MSV Advertising : Video streaming formats Part 3 Microsoft Smooth Streaming

 

Source: Statowl 2012;

http://www.statowl.com/web_browser_market_share.php?mes=ndd

 

Source: Wiki  2012 ;

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_browser_share_pie_chart_3.png

In the first blog in this series I started with an overview of the market penetration of the various video formats, across all devices ( PC, smartphone tablet etc.) Here's the link msv-advertising-video-formats-part-1

In this blog I am going to focus specifically on the Microsoft Smooth Streaming format. The pie charts shows the extent of Microsoft Internet Explorer usage today for the web.( around 35-50% dependent on your source, as you can see from the figures there is some disagreement! The two figures show statistics pulled from Wikimedia and statowl) Technically there is a second option for Web video delivery which is Adobe that works on all the browsers. I will be talking about Adobe in one of my forthcoming blogs.

Where Microsoft Smooth Streaming works and where it does not. 

Naturally Microsoft Smooth Streaming is supported on all Microsoft software. This includes:

1. Microsoft OS. Including Microsoft Internet Explorer 
2. Microsoft Windows Phones
3. Microsoft Xbox

Thus if you are delivering video to the Web the Microsoft Smooth Streaming format is an essential format to support due to the sheer prevalence of the Microsoft OS on desktop PC's.

Here is a list of the target devices you won't reach with just Microsoft Smooth streaming:

1. Android smart phones and tablets
2. Apple devices ( Mac, IPad, IPhone et al.)  
3. Blackberry 
4. Traditional cable set top boxes

What is Microsoft Smooth streaming ?

Here's what Microsoft has to say:

" Smooth Streaming dynamically detects local bandwidth and CPU conditions and seamlessly switches, in near real time, the video quality of a media file that a player receives. Consumers with high-bandwidth connections can experience high definition (HD) quality streaming while others with lower bandwidth speeds receive the appropriate stream for their connectivity, allowing consumers across the board to enjoy a compelling, uninterrupted streaming experience and alleviating the need for media companies to cater to the lowest common denominator quality level within their audience base."

AND

Smooth Streaming is Microsoft's implementation of HTTP-based adaptive streaming, which is a hybrid media delivery method. It acts like streaming, but is based on HTTP progressive download. The HTTP downloads are performed in a series of small chunks, allowing the media to be easily and cheaply cached along the edge of the network, closer to clients. Providing multiple encoded bit rates of the same media source also allows clients to seamlessly and dynamically switch between bit rates depending on network conditions and CPU power. The resulting user experience is one of reliable, consistent playback without stutter, buffering or "last mile" congestion. " For more here's the link  Smooth Streaming

In addition, like Smooth Streaming like Apples HLS is http based and adaptive bit rate, has multiple profiles and uses H.264 for the video and AAC for audio.

So one would think that since Smooth Streaming is HTTP based adaptive streaming it sounds a lot like Apples HLS right? AND they would work together? WRONG.

The temptation to make some jokes at this point is high but I will pass on that :). Here's the reason why the two formats are completely incompatible

1. Smooth streaming uses time codes that are part of the video chunks rather than a manifest file. This impacts video ad insertion too.

2. Smooth typically has 2 second video chunks as compared to HLS typically having  a10 second buffer.

3. Smooth uses ISPO MPEG 4 files as opposed to HLS's MPEG 2 Transport Stream files. On the wire this makes the two formats very different.

What about Video Advertising in Smooth ?

There are a number of ways to support video ad insertion. These fall into two broad categories:

1. Client side ad insertion

In this case the Media player on the device is aware of the ads and actually at the right points in the content asks a back-end server what ad should be inserted. This in turn can be done in two ways. Either using a standard called IAB/VAST on a media player or with a custom player that supports a proprietary format. (Side Note Microsoft's player and Adobes both natively support IAB/VAST). Due to the timecodes embedded in the Smooth this is the preferred method of video ad insertion.

2. Server Side ad insertion

Due to the timecodes this is quite difficult to do. There are a number of companies claiming that they can do this but none is commercially available.

Is that it for Microsoft Smooth streaming? Not quite.

There are a number of other topics that need to be thought through in order to do Smooth stream  video streaming. As I am focusing on video advertisements I have glossed over them here. These are:

1. Encoding - how you take the video that you originally have and convert it into Smooth. Both the live content or video and the ad copy. There are hardware encoders made by a number of companies. Microsoft also provides a software encoder.

2 Access control - Who can see the video feed. There are encryption technologies and SSO for user authentication. (Basically making sure the signal can't be hacked in transmission and that the right person has access to the content). Microsoft provides PlayReady which is the default choice. However there are a number of other vendors of DRM products that will work with Smooth.

3. Client application - there is normally an application that the end user interacts with that is built. This can be a pure web application or a client application on the Apple device.

In the US, many content providers/content distributors have solved the issue of streaming video using Microsoft Smooth streaming. The opportunity is now for putting different video advertisements in. For more on where the opportunities are and for premium video advertising, have a look at these two older blogs that I have posted: 

Multi screen advertising evolution - talks about the phases of Multiscreen video advertising 

MultisScreen Video Advertising : Replacement advertisements the immediate opportunity