no complete visibility intothe video services – many partsof the delivery infrastructure areprovided by different companies;• There are many uncorrelated datasources, which will use their ownformats for data presentation anddatabase access;• Lots of technological change:adaptive streaming, contentdelivery networks, protocols,cloud methodologies, 4K/HEVC,etc;• The lack of control and visibilityis fuelling churn-managementissues, as major issues can’tbe resolved quickly, andabandonment trends are hard todiagnose;• The lack of behavioural visibilityrestricts monetisation potentialthrough the inability to accuratelytarget new services andadvertising.The net result of all this is a repeatof many of the issues that createdupset customers and internal fingerpointing in the early days of videoover IP. However, the problem isseverely compounded today due tothe infrastructure segments beingowned by separate companies, themove to adaptive streaming withmultiple protocols and increasednetwork load, and the enormousincrease in uncontrolled enddevices. It is therefore essential toget this under control and build asolid foundation before additionaltechnology steps complicate theissue further.Diagram 1 shows a broader viewof the delivery infrastructure todaywith the different networks showingpossible paths for the video. Thegreen arrows indicate recommendedoperational monitoring points inthe end-to-end chain to check forvideo or protocol consistency. Thepurple arrows indicate the abilityto collect behavioural analytics forusage analysis (e.g. which video,when, where, on which kind ofnetwork/device/OS).The operational analytics providea method of pinpointing where thevideo is going wrong in the endto-endchain, and the behaviouralanalytics provide additionalmonetisation intelligence for bettertargeting of services and advertising.If the two are combined, then westart to enable more advancedchurn management throughabandonment analysis by crossreferencingbehavioural analyticsto operational analytics.In multiscreen deployments,depending on the infrastructure, itis possible to derive behaviouralanalytics from several points inthe network. In the above diagram,the behavioural analytics can beobtained by monitoring on thenetwork side at the caching nodes,or further downstream, suchas the ingress to a mobile coreor Wi-Fi cloud.This is because the full unicastadaptive sessions are only visibleafter the last caching point in thenetwork. The behavioural analyticscan also be obtained by monitoringat the end device player, whether atablet, smart TV/STB, smartphone,games console, or another device,which can provide additionalinformation from the player that maybe useful e.g. decoding problems.Monitoring intra-CDN can provideoperational analytics for intra-CDNDiagram 1: Operational and behavioural aspects of video deliveryinfrastructure analyticsissues, but will only see the requestsfor video that the caches do notalready possess.Having the ability to combinethe independent network anddevice data in real-time into aunified analytics system allows theoperations and big data teams tofocus on using KPI information forservice assurance and monetisation,rather than trying to understandthe data in the first place. Thedata can then be combined intosimplified, actionable analytics forrapid response to customer issues.This creates improved satisfaction,generating more viewers andmore revenue (via pay per viewor advertising). The analytics alsoallow for better tuning of the contentand loading on the networks sobandwidth isn’t wasted and peakloading can be more accuratelypredicted and controlled.By combining operational andbehavioural analytics, Video ServiceProviders (VSPs) have a completeview into network and subscriberbehaviour, providing a clear pictureof exactly what’s happening withintheir networks. In making thiscorrelation, VSPs can identifyopportunities for monetising theirvideo services.There are several pragmaticsteps that can be taken to deliverand monetise multiscreen videoservices, including:Assure the video quality andunderstand your subscribers – videoshould be monitored at all locationsnecessary to ensure delivery;Optimise the content anddelivery – leverage operational andbehavioural analytics to tune thecontent delivery and infrastructure tocater for different devices and peakloading. Build a solid foundationready for an increase in subscribers,and prepare for additional changethrough technology advances;Personalise and grow yourreturns – leverage behaviouraldata and abandonment rates forcontent and advertising to fine-tunerecommendations and services,and to generate more contentfrom advertising.Many of these steps are possibleand will help fine tune servicesand advertising for subscribers.By learning from the past andleveraging these methodologies,a solid foundation can be built forfuture multiscreen services and toprepare for the volume of video thatis predicted to consume the mobileinfrastructure.Diagram 2: Video analytics overview
Change language