As the creative advantages to 4K video streaming and production have risen, cost and complexity have fallen.

It seems like only yesterday that professional content creators began capturing and producing video in high definition, particularly in 1080p 60 frames per second (FPS). But technology is always on the march. Today’s live video streaming professionals are now retooling for the next industry standard, Ultra High Definition (UHD), or 4K. As the demand to stream 4K video rises, content creators need to keep up to avoid being outpaced by competitors.

By Matthew Driscoll, Director of Product Management, Telestream iQ 

The business of delivering TV programming is shifting to an unprecedented level of reliance on internet streaming services that consumers can access as replacements to traditional pay-TV services. In this article, we will take a look at this evolution and common challenges OTT streaming service providers are facing when delivering premium video quality to their subscribers. We will briefly introduce a video quality management approach that enables service providers to overcome obstacles in their streaming workflow and keep pace with technology shifts and customer demands. 

Introduction 

What Is Vantage? 

The Vantage media processing platform is based on a flexible service-oriented architecture, Vantage is made up of discrete services and connectors that combine to create powerful automated workflows – all under unified system control. Vantage services provide transcoding, media capture, metadata processing, media analysis, and content assembly. Vantage connectors enable seamless, API-level integration with third-party systems. 

The PRISM Family of Hybrid IP and SDI waveform monitors has the largest touchscreen on the market and a wide range of software options. It includes many applications, has a UI that can be personalized to meet the needs of many types of users, and can be configured to tackle equally many tasks. PRISM is a critical component of many engineering, live production, and post production operations. The PRISM feature-set continues to grow and, as live production becomes ever more demanding, it continues to accommodate those needs. Among the most recent new, production-oriented features is what we call “multi-input mode”.

ContentAgent is a software-based application that can automate common tasks such as camera card ingest into editorial and creating deliverables such as broadcast, international masters, and viewing copies. It integrates with a number of third-party tools to orchestrate WAN acceleration, file-based quality control management, motion-compensated frame rate conversion, social media uploading, and more.

Importance of Video Quality Monitoring in OTT Streaming Services

By Ali Hodjat, Director of Product Marketing, Telestream iQ

Did you know that nearly 2 billion people use Over-the-Top (OTT) streaming services? These streaming services must meet the demands of consumers across any device, anytime, anywhere, and with the highest quality. Consumers do not care how content gets delivered to them, but they do expect a certain level of quality and performance, or they will quickly move on to other streaming services. A survey found that 86% of the viewers say it is extremely important to receive a TV-like quality of experience when watching OTT streaming services.

Recently many churches have chosen to reach members remotely through live streaming. This means we need to figure out the most economical and budget-friendly ways to stream church services without breaking the bank and maybe with a lean or nonexistent technical staff. How can you create a high-quality viewing experience for your remote members? Read on to find out.

While most anyone can live stream to YouTube using a webcam or mobile device, your creative options really open up when you use live streaming software that incorporates high-quality production tools and output presets for YouTube live streaming, Facebook live streaming, and more. Imagine streaming live video like the pros, with multiple cameras, graphics, green screen keys, and other impressive moves like rolling in video clips, without needing a team of producers.

Comparing system CPU and GPU usage in various live-streaming and broadcast production workflows on the two newest versions of Wirecast.

Someone once said to me “Live video streaming is not rocket science… it’s harder than rocket science!” This person was referring to the engineering that goes into making live video and live audio work seamlessly, especially when talking about deploying such technology on a constantly evolving world of hardware, in a dizzying array of computing environments, with an almost infinite number of peripheral equipment and workflows, where even the end user doesn’t have control over every aspect of the workflow chain. That, my friends, is the reality of developing live streaming software.  

With the release of Wirecast 15, professional live streaming software now empowers users with greater CPU and GPU efficiency, flexible subscription plans, new social media content moderation, expanded production and monitoring tools, improved 4K support, a dedicated Music Mode for Rendezvous, and an improved user interface (UI) with bigger, brighter fonts, and tally lights. In this blog, we’ll look at the key modifications that work in tandem to upgrade Wirecast’s efficiency, stability, and reliability, starting with the platform’s optimized efficiency.