Partner Article

Striving for seamless. In pursuit of the perfect live OTT stream

Streaming video has quickly become second nature for consumers. On-demand services have catapulted OTT into the mainstream. Netflix alone has over 100 million subscribers worldwide, and is still growing. Whether it’s via a connected TV, set-top box, mobile phone or tablet, viewers around the world are streaming an increasing amount of content across devices both in and out of the home.

The widespread adoption of on-demand services has raised the bar when it comes to live OTT streaming. People expect the same instant viewing experience to be delivered in real-time as it does over broadcast TV. The reality for OTT service provider’s however is that delivering a seamless live OTT experience presents a significant technology challenge, and failure to get it right can have severe consequences. Independent research undertaken by Falcon Media House highlights the viewer expectations and frustrations that must be considered when building a solution that delivers live OTT content.

The big fight

Falcon Media House asked more than two thousand people who had watched sports in the previous 12 months about their viewing behaviour and perceptions of live OTT streaming. When looking at the data, the message is clear: live streaming is disappointing viewers. Just 14% of viewers watching live sport streams claimed to be satisfied with the experience.

When considering the excellent experience delivered Netflix, Hulu and similar on-demand services, it shouldn’t be a surprise that consumers are demanding similar quality for live as well. In August 2017, the highly anticipated Floyd Mayweather vs Connor McGregor boxing match broke the $400m PPV and TV revenue barrier. However, it also hit the headlines when it was reported that one viewer who had paid to watch the fight was suing Showtime a “sub-optimal viewing experience”. Live streaming may be big business but viewer expectations are higher than ever.

Buffering…please wait

Buffering and poor connectivity accounted for 60% of consumer frustration in Falcon’s survey, with 16-34 year olds being most dissatisfied. This group were much more sensitive to the quality of the viewing experience, with 44% citing buffering as the most frustrating element of watching live sports online.

The pressure of live

Just like on-demand services, live OTT programmes such as sporting events must to be robustly delivered across networks of varying quality. While building up a buffer for users with a poor network connection at the start of a movie is a sensible and pragmatic way to ensure that a stream remains smooth, the consequences of a delay of few seconds in streaming a live event can have a far greater impact.

For viewers following social media channels, such as Twitter, while streaming a live event it’s crucial that they don’t read about the action before they see it. Many use social media platforms to comment and interact simulatenously as they watch, and will follow news-based accounts that inevitably report on significant developments.

Smarter streaming

The impact of a poor streaming experience on future viewing behaviour is crystal clear; 94% of those surveyed stated that the streaming quality has an impact on how often they choose to stream sports online. If an OTT service is to succeed and increase its subscriber-base, it needs to provide streaming performance that matches that of broadcasters.

The research shows that a successful service needs more than just great content to succeed, the viewing experience has the power to make or break a live streaming service. With streamed video accounting for 75% of global internet traffic in 2016 and expected to jump to 82% by 20201 service providers need to get smart about how they deliver live video using the open internet if they want the experience to be seamless.

The first step for service providers in the pursuit of the perfect live stream should be to partner with OTT delivery experts who are experienced in addressing these challenges. By working together there is an opportunity to optimise live viewing experiences by intelligently using dynamic virtual paths to minimise bandwidth consumption across networks for smoother streaming. The result? A live OTT experience that matches on-demand.

1 Visual Networking Index report, Cisco, June 2016

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Gert Rieder .