Streaming Video Alliance, CTA in QoE initiative
September 16, 2016
The Streaming Video Alliance (The Alliance), an industry forum comprised of leading companies from the online video ecosystem, and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA, are to collaborate to develop industry-wide guidelines to formalise metrics, associated terminology, and event and attribute access as it pertains to streaming media Quality of Experience (QoE).
Additionally, based on the culmination of ongoing parallel efforts from the Alliance and CTA, the CTA R4 Video Systems Committee has formally established the quality of experience (QoE) working group, WG 20, to bring visibility and accuracy to over-the-top (OTT) video metrics, enabling OTT publishers to deliver improved QoE for their direct to consumer services. The CTA working group will be chaired by OTT experience management platform provider, Conviva.
The Streaming Video Alliance and CTA are committed to establishing consistency in how all members of the OTT ecosystem access applications and devices across providers for the purpose of monitoring and collecting quality statistics, regardless of device or platform.
“With the rapid growth of video streaming, on everything from mobile devices to 4K Ultra HD TVs, the importance of this initiative has never been greater,” said Brian Markwalter, Senior Vice President, research and standards, Consumer Technology Association. “Businesses rely on measurements to improve their services, and standardisation will help enormously with the interoperability of analytics for improved visibility and accuracy of OTT video metrics. These measurement metrics will help everyone in the streaming video ecosystem move towards a more responsive, high-quality and seamless experience.”
The focus of the CTA’s QoE working group (WG 20) is to specifically develop and promote standards to align the data access points used across the ecosystem and create a methodology to measure viewership and QoE for both subscription-based and ad-based premium content that every OTT business can leverage.
“The Alliance has made great strides in solving important industry issues such as QoE to help advance the future of OTT video. We remain focused on fostering deeper ecosystem collaboration and promoting best practices across the streaming video industry,” said Jason Thibeault, Executive Director, Streaming Video Alliance. “We look forward to extending our collaboration with the CTA and other industry leaders to formalise guidelines for a uniform methodology every streaming video publisher can use for QoE.”
According to the Alliance, the participation of leading businesses with OTT offerings, including Sky, MLB Advanced Media, Comcast, Charter, Viaplay, OWNZONES and Neulion, demonstrates the critical need for measurable tools to run a successful business.
“Users consume OTT content directly from premium content providers on an ever expanding set of devices,” said Keith Zubchevich, Chief Strategy Officer at Conviva, SVA Board Member and chair of the CTA’s QoE working group. “Consistency and predictability are the critical components to providing a quality OTT experience. The CTA and the Alliance’s efforts enable the entire industry to benefit from quality metrics with a standardised structure.”