November/December 2022

Magazine Features

Ad Tech Raises the Stakes as Streaming and Broadcast Viewerships Converge

Broadcasters are watching digital and trying to bring the best of digital ad tech into their "broadcast" environment-even if that broadcast environment is on CTV. While it is becoming more and more confusing to differentiate between broadcast and streaming, one thing that's clear is that digital—and the ad tech supporting it—are responsible for the success of one of streaming's standard business models.

Lessons Learned: What the Pandemic Taught Us About Remote Teaching

Although failing to enter the popular lexicon as of yet, the term "emergency remote teaching" (ERT) is intended to avoid conflating what we'd now call "traditional" online education with the improvised adaptation of face-to-face lesson plans and classroom experiences to the synchronous videoconferen­c­ing platform available to any given school dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paramount SVP of Ad Operations Jarred Wilichinsky Talks Adtech Stacks and Strategy

The unforgiving world of ad tech means any mistake can cost millions of dollars. Ad tech is the key to a successful AVOD/FAST monetization strategy, but there are so many moving parts that it can be a challenge to get it right. Wilichinsky provides practical insight into what works, what doesn't, and how ad-supported delivery compares to subscription offerings.

Review: Blackmagic Design ATEM SDI Extreme ISO and ATEM Mini Extreme ISO

Blackmagic has set a new standard for an affordable and professional all-in-one HD video switcher, and the biggest consideration is which model fits your workflows.

The 2022 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

The readers have spoken! Here are the top technical solutions of 2022, as determined by none other than the readers of Streaming Media.

The Future of Streaming Monetization: Beyond the SVOD/AVOD Divide

All too often, the monetization discussion revolves around a simplistic binary that expands only slightly on the old ad-supported broadcast model for home-based media and entertainment: subscription vs. advertising. Savvy publishers, rightsholders, and streaming services see a more nuanced landscape. Gamification, interactivity, merchandising, and direct-to-consumer apps let both publishers and advertisers super-serve fans with content that goes beyond live linear or VOD.

The Streaming Toolbox: Ateliere Discover, Axinom Mosaic, and nanocosmos nanoStream Cloud

In this article, I'll look at three tools that provide interesting services for building media services and products. Ateliere Creative Technologies provides not just traditional MAM capabilities but also content management and app delivery. Axinom, likewise, has a development platform for building back-end services. nanocosmos expands on the old OVP model by delivering low-latency video for live, interactive-product developers. While I see a little bit of overlap with two of these products, it would be interesting to try to use everything here together.

Editor's Note

Where and When to Look

When it comes to knowing where to look to stay on top of the most meaningful developments in the streaming world, one simple maxim is not to always be tracking Netflix's stock price or churn rate to the exclusion of everything else, and at Streaming Media, we try to direct your gaze to the right places.

Streams of Thought

Do Our Technology Advances Slow Down Justice?

Far from content being scarce, the integration of streaming into professional- and citizen-based news-gathering has generated such a monumental level of potential war-crime footage that every day sees an additional 10-100 documented cases of crimes against humanity. And this increased footage brings with it both greater accountability and a significantly higher backlog of cases that need to be tried.

The Video Doctor

Can Better Video Help the Metaverse?

Will the metaverse have legs? Will the headsets currently in use suffer a fate similar to the PocketPC precursors to the smartphones we know and love today? Only time—and a lot more investment in tech by a wider range of companies and individuals—will tell.

Future in Focus

What's the Point of Streaming?

You might think it's crazy of me, as the executive director of the world's largest streaming technical association, to ask the question in this column's title. But I think it's actually important that we do a gut check every once in a while.

Spotlights

Media Processing in the Cloud or On-Prem—Which Is Right for You?

In this article, I'll share some of the situations I've been in that warranted moving to the cloud, and then other situations where it didn't make sense to do so.

The Producer's View

From Remote to On-Prem Events: The Pendulum Swings

The pendulum has swung back away from streaming for a brief period, but COVID opened millions of eyes to the power, capability, and convenience of streaming—for the providers and the attendees. It also helped a lot of people realize that it's not as easy as it looks. I see the end result moving that pendulum toward more streaming—and more kinds of streaming—in the near future