Successfully delivering the video to the consumer requires unimpaired communications between the components of the CDN through the last mile to the client device. Encoders publish their variant bitrate video segments to the origin servers and these origin servers must deliver the assets through the caching servers quickly and without error upon request from the device. Client devices must both request chunks quickly enough from the CDN and queue up the subsequent files for viewing before the current one is played out. Simply put, the complexity of these operations pose many new challenges to service and content providers, which will only grow as ABR video continues its current growth trajectory.
Improving Customer Experience for the Next Generation of Video
As video network architectures evolve and video travels over unmanaged networks to millions of devices, delivering high quality video experience is a major challenge. This is largely because consumers are empowered: they can get any video from anyone, anywhere and anytime. The consumer now has an abundance of video providers to choose from, and thus little loyalty to any one video provider. The effects of this empowerment are quite staggering. Industry research shows that 60 percent of consumers who experience poor quality Internet video will be less likely to return to that video provider in the future. In addition, 43 percent of consumers said that they would get their video from a competing provider. Finally, 27 percent say they will be less likely to ever come back to that site again for video services. With Internet and mobile video, the correlation between customer experience and churn is even more pronounced than with traditional video services, making assuring a high quality experience a key driver of their business model.
There are three components to a successful quality and service assurance solution for multiscreen and Over-the-Top (OTT) video. First, providers need to be able to gather the appropriate data and metrics about the performance and quality of their video delivery network. This includes information about control communications between network components, information about the end client device, and insight into both QoE and QoS throughout the entire network. VeriStream, the industry’s first QoS metric designed specifically for ABR technology, is one such metric that will be essential for providers. A QoS metric like VeriStream can be used in many places across the ABR delivery chain: from the origin server, to the caching servers and the end client device. Using QoS metrics empowers providers locate where in the network issues are occurring. This is especially helpful when the video provider has no visibility into the CDN and the last mile. QoS metrics aid in Service Level Agreements (SLA) compliance in an effective, objective manner. In addition, providers should monitor video content QoE wherever the video is modified. One key place to monitor for content quality is at the source: before and after the segment encoder. By encoding the video into variant bitrates, the encoders are also modifying the video quality. Monitoring for QoE ensures that content degradation is immediately identified and addressed.
