These days, organizations are looking to support the complete live and on-demand video use case, including content creation, distribution, management, and reporting. As many of these initiatives are now enterprise-wide, one of the critical questions facing organizations is whether to deploy on-premises, cloud/SAAS, or hybrid. Listen as leading organizations discuss the considerations, benefits, and limitations of each deployment model, why their organization went in a specific direction, and what advice they have for organizations currently evaluating one or more deployment models.

Programming in UHD has gone up tenfold, although only a relatively small amount is still available.  More media enterprises are coming online with UHD broadcasts and standards have arrived to a certain degree, with initial support for content and devices. But we are still far from pervasive UHD-ready facilities and end-to-end workflows. This session will cut through the hype to look at what realistically can be accomplished in UHD today and experiences thus far in deploying UHD. The panelists also will cast an eye to the future, with discussion around topics such as live UHD event production and streaming and the potential for high dynamic range (HDR).

Using operational streaming analytics to monitor and support streaming media deployments is as important as—and in many cases more mission critical than—just deploying an in-player streaming analytics solution. In-player and last mile solutions focus on issues as they affect the customers, which is often too late and does little to improve customer retention and minimise churn. Operational streaming analytics alert content distributors and live streaming solution providers to delivery problems as they happen and provide immediate solution responses, before they become end user issues.

Attend this session for your chance to win: GoPro camera

As a content creator or service provider, value in your application is determined by how quickly and easily the digital assets you create are delivered to your audience. A poor end-user experience causes lost viewers; while spending too much on infrastructure can quickly deplete capital. Learn how to solve these issues with object storage that combines massively scalable, searchable storage with direct HTTP access to radically simplify content storage and delivery infrastructure while reducing costs.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Beats by Dr. Dre wireless headphones

Online video distributors facing the challenge of congested mobile networks are all seeking methods for reducing bandwidth while maintaining video quality. This panel discusses real-world methods, techniques, and solutions for moving beyond traditional fixed bit-rate ABR profiles to a content adaptive approach, where the encoding bit-rate is determined by the needs of the video vs. a pre-determined recipe. Come hear innovative thinking that, if adopted, can yield a 20% or potentially higher savings while improving the quality of your video encodes.

Despite the gains that HEVC/H.265 codec developers continue to make with its efficiency and quality, questions around the readiness of the new technology surface daily. The hype is compelling: better compression and faster/cheaper delivery over lower bitrates. For content distributors delivering content to mobile devices over congested 3G/4G/LTE networks, these traits are highly desirable. In this session, learn how H.265 compression and deployment options can be utilized in typical online streaming workflows, and, more importantly, if your target audiences can benefit. Up-to-date examples, using FFmpeg with x264 and x265 output, are compared for bitrate, compression time, and file size. 4k input and output are also be examined.

With the number of OTT providers growing every day, consumers are inundated with choice. With a few clicks of the mouse, they can unsubscribe from one platform and subscribe to another. In order to survive, OTT providers must figure out how to keep their viewers engaged. Is it through unique features? Specialized content? Interactive applications? In this panel, industry experts discuss some of the methods that they use to improve engagement with their content, appeal to different demographics, and, ultimately, drive subscriber loyalty. Join this lively discussion and dig into how to truly make a successful OTT platform.

Adaptive bitrate algorithms are paramount for delivering content that is adapted to the multitude of devices and network conditions. Striking a balance between achieving the highest quality possible without causing stalls is a complex task that involves estimating unknowns such as bandwidth and CPU stress. Another challenge is that the optimal algorithms can vary greatly depending on bitrates, stream types and whether the content is live or VoD. This presentation is designed to give broadcasters a look into how adaptive bitrate algorithms work and, using examples of open-source players such as (dash.js & hls.js), how to optimize them according to your many business and technical considerations.

VOD is becoming increasingly popular for live sports events. Platforms such as MLB.TV, NFL Now or Eurosport Player enable fans to views games or highlights when they want and where they want. Content providers have to cater for their viewers' needs while still being able to monetize the service. Consumers must be kept interested through a rich, interactive viewing experience, but the platforms and infrastructures that enable the service must also be cost-efficient.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Cards Against Humanity game

In today’s online environment, users expect video to be available on every platform with low startup delay and no buffering. Due to a reliance on older technologies, many companies throughout the video industry are losing subscriptions, losing advertisers and losing money as their users become frustrated by slow video. This presentation will explain how to deliver the best possible user experience, through cutting-edge online video streaming solutions with cloud encoding and video playback with HTML5.

With most major television outlets developing some form of subscription or advertiser supported OTT video application—and countless upstarts developing new programming for the new format—the great unbundling of cable channels has begun. Is it true that the a la carte model is unsustainable? What are the advantages of an unbundled marketplace for content owners and consumers? What are the opportunities for upstarts in an infinite channel marketplace? How will content and marketing evolve in this new paradigm, and what are the principles of next-generation channel bundling and marketing?

Last year was filled with announcements of new products and OTT experiences, creating lots of buzz, but how has that momentum continued into 2016? With reorganized options for viewing, consumers have more choices than ever before, some of which allow them to access their favorite content for a fraction of the cost of a cable subscription. This presentation outlines the new technologies leading the way toward the next generation of broadcasting. From integrated channel guides to place-shifting options, there’s never been more ways for consumers to view their favorite television programming without committing to a contract.

In this special session, Dan Rayburn demos the latest connected TV platforms from Samsung, Sony, Sharp, Vizio, LG, and TCL. Attendees see a hands-on overview of what each manufacturer has to offer in terms of the latest content apps, user interfaces, and video quality, and hear how these TV platforms are going to evolve over the coming years.

Broadcast and cable networks have significant opportunities and challenges associated with OTT. There is an opportunity to expand audiences and monetization, but rights limitations, technical cost and complexity, sales focus/skill, and consumer viewing quality expectations can limit the ability to realize the opportunity. This session will focus on describing the opportunity and approaches to address the challenges.

A behind-the-scenes look at the technology and best practices used to produce a successful live stream from Times Square.

Twitter is redefining mobile video. Through a variety of formats from Native Video to Vine to Periscope, Twitter has become the most effective way to earn attention and drive instant engagement. This presentation will detail the strategic and dynamic ways that brands use Twitter video to move beyond just buying impressions and to capitalize on Twitter's unique, live connection to culture.

OTT has grown into a $15 billion a year business and new advertising opportunities have surfaced in the process. Targeting has gone beyond standard demographics and now reaches customers in the middle of their research and decision making process. Learn how cost-efficient multi-platform publishing and TV app development helps publishers build up viewership and inventory, and explore how advertisers can leverage content-targeting to hit customers where they are spending the most: their passion.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Roku 4 Streaming Media Player

The growth of OTT streaming has been remarkable with global revenues up to $12 billion worldwide in 2015 and viewership at 19.4 viewer households. The broadcast and streaming industries are undergoing radical changes as OTT video grows, and the changing market brings both threats and opportunities. In this session Yahoo’s Vice President of Engineering and member of the Streaming Video Alliance, P.P.S. Narayan, will address the current market and where the future of streaming is headed.

Consumers are confused. This translates into wallets remaining closed – for new toys and for new services. This panel will attempt to unravel all the acronyms and to put some order into the various phases by which the industry will reach viewing nirvana. Is backward compatibility going to be part of the process or will some buyers of today’s TV sets start planning ways of getting rid of that 4K SDR 2015 TV set up. Will services be available but only be enjoyed by a select few? When will there be enough TV displays capable of one or other of the two forms of “UltraHD Premium”. This roundtable will attempt to shed some light on a complex and perhaps troublesome transition.

With most major television outlets developing some form of over-the-top video application—and countless upstarts developing new programming for the new format—brands are taking note of shifting eyeballs. That said, some industry analysts continue to argue there is still not a sustainable economic model for digital video. Will OTT services be monetized as an extension of digital video with primarily programmatic pre-roll, or should advertisers seek new models to engage consumers in this still-emerging environment? What role can brands play either supporting publishers or becoming publishers in an a la carte channel ecosystem?

Widely hailed a powerful and promising means of improving existing video compression, perceptual quality optimization (PQO) integrates consideration of the human visual system into the video encoding process. How well PQO succeeds in improving human perception of videos is best measured by human subjects, through subjective testing. This talk describes how EuclidIQ uses subjective testing to measure the gains from and inform the further development of IQ264, our technology that integrates PQO directly into H.264 encoding and achieves 25% bandwidth savings on average relative to reference H.264 encoding at equivalent quality.

Attend this session for your chance to win: $100 Amazon Gift Card

60% of all user interactions suffer from video playback issues, yet not much is done to help solve this. Rebuffering and downgrading to subpar video bitrates continues unabated as high-speed broadband and faster cellular networks have reached near ubiquity in the United States and some international markets. So why does video still fail and rebuffer? What is the impact of video stream issues on revenue, brand, and churn? We explore these questions and more.

See how enterprises are able to deliver streaming video at scale, breaking both geographical and volume barriers. This session discusses some of the fundamentals of video playback at Ustream, along with methods for reaching mobiles and overcoming buffering issues. It then covers robust video delivery methods through SD-CDN (Software Defined Content Delivery Network) and how enterprises can scale video assets horizontally.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Rickshaw Commuter Laptop Bag ($199 value)

As OTT monetization strategies diversify, the ways in which subscriptions can be structured have continued to expand. Many companies want to emulate the simple subscription OTT model of Netflix. The past 2 years have seen the launch of HBO Now, Sling TV, WWE Network, Crunchyroll, NFL Game Pass, The Blaze, CBS All Access, and many other subscription services. But how many can the market support? When cord nevers, shavers, and cutters look for single subscription services and skinny bundles, how many are they likely to buy? The simplicity of a straight subscription model is appealing, but in today’s “in app” world, advanced monetization modeling and hybrid approaches can serve as a gateway to your subscription service. What does it take to be chosen by enough people to make a business?

Learn how an innovative, cloud-based solution transformed the delivery and management of The Washington Post’s video content and saved hundreds of thousand dollars in ad revenue sharing fees. Video content is a critical function of The Washington Post’s digital media strategy. Yet its legacy platform was plagued by reliability and support complications, as well as costly ad delivery issues. To address these challenges, The Washington Post set about building an integrated video content management and delivery solution. Based on Java open source technologies and hosted in the Amazon Web Services cloud, the solution provided a highly customizable rich-media content and application hosting, processing and delivery platform. Custom-developed with The Washington Post’s challenges in mind, the solution has evolved into a mission critical component of its publishing platform, while future-proofing its digital media strategy for years to come.

Competition for viewers in the fast growing OTT market is fierce, so providers must seek ways to improve their OTT experience. But how can they make their platforms bigger, badder, and better to not only attract new subscribers but retain them? We’ll discuss this question as well as market trends, viewing behaviors, and habits that are helping to shape OTT offerings.

Attend this session for your chance to win: GoPro Hero4 Silver

Delivering seamless content experiences to consumers is no easy task, particularly if you're attempting to stream content live. While CDN is a key part of the solution, it's not the only piece of the puzzle that you to consider when building a robust, highly agile, and high-performing streaming platform. In this track, you will learn the secrets to building and delivering a high-quality content experience to end users in multiple regions, at scale.

Virtual Reality (VR) and 360-degree are emerging as two of the most innovative live streaming trends, powering events such as sporting matches, concerts, corporate meetings, education, medicine, military applications, and many other areas. In this session, you’ll get hands-on with live demos and get more familiar with the technology as we walk through some common 360-degree live streaming workflows, including the Lollapalooza Berlin 2015 music festival that allowed virtual attendees to attend the live concert series and be immersed with the band on stage. Most VR technologies use industry-standard streaming protocols that can be implemented with common streaming servers and platforms. We’ll discuss a couple of examples, including GIROPTIC and VideoStitch Vahana VR, and also review how playback is achieved using common player apps.

The OTT market is growing rapidly, driven by people’s hunger to watch their favorite shows, anytime, anywhere, on any device, but so far, the time lag with OTT content delivery has prevented its widespread use with live events. In this session we will discuss how media companies can deliver and broadcast live OTT content in sync, anywhere in the world, and how they can harness live events for additional revenues, as people’s evolving content consumption habits continue to disrupt the industry.

You make a huge investment producing events and you only get one shot to get it right when live streaming. You can’t ever risk losing your viewers with poor quality or not having viewers at all because no one knew about your event! This session will address these concerns - how live content is created and how it is shared. Attendees will see firsthand how to capture higher quality and more dynamic live content enhancing the viewer’s experience. Attendees will also learn how to expand their viewership through syndication to leverage multiple subscriber bases. With consistent streams, engaging content and a wide reach, you can increase your viewership and keep your audience coming back for more!