SMW '19: RealEyes Talks Cross-Platform Streaming Challenges
Read the complete transcript of this interview:
Tim Siglin: Welcome back to this final interview of the first day of Streaming Media West 2019. I'm Tim Siglin, Contributing Media. Boy, it's the end of the day. Tim Siglin, Contributing Editor with streamingmedia.com and Founding Executive Director of the not-for-profit HelpMe! Stream. And today I've got with me Jun Heider. Jun, your company is RealEyes.
Jun Heider: That is correct.
Tim: And remind me, what's the back story on the name, 'cause I think we talked about this maybe. Or maybe I talked to David, your partner, on it.
Jun: You probably talked to David. And the back story
Tim: So what's your version of the back story?
Jun: Well, we got a start more in immersive multimedia experience. So my thought, this is my "hypothesis," is that RealEyes had something to do with that. When David was first doing all the Shockwave stuff and the Flash stuff.
Tim: Ah, okay.
Jun: Back in the day.
Tim: Flash stuff, right. Sure.
Jun: Yeah.
Tim: That makes sense. So, what does RealEyes do today?
Jun: Bespoke application developers. We very highly focus on advanced, complex streaming challenges. So whether your team doesn't have the skills to make those things happen, or whether you just need some extra help, we come in. We can build things from scratch. We can integrate some of the best big tools, and then we also do some strategic consulting as well, and have a little bit of IP on our own as well.
Tim: Oh, nice.
Jun: Yeah.
Tim: So, application development for what platforms?
Jun: So, what I like to say, is that we do everything but creating the content from the camera. So, platform-wise, we actually kinda run the gamut. We do desktop, we do mobile, we do set-top boxes, we do FireTVs and we do iOS to Android. So, yeah, pretty much across the board.
Tim: Okay, interesting. I wonder, are there sort of consistent challenges you have as you move platform to platform that you've had to solve, and is that where the IP is derived from?
Jun: Yeah, potentially. I think, just based on an engineering perspective, one of the biggest challenges is, how do we kinda go across platforms and keep architecture consistent. But, also, adhering to whatever best practices are available and made known on those platforms. Another one is, definitely, automating QA. Like that's huge.
Tim: Ah, true. True, true.
Jun: Especially when you're talking about things with remote controls.
Tim: Okay, that makes sense.
Jun: So those are the really big challenges there.
Tim: Do the whole virtual machine, containerization approaches, Kubernetes, dockers; does that help you as you move say, operating system or device to device, or is that not... Or is that too abstract, and then you need to sorta go lower in the stack?
Jun: Yeah. Well, the one thing that we have to consider, and maybe down the road we may find that solution in those containered systems or VMs, is just display and also the emulation of that particular platform. We've always found the best success. We'll use a little bit of browser stack. And then we also, from time to time, do use VMs, but often, we use actual devices. And we also use the emulators within the browsers, and things like that, so.
Tim: And are you able to use sorta consistent IDEs as you work on different integrated development environments, as you work on different platforms, or do you have to use, sort of, the best practice for each of those device types?
Jun: So when you talk about IDEs, yeah, it's pretty much everybody but Apple.
Tim: Okay. All right. Fair enough.
Jun: Yeah.
Tim: Fair enough.
Jun: Yeah, we share the same... We really like VS code. Yeah, that's the IDE of choice at our company.
Tim: Got it. All right, nice. And same thing on your SVNs, and that kind of thing? I mean, ultimately, Apple is off to the side, and you're sort of dealing with your software versioning across all other device types?
Jun: I mean, as far as versioning, we take a pretty similar approach across platforms. If you're talking about an actual version control system, I mean, we use it to get across the b
Tim: Okay, sure. Good. Makes perfect sense.
Jun: Hm-hmm.
Tim: What are the challenges you see in the industry, say, over the next 12 months, 'cause I've asked a number of people that today. Am I'm really wanting to focus not on just where we are today, but where do you see we're going with this stuff?
Jun: I think one of the biggest challenges is, as we continue to rebuild to where Flash used to be with video streaming, DRM. Yeah, I think that's gonna be a big challenge.
Tim: And Christopher Levy talked a little bit about the lifecycle chain. And really what he was talking about, was sort of the vulnerabilities at different points in the supply chain, making sure that there is encryption in the DRM in placing those. Do you see, because you run the gamut, do you see potential exploitable points along the way?
Jun: Yeah. I mean, think about token off systems, where they have a certain amount of time where you can actually access the content. Think about not encrypting things at rest. Think about not actually having an encrypted...
Tim: Tunnel.
Jun: Yeah, tunnel between end points. So, yeah, there's a number of attack vectors.
Tim: Interesting. Well, Jun, as always, quite interesting talking to you. And appreciate you wrapping us up for the end of the day. And we'll be back tomorrow
Jun: Wooo!
Tim: ...with our first interviews.
Jun: Thank you.
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