Industry majors form Streaming Video Alliance
November 14, 2014
By Colin Mann
A number of leading companies from the online video ecosystem are jointly to form the Streaming Video Alliance with the aim of facilitating the creation of architecture, standards and best practices that will scale the infrastructure for online video and improve efficiency for all providers in the ecosystem while preserving a high quality experience for consumers.
The Alliance members, comprised of a variety of industry leaders from the entire online video value chain and open to all companies from all sectors, include: Alcatel-Lucent, Charter Communications, Cisco, Comcast, EPIX, Fox Networks Group, Korea Telecom, Level 3 Communications, Liberty Global, Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Qwilt, Telecom Italia, Telstra, Ustream, Wowza Media Systems and Yahoo!.
The Alliance says it will deepen collaboration, accelerate innovation and redefine the way online video is streamed across mobile and fixed networks to consumers worldwide. It will address key industry and online video ecosystem challenges, including three initial areas of focus:
- Open Architecture: Defining specifications for the architecture and functionality of network and cloud-based streaming and caching infrastructure to support the growth of on-demand and live online video
- Quality of Experience: Creating a common approach to defining, measuring, optimizing and reporting the quality of the video streaming experience for content providers, network operators and consumers
- Interoperability: Creating standards for interoperability and performance to ensure content providers, content delivery networks and network operators can efficiently stream high definition and high quality video to consumers throughout the world
According to the Alliance, in a world where streaming video exponentially grows, the challenge to everyone in the ecosystem is profound. The magnitude of the online video challenge calls for a new open architecture that can address the scaling of streaming video, operational requirements of content providers, network operators and content delivery networks while preserving the quality of experience expected by consumers.
In response to what is described as the extraordinary demand for and shift to online video consumption, the companies have come together to begin to foster collaboration on a new open architecture and ensure online video will continue to flourish. The hope is that companies throughout the ecosystem will join this effort to develop a multi-faceted solution that works for all elements of the ecosystem.