New processors and consumer devices are making big bets on HEVC, even as AVC remains ubiquitous. Despite some risk, HEVC can add significant value in certain use cases. In this presentation we present the forecast for HEVC uptake from an objective and reliable perspective. We also provide an update to our long-trusted recommendations on choice of codecs and architectures for popular applications in the context of ongoing trends such as 4K, virtual reality, and virtualization.

Choosing the number of streams in an adaptive group and configuring them is usually a subjective, touchy-feely exercise, with no way to really gauge the effectiveness and efficiency of the streams. However, by measuring stream quality via metrics such as PSNR, SSIM, and VQM, you can precisely assess the quality delivered by each stream and its relevancy to the adaptive group. This presentation identifies several key objective quality metrics, teaches how to apply them, and provides an objective framework for analyzing which streams are absolutely required in your adaptive group and their optimal configuration.

Streaming company-wide meetings, training, and other events through your internal network saves on time, travel costs and resources. This session looks at real-world architectures being used for distributing streams to all screens within an enterprise setting. You’ll learn about how peer-to-peer and multicast technologies fit in, and how to reach remote and mobile workers. Our panelists will recommend ways to increase quality and broadest audience reach, and share best practices and lessons learned.

Google has announced that Chrome will be “HTML5 By Default” as of Q4 this calendar year, meaning that users will need to click to allow Flash content to be played. This is obviously a major concern for the streaming industry, as Flash remains the dominant player technology today. There are native HTML5 solutions available for streaming video, but so far, the adoption has been low. This session reviews the state of the video player industry and compares a few open source and off-the-shelf solutions that can help keep those videos streaming.

The video compression industry often encounters claims that some new encoding technology is X% better than previous state-of-the-art encoders, where “X” is some large number. In reality, arriving at a percentage gain is a complex process, depending on the reference (“baseline”) encoding, the encoding settings, the encoding bitrates, the video content being encoded, the method of comparison, and the comparison metrics. This presentation explains how to perform subjective evaluation of encoding technologies using a practical subjective test methodology that is credible and leads to meaningful results. The talk presents several examples of encoded bitstreams to be scored subjectively, shows how to score those bitstreams based on the artifacts present, and illustrates how to collect subjective scores and derive meaningful gain metrics from them.

Providing a good experience is key when providing millions of live video streams to tens of millions of viewers. This session dives into the technology needed to deliver an industry-leading live streaming experience on Periscope. Learn how Periscope, Twitter’s live broadcasting platform and the first to popularize live streaming, recently partnered with OpenTelly to improve its viewer experience through a series of technology migrations. Attendees will hear how Periscope improved the experience delivered to its viewers by migrating to HTML5 and low latency HLS.

Streaming continues its rapid evolution, moving away from proprietary core technologies and towards open standards. Which leading-edge technologies (H.265, VP9, AOMedia Video, WebM, DASH, fMP4 HLS, CMAF, HTML5 & WebRTC) should you be adopting to future-proof your streaming deployments so you reach your targeted devices and deliver a great user experience? We’ll look at the royalty-laden HEVC vs. royalty-free VP9 vs. the new open-source AOMedia Video for streaming with MPEG-DASH. Which will win out in the end? How will Apple’s adoption of fragmented MP4 for HLS impact DASH adoption? Will the death of browser plug-ins finally herald the age of HTML5 video streaming, and how does WebRTC fit in? Our panel will dive into these and other questions, helping you decipher which technologies are here to stay, and which should be forgotten.

This presentation covers how broadcasters can improve quality of service by making small changes to their ABR algorithms and analyzing via an effective AB testing workflow. We begin by offering practical feedback on how Dailymotion was able to improve QoS significantly via small player-side ABR iterations, explaining what metrics were used and the results obtained. In the second part of the talk, we delve into how to build an effective AB testing analytics stack, honing in on the tools needed and the appropriate environment to be able effectively analyze our actions and make changes in real time.

The confluence of data forces and sources—cloud, mobile, social, analytics—are at the center of today’s massive data growth, and it’s essential that your business can economically and securely store, manage and leverage that data. With on-premise, cloud, or hybrid solutions, IBM Cloud Object Storage offers unmatched flexibility, massive scalability, and powerful simplicity to address your diverse set of needs and content.

Attend this session for your chance to win: GoPro ($350 value)

Watermarking is becoming a crucial component for UHD distribution. However, due to the proprietary nature of different watermark algorithms integrating various watermarking technologies has not been straight forward. We present ongoing work in the UHD-Forum on best practices and standardized interfaces to allow scale.

Attend this session for your chance to win: 30 color-change mugs ($5 value each)

Today there’s a huge range of different devices, platforms and environments on which users want to watch videos. Therefore it’s important to use a technology and a streaming standard which fits for all devices. HTML5 is now replacing Flash. But there are problems and challenges especially when it comes to playback of DRM protected content. Stefan Lederer will present solutions that enable browsers to deliver adaptive streaming and DRM without plug-ins.

Attend this session for your chance to win: Bitmovin branded t-shirt

Discover how ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and the Rio Olympics used 360º streaming technologies, like the Teradek Sphere, to provide their viewers with unique second screen content. Join us to learn all about real-time stitching, proper rigging, and network management for 360º productions.

During this session, leading content owners and distributors will join top technology companies to examine the elements essential to making VR not just a reality but also a viable business opportunity. The expert panel will define VR video and discuss the workflow required to deliver a high-quality VR experience. Considering audio, video and CGI, the group will cover capture and production, processing, delivery and consumption. The session also will address the importance of standards in scaling the VR business, current technical challenges, and how the industry can address those challenges via more concerted efforts - such as those undertaken in the past by the DASH Industry Forum and the Ultra HD Forum - to drive the technology forward.

Almost all of the commercial cloud encoding services, and many of the largest streaming producers encode in the cloud using FFmpeg. It’s cheap, relatively simple, and highly effective. To accomplish this yourself, you need two basic skill sets; first how to encode with FFmpeg, and then how to automate, schedule, and manage the encoding processes. This presentation will detail how to produce H.264 files with FFmpeg, and describe the tools and techniques available to simplify the automation and management of these encoding jobs for both live and VOD encoding.

A lot of recent changes are going on in the area of online streaming formats. Apple announced at WWDC 2016 the support of fragmented MP4, a key feature of CMAF, and others have demonstrated its usage on all major browser platforms. Video players now support HLS in HTML5 via re-multiplexing in JavaScript, so that HLS can be played using the HTML Media Source Extensions. In parallel, MPEG-DASH got a lot of traction for DRM-protected premium content, as all major Web browsers support now the HTML5 Encrypted Media Extensions. This panel will provide an overview about MPEG-CMAF, and discuss whether it is an opportunity to actually harmonize deployments that currently have to support both (and separate from each) DASH and HLS. Finally, we will also discuss potential threats on existing deployments having its clear focus on MPEG-DASH and DASH-IF.