MSV Advertising : Video formats Part 4 Adobe RTMP and HDS and should you really care ?

MSV Advertising : Video formats Part 4 Adobe RTMP and HDS and should you really care ?

Source: http://www.statowl.com/plugin_overview.php

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 Adobe video formats. Unfortunately there are two different formats that Adobe supports. RTMP that they have had for many years and a newer format called HDS which is far closer to HLS and Smooth Streaming.  To make matters even more complicated Adobe has recently committed to moving to HTML 5 (yet another format)  and also discontinued support for Flash on Android devices in anticipation of the move to HTML5.

Due to its extremely large web presence Adobe Flash has been a must support standard for years on the web. In my opinion, with Adobes decision to ixnay support on Android, no support on Apple devices, Adobe’s major directional shift to HTML5 and reductions in teams dedicated to video streaming, Adobes streaming support is no longer a future direction for anyone to take. So to answer my title question, should you care about Adobe RTMP and HDS? Sadly I think the answer for now is NO.

 Most video content distributors are moving to HTTP based delivery as opposed to RTMP. ( Here is an interesting interview on the subject http://www.highwinds.com/news/?p=272) However for an HTTP based video format there are a lot of options ( Apples HLS, Micorosft Smooth Streaming etc). HDS although technically viable with Adobes reduced focus and lack of penetration is not a path with a predictable future.

Thus, for a new deployment on the web, to use Adobe RTMP or Adobe HDS does not make a lot of sense. If there is an existing deployment then possibly extending it might make sense if one is already using RTMP.

Where Adobe Flash works and where it does not. 

Adobe Flash is supported on most browsers as the data statistic graph from statowl shows.Thus supported devices are :

1. On the Web ( browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox etc. via a Plugin)
2. On Android ( Support discontinued)

Due to the early presence of Adobe RTMP on the web and the large market share that they have in that space, many distributors for video still want to support Flash.More on that in a little bit.

Here is a list of the target devices you won't reach with Adobe Flash streaming:

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

What are Adobes video formats : RTMP and HDS ?

1.What is RTMP?

Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) was initially a proprietary protocol developed by Macromedia for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet, between a Flash player and a server. Macromedia is now owned by Adobe, which has released the specification of the protocol for public use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messaging_Protocol

The Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) was designed for high-performance transmission of audio, video, and data between Adobe Flash Platform technologies, including Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR. RTMP is now available as an open specification to create products and technology that enable delivery of video, audio, and data in the open AMF, SWF, FLV, and F4V formats compatible with Adobe Flash Player. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/rtmp.html

http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1014968&seqNum=2

2. What is HTTP Dynamic Streaming?

HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) enables on-demand and live adaptive bitrate video delivery of standards-based MP4 media over regular HTTP connections. HDS lets you leverage existing cache infrastructures and provides tools for integration of content preparation into existing encoding workflows. http://www.adobe.com/products/hds-dynamic-streaming.html

As mentioned earlier HDS is similar to HLS and Smooth streaming. Similar to Smooth streaming it has a manifest file that is composed of index number to reduce the number of manifest file requests. However this similar to Microsoft Smooth streaming limits the ability to do server side ad insertion. Finally similar to Smooth streaming the buffer size is typically 2-3 second as compared to 10 seconds that is more typical of HLS deployments.

What about Video Advertising in Adobe ?

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 asking 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. (Adobes player natively support IAB/VAST). This is the preferred method for doing ad insertion.

2. Server Side ad insertion

For Server side ad insertion in RTMP there are a number of ways to achieve this solution. HDS on the other hand is similar  to Smooth Streaming and even harder to achieve server side ad insertion.

Is that it for Adobes streaming? Not quite.

There are a number of other topics that need to be thought through in order to do Adobe Flash 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 Adobe RTMP/HDS . Both the live content/video and the ad copy. There are hardware encoders made by a number of companies.

2 Access control - Who can see the video feed. There are encryption technologies and SSO for user authentication. (Basically make sure the signal can't be hacked in transmission and that the right person has access to the content).

 3. Client application - there is normally an application that the end user interacts with that is built.

In the US, many content providers/content distributors have solved the issue of streaming video using Adobe RTMP and Adobe HDS. The opportunity is now for putting different video advertisements in. However Adobes video formats may not be the way for a person to proceed.

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

Technical specification link:

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/rtmp/pdf/rtmp_specification_1.0.pdf (RTMP, Adobe official specification)

http://www.adobe.com/products/hds-dynamic-streaming/faq.html (HDS, Adobe Official website)

HTTP Dynamic Streaming on the Adobe® Flash® Platform (HDS. pdf)