云中的OTT部署

Over-the-top (OTT) media delivery has become a must for broadcasters and other video service providers such as cable and satellite operators. 跨越所有年龄组和地理区域, 消费者正在转向电视上的流媒体, 电脑, 移动设备数量惊人. 然而,, while the business case for offering linear broadcast content via online platforms is proven, delivering online video is more complicated considering that it’s a completely new way of distribution. 

The complexity of OTT services is one of the reasons that many video service providers are turning to OTT cloud workflows offered as a service. 在线性领域, broadcasters and other providers needed only to prepare their content for one device. 交货方式完全在他们的控制之下, 并且格式和标准相对完善和知名, 即使考虑到行业最近对UHD和HDR的拥抱. 对于今天的OTT内容来说，这些都是不正确的. 作为一种新的，仍在发展的技术, 流媒体依赖于不断成熟的标准和格式, 以及新的工作流程, 硬件和软件系统.

通过采用基于云的OTT工作流程, video service providers can effectively hand off responsibility for the 基础设施 and networking supporting their OTT services. 他们可以从CAPEX模式切换到OPEX模式, 根据不断变化的需求扩展服务和相关成本. 使用已建立的基于云的提供商, they can launch new services quickly without bringing on added technical resources to maintain and manage IT 基础设施. 他们可以尝试对偶尔发生的事件进行流媒体报道, knowing that the OTT provider has the capacity to scale dynamically with the spikes in viewership that can come with high-profile sports or entertainment streaming.

而与OTT SaaS提供商合作的风险相对较低, 推出和维护OTT服务的低成本选择, the success of this venture depends on consistent delivery of engaging content at a high quality. 监控至关重要, particularly as there are so many new factors that can undermine quality of experience (QoE) or quality of service (QoS) and, 反过来, 损害服务的竞争力.

为什么监控是OTT的必需品

The challenge of sending high-quality signals over the public internet is one obvious reason to integrate monitoring into the cloud-based OTT workflow. 问题可能出现在交付过程的其他部分, 也, 因为内容是根据用户设备重新定位的, the quality/bandwidth of the delivery is changed based on the network congestion, and content is pulled by individual consumers rather than broadcast to multitudes.  

While content is created in multiple versions — each encoded at a different bit rate and profile — to address varying network conditions, it also must be transcoded to multiple incompatible delivery formats — such as HLS, 破折号, 海量存储系统(MSS)中, 和HDS——以满足各种设备和不同屏幕尺寸的需求. 确保内容流的安全性, OTT content then must be encrypted with a DRM protection scheme such as Microsoft PlayReady, 谷歌都, 或Apple FairPlay. 

如果这些因素没有得到解决, and if the QoE or QoS for a particular streaming offering simply are not up to par, customers can refocus their attention and choose to view content from an array of other sources. 保持流媒体产品的竞争力, the online delivery strategy must include monitoring at all the critical points in the workflow. 所有内容必须经过适当的测试, 验证, 并进行监控，以便提前解决任何问题. 

Monitoring is particularly important at the content preparation stage because the content made available to the origin server winds up being distributed to a variety of different places including CDNs and edge servers. 如果内容的质量在准备阶段受到某种程度的损害, then issues with audio or video will propagate to all those other places to which the content is distributed.

Broadcasters today are beginning to deploy QC and monitoring probes both on-premises and in the cloud so that they can detect QoE issues for live and VOD content at each step of the workflow. Using a combination of active and passive monitoring techniques in a complementary manner, they can reduce the network jitter that can occur at the on-premises encoding step and ensure the consistency of video quality throughout packaging and distribution via the cloud.

An effective QC and monitoring system will enable the broadcaster to keep an eye on content-related, 加密类, 与, 以及可能威胁QoE的交付问题. 通过提供统一的, 线性和OTT工作流的单屏视图, the monitoring system can help to accelerate fault identification and troubleshooting. 

将监控转移到云端

Online media delivery gives video service providers a tremendous opportunity to reach more people and monetize more of their content. 但进军OTT并非没有成本, 无论是在内容方面, 基础设施, 或者其他成本. Thus, implementation of a cost-effective monitoring solution can help to keep costs down.

While traditional broadcast delivery generally has relied upon custom hardware solutions for common media processing tasks, today’s move toward software-based solutions brings greater efficiency and scalability to these operations while lowering costs. 通过利用基于云的服务, 包括监控, video service providers can start small and increase capacity or functionality as their business demands. 而不是担心买什么样的设备, 需要购买多少个许可证, 或者安排什么样的工作人员, they can be rest assured that the monitoring services will match the changing needs of their OTT offering. 

因为监控服务扩展是由SaaS提供商负责的, 视频服务提供商可以专注于内容的其他重要方面, devoting attention and resources toward tasks that will help it better create and monetize content. 

结论

OTT市场的竞争日趋激烈, thanks to increasing participation by a wide variety of content providers and to the increasing quality of content available via streaming services. 日益激烈的竞争要求高质量的内容本身, 还有包装和运送的方式. By taking advantage of cloud-based OTT workflows and cloud-based monitoring services, today’s broadcasters and other video service providers can step into the OTT marketplace with confidence. They can leave the technical details to trusted partners and focus on their core competency: providing the content viewers want to watch.

[编者注:这是一篇来自 Interra系统. 流媒体 接受供应商署名，完全基于他们对我们读者的价值.]