The Coming of Age for Mobile Video

To be published in the SHOW DAILY publication


The continuing technology evolution continues to revolutionize the mobile phone industry with powerful processors, fast Internet, high resolution screens, and thousands of applications. Mobile devices, which traditionally have served a singular purpose, have evolved beyond “dial tone”. With the introduction of new “smart” devices such as the Apple iPhone®, Windows Mobile®, BlackBerry® and Google Android™, mobile devices have become multimedia platforms that now deliver “videotone.”

Cisco estimates that mobile data traffic will double every year through 2013, increasing 66 times between 2009 and 2013 and by 2013, 64 percent of the world’s mobile traffic will be from video (Source). Additionally, thanks to applications like YouTube®, iTunes® and the availability of 3G connectivity, high quality video on your handset is a reality.

This land of mobile promise is a long time promise but only a recent occurrence; smart phone capabilities have made dramatic strides in the last few years, most notably with the introduction of the iPhone. However, the dramatic rise of 3G-enabled phones and data-hungry users have caught wireless providers off guard, and it is negatively impacting not only the users’ experience, but also their perception of the overall service.

Few expected the massive increase in data usage; 3G networks were deployed with the idea that access over the Internet would be limited, compared to desktop and laptop computers. Pipes were relatively small and devices relatively simple. The original thinking was that phones would be used to access WAP-optimized web sites, corporate email, “walled content” gardens accessed through the provider’s own network, and standard sites viewed slowly due to cumbersome navigation. The new reality is that
mobile browsers have improved, while applications for live and on demand video playback capabilities have dramatically enhanced navigation and user experience.

Although video support is inherent on most smart phones, delivering content to the phones is not necessarily easy because video cannot always be viewed within the mobile browser. It is handled by a separate video player built into the phone’s operating system (OS), and transition between the browser and the application is not always smooth. Mobile device consumption of video is ready to take another dramatic step forward this year, however, with the introduction of Adobe Flash® v10.1 support for most smart phones. This will not only enable the hardware accelerated browsing of thousands of Flash® powered web sites that were previously inaccessible, but will also allow Flash® video to play within the phone’s browser without having to jump to another application. This capability will allow for ubiquitous access to live video content which is notorious for bringing networks to their knees. Consumers rejoice, but wireless providers are understandably concerned.

The nice thing about mobile handsets today is that they, for the most part, behave like regular computers. Devices access content over standard protocols just like PCs, using HTTP and real-time streaming protocols. Where they are dissimilar, however, is in how they access the Internet, with all requests travelling through the wireless provider’s private network to peering locations. This is less of an issue for wireless providers who are also ISP providers because they typically have expansive, well-connected networks, but the majority of content that people want to view is not within the provider’s network. To make matters worse, as more and more wireless providers offer unlimited data plans, usage and costs increase while revenue remains flat.

To increase performance, the choice is pretty stark; build more network capacity, bring the content closer to the user, or employ a combination of the two.

The first option is fairly simple. Increase infrastructure investment, adding more and bigger pipes, and establish better peering relationships with major ISPs which host the content on the Internet. This will improve overall throughput, but not efficiency. Popular content will continue to be requested from within the network and increasingly consume bandwidth inefficiently.

The second option is to utilize caching technology which will cause content that is popular to be stored closer to the end-user. This will result in fewer trips to the edge of the network because it will be served from within instead, reducing the need for more and bigger pipes.

The news isn’t all bad, though. As wireless data networks become more efficient and better performing, it creates a platform for revenue growth per user. Wireless providers who make the investment will have, not unlike cable providers, a highly connected, video enabled subscriber base. It is an attractive proposition for content owners who are looking to expand their own revenue models with premium content offerings. Exclusive content offerings could be used as an alternative to using the mobile phones themselves as a differentiator for consumers. Finally, consistent high performance and availability is also a highly desirable feature which can be used to attract and retain new users. Bad performance in one aspect of the service will cause a negative perception of the service as a whole.

Advanced handset performance, high speed Internet access, and in-browser Flash support is creating a perfect storm for live and on demand video on the mobile. Wireless providers that are positioned to offer the best access, and content owners that make their video available to wireless users will be on the forefront of a major consumption shift in the mobile industry.









Author - Darcy Lorincz, CEO

Author’s Notes:

Source: “Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update,” Retrieved January 29, 2009, from “Web”

Smooth, and Dynamic, and Adaptive streaming, oh my!

You may or may not be familiar with a relatively new online video streaming technology that has been around for over a year, but has yet to be fully embraced by most content publishers online. This technology, however, can be hard to describe because it has many names, with each being called something different by the companies that have incorporated it into their player and streaming software.

• Microsoft’s Silverlight calls it Smooth Streaming
• Adobe’s Flash calls it Dynamic Streaming
• Apple’s iPhone/iTouch calls it Adaptive Streaming (or HTTP Streaming)

Although there are some pretty major technical differences in terms of how each of these technologies work, the end result as far as user viewing experience of video content is concerned, is more or less the same. If you have heard of these technologies, you might ask why should I care about smooth/dynamic/adaptive streaming? What is the point? How will it benefit my customers? The major accomplishment of the technology is that you don’t have to compromise the quality of your video online anymore (ok, you still have some limits).

When trying to push the limits of video quality for both live and on-demand, you always have to worry about alienating users with lower bandwidth (dial-up, DSL, 3G) and less powerful computers. As a result, you either have to cater to the lowest denominator, missing an opportunity to provide better quality to those who can see it, or provide a mechanism so that users can switch to a higher quality feed. A high/medium/low toggle helps alleviate some of the issues, but some people may not know they can switch, or may think they should be able to see the high quality feed and end up being frustrated because the video is choppy or won’t play at all. Settings (user preference, session, cookie, etc.) can alleviate constantly having to select “high” quality, but if you travel with your computer the speed of your network can change, for example notoriously horrible hotel connections. Recognizing this problem, an earlier solution was to add player code to automatically select the appropriate bit rate based on bandwidth detection done by timing the download of a test file. This solution did work but it typically only tested at the beginning of the streaming session and wouldn’t react to changes in performance which occur during viewing. This bandwidth only model also provided limited visibility into the performance of the actual computer itself.

Although these issues seem minor, they can be a road block between the user and your content. The situation will also become increasingly exasperated as mobile phones become more like PCs and users transition between 2/3/4G and Wi-Fi networks. The increase in HD content on the web also drives the need for higher bit rates to provide quality viewing experiences for the larger video size.

Then along came smooth/dynamic/adaptive streaming.

With these new adaptive technologies, the user no longer needs to know, choose or even understand. Their computer, player, and, in some cases, the network server they are receiving video from, is responsible for choosing which quality is best for the user’s current and changing situation. This allows a content publisher to optimize their content so that it is viewed in the best possible light in all user capability scenarios as illustrated below. This is especially important for ‘premium’ content which is complimentary or competitive with television viewing.



Adaptive streaming doesn’t just apply to high quality HD content. It can also help benefit end users by providing an optimal version for SD content as well.

However, there are some caveats to this new technology. It won’t make a user’s experience better than their actual bandwidth, for example, if you only have 300 kbps of connectivity you’re not going to magically see HD quality. Additionally, although an end-user only ever connects to one stream at a time, one of the downsides of making higher quality content available is that it can increase your overall bandwidth/CDN delivery costs. Users on high speed cable and fiber optic networks will, for the most part, consume the highest quality stream available. Also, all of the additional outputs, used or not, consume more storage. With decreasing CDN delivery and storage cost, this is less frightening that it used to be.

In a nutshell, smooth/dynamic/adaptive streaming will show your video content in the best possible manner to all end-users, all the time.
For more information on the individual technologies, please see the following links:

• Microsoft Smooth Streaming
• Flash Dynamic Streaming
• Apple iPhone HTTP Streaming


Author - Forest Johns, VP of Solutions Engineering