When large-scale sports streams fail to meet expectations—Tyson versus Paul, anyone?—folks can’t stop talking about it. Any sports streaming workflow is only as strong as its weakest (or least-tested) link. The more lucrative the license and massive the stream, unfortunately, the larger the opportunity and the smaller the margin for error. So, what do the experts say about the architectural demands and challenges of maintaining five-nines uptime and broadcast quality when the stakes are too high to let either suffer? And what solutions do they recommend?

The rapid evolution of AI has created vast new opportunities for content owners and creators to cost-effectively make their content accessible across more territories and to more audiences than ever before. The potential for this kind of technology as it proliferates is tremendous, since it makes it far cheaper and easier to customize a platform’s content not only to a region but even to a specific group of users. But it also raises new ethical regulatory issues. As the tech leaps forward while the guardrails slowly take shape, how can content owners balance the opportunities and concerns to maximize the promise of AI for captioning, translation, and localization?

Performance issues with some recent high-profile live streams underscore the challenges streaming faces in meeting the reliability standards of broadcast sports. But arguably the biggest threat to a smooth transition from broadcast and cable to streaming delivery of premium sports like the NFL is the unpredictable distribution of top-tier licensing among streaming providers. How many subscriptions will fans need to watch the games they want to see, and how will they know week to week where to look? As streamers vie for premium sports supremacy, and eye-popping licensing fees abound, who wins, and who loses?

Streaming Media Connect’s new Ask the Expert series flips the script on our tried-and-true panel approach, kicking off with your questions. Resolve your burning issues and solve your critical workflow problems with our renowned panel of experts. Submit your questions in advance, or raise your hand, and we’ll turn on your mic. The floor is yours!

Many of us want to see new codecs such as AV1 and VVC/H.266 succeed rapidly and bring the efficiencies and savings they were designed to deliver, but the reality is more complex. Codec adoption doesn't just depend on innovation; it’s a marathon involving hardware readiness, market penetration, and achieving a 30% device compatibility threshold. This panel assembles transcoding experts from key content owners and across the streaming industry to discuss the familiar and hidden challenges that complicate new codec adoption.

In this hour, we look at leading new products that streamline live streaming and make it easier, more reliable, and more cost-effective. Be sure to attend to qualify for exclusive prizes!

From video search to captioning, localization, content discovery, and more, innovative new AI-driven streaming solutions abound, designed to reduce costs, enhance efficiencies, improve user experiences, offload and accelerate tasks once done by humans, and accomplish other tasks never possible before. But which ones deliver true AI-fueled innovations and point to exciting new directions, which ones slap AI window dressing on existing tech, and which aren’t quite ready for prime time? For the first time ever, Streaming Media Connect gives 10 new contenders 5 minutes each to make their elevator pitch and take hard-hitting questions that put their claims to the test.

With all the buzz about Netflix and others cracking down on password-sharing in early 2024, much attention was diverted from actual streaming piracy and the widespread consumption of pirated content. Why and where does piracy persist in the streaming world? Is it largely due to the cost of legitimate streaming services, as pirated content’s casual consumers often claim? How are pirates stealing live streams and on-demand content, what is it costing streamers, how effective are DRM and other emerging solutions for curtailing it, and how strong is the cost/benefit analysis of investing in those solutions?

Streaming quality tends to be an oddly overlooked differentiator when it comes to what makes some streams more successful than others. Even if we aren’t all golden-eyed evaluators of optimized streams, if we’re in the premium content delivery business, we need to understand the role perceptual quality optimization plays in effective streaming and realize the ROI of efficiently optimized streams. Join us for this exclusive Ask the Experts panel to get your streaming quality optimization questions answered. You in the back—your mic is on!

From live linear to FAST, AVOD, and all flavors of free streaming, how are the OEM and OS wars transforming the way TV is distributed and monetized? As the global battle for TV interface dominance persists, and powerhouse OEMs increasingly assert their role as content gatekeeper are we moving toward a closed society when it comes to CTV?

As with any other type of streaming delivery, FAST needs to “just work” to support publishers’ monetization goals, but that’s nowhere as simple as it sounds. This panel examines essential infrastructure challenges and key emerging strategies for better FAST delivery. Join us to learn about manifest manipulation vs. encoded playout; optimizing and maximizing “Be Right Back” slots as in-house inventory; using GenAI to program the channel; solving the context/genre madness with LLMs and captions; advanced graphics for background, tune-in, and monetization; QR code execution, a must-have skillset; and how to execute picture-in-picture content programming.

The ability of digital media advertisers to deliver targeted messages through automated platforms—aka programmatic advertising—has enabled them to buy audiences, rather than space or time as in traditional brand advertising. In streaming and CTV, this creates the potential for substantially lower CPMs. But such a hands-off approach also raises considerable brand safety concerns, and its effectiveness remains comparatively untested. So, is the programmatic ad revolution really upon us? Tune in as our four great debaters put forth their best arguments to settle the question and stick around to the final arguments to cast your votes and pick the winners.

What makes streaming apps pop? Support across multiple platforms is a critical feature, of course. But when it comes to building sound, seamless, and satisfying user experiences, what are streaming users really asking for? How are expectations changing in the age of AI and in an increasingly fragmented consumer streaming market? Join this panel of CX strategists, streaming app designers, and product managers to learn the latest on what makes and breaks a streaming app in 2025.