Akamai Bridges Gap Between Live Streaming and Broadcast Television

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the world’s largest and most trusted cloud delivery platform, is bringing the consistency and reliability of broadcast television to the Internet. The next generation of its Media Services Live system for delivering 24/7 live/linear online video capabilities is designed to support over-the-top (OTT) video service providers, broadcasters and telcos that are operating or launching full-time television channels online.

Media Services Live includes four new components, together known as liveOriginTM, that operate in concert to support the same level of quality for linear video streaming that is expected of traditional broadcast television:

Broadcast-Quality Ingestion: The transfer of video from its origination point to the delivery network is a crucial step in linear streaming. Akamai has built a highly distributed ingestion network using the Company’s proven mapping technology to match encoders to the most optimal entry point, creating a system that can automatically route content to different entry points with no viewer impact if the connection is interrupted. Those capabilities are complemented with ingest acceleration, based on Akamai’s Media Acceleration technology, to support throughput of higher bit rates and also mitigate and circumvent poor network connectivity.

Low Latency: Akamai is introducing 10-second latency as part of Media Services Live, addressing the need for online and broadcast content to play back for viewers near-simultaneously. Particularly important for broadcasters and live sports and news providers, the feature dramatically reduces what has traditionally been a 30-second-or-more delay between broadcast signals and online streams.

Self-Healing Network: Akamai has incorporated multiple layers of redundancy into Media Services Live in which content is replicated to multiple locations across the network. The design allows for immediate failover if performance is in any way degraded.

Monitoring & Reporting: Akamai’s new Media Services Live includes near real-time reporting that affords customers critical insights into content and ingest performance. The capabilities replace the minutiae and time inherent to pouring over log files with at-a-glance visualizations of critical, stream-level metrics such as average bitrate, latency, packet loss and error rate among others. Users can set custom thresholds for key metrics that activate alerts when exceeded.

“Most broadcast video distribution solutions neglect the first critical link of the video chain, content ingestion. Packet drops or outages cause drops in quality or total loss of the feed. This crisis leaves operations teams scrambling to get the content back online as customers look for alternative sources for critical live matches or first-broadcast linear content,” said Sam Rosen, Vice President at ABI Research. “Akamai’s latest addition to Media Services Live – liveOrigin – uses multiple technologies and operational capabilities to bring broadcast-quality reliability and redundancy to OTT services.”

“Akamai Media Services Live is designed from the ground up explicitly to span the chasm between live streaming and broadcast television. Media Services Live is a solution that’s dedicated and optimized to support the unique and rigorous demands of delivering live and linear 24/7 channels online with features and performance capabilities that simply are not available from commodity storage and delivery services,” said Michael Fay, Vice President, Media Products and Operations, Akamai. “As OTT operators and broadcasters build their online businesses and expand their programming, linear channels and the related viewing experience is playing a key role in the ability to differentiate services. Having a platform that is able to support the quality of experience necessary to attract and keep customers will be critical as broadcast TV continues its shift online.”

Media Services Live and its new liveOrigin capabilities are available immediately and will be demonstrated during the 2017 NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 24th – 27th at Akamai’s booth SL3324. The Company will also show its complete range of cloud-based solutions designed to help content owners deliver the best possible online video experiences to each individual viewer.

Akamai 소개

Akamai는 최고의 신뢰를 받고 있는 세계 최대의 클라우드 전송 플랫폼으로 고객이 사용하는 장소와 디바이스에 상관없이 안전하고 원활한 디지털 경험을 쉽게 제공할 수 있도록 지원합니다. 전 세계 각지에 대규모로 분산 배치된 Akamai의 플랫폼은 130개국에서 20만 대의 서버에 배포되어 독보적인 규모를 갖추고 있으며 고객에게 탁월한 성능과 위협 방어 기능을 제공합니다. 웹·모바일 성능 향상, 클라우드 보안, 기업 접속, 비디오 전송 솔루션으로 구성된 Akamai의 솔루션 제품군은 탁월한 고객 서비스와 24시간 연중무휴 모니터링의 지원을 받습니다. 금융 기관, 유명 이커머스 기업, 미디어 & 엔터테인먼트 제공업체, 정부 기관이 Akamai를 신뢰하는 이유를 알아보려면 Akamai 홈페이지(www.akamai.com) 또는 블로그(blogs.akamai.com)를 방문하거나 Twitter에서 @Akamai를 팔로우하십시오.