It turns out, many of the world’s top video service providers and content owners are using SDV. These include Comcast, DirecTV, Globosat, NHK, Telefónica. Wilmaa, BBC, HBO and Turner. These are the big names in video, to be sure; and if they use SDV as a secret sauce for video delivery, it’s time we take a look at the recipe.

What is SDV?

According to Elemental, the leading provider of SDV, software-defined video is an infrastructure agnostic approach to implementing flexible, scalable and easily upgradable video architectures. Unlike legacy solutions, this advancement allows video providers to deploy software across an optimal combination of dedicated and virtualized resources in both private and public data centers. Like we’ve seen with SDN, in the video domain, a software-defined approach frees video providers from the constraints of dedicated equipment by allowing for the best architecture and processor combination to be used for a particular application, even if that application changes over time. Support for new services and video formats can be integrated seamlessly through simple software upgrades.

Additionally, Elemental’s portfolio includes unified video infrastructure solutions, which collapse statistical multiplexing functions for live linear operations into a single software-based architecture. In short, delivering real-time video to mobile devices of every type, at every altitude, while maintaining high QoE, doesn’t require a multitude of expensive purpose-built hardware that must be re-tooled or upgraded to accommodate the rapidly changing video environment.

SDV in action

Today, Wilmaa, a popular Swiss over-the-top video provider that streams live content, is using Elemental Live to capture, encode and stream live satellite television feeds over an IP network. Live content, encoded within the RTMP adaptive bitrate format, is repackaged into HLS streams for delivery over a third-party Content Distribution Network (CDN). The service has been an overwhelming success.

The ability to watch a variety of live channels from any type of device, through a clean and easy-to-use web-based interface as well as via Wilmaa’s custom Android and iOS apps, has proven to be a real hit with Swiss viewers. According to Wilmaa CEO, Kolja Wehleit, “The encoding density, picture quality and software flexibility available with Elemental systems is vital to our ability to delight viewers and broadcasters alike.”

“We chose Elemental for the high quality of its video processing, the superior support of the Elemental team and low cost of ownership compared to other solutions,” said Laurent Potesta, CEO of AIP Sàrl, which built out Wilmaa’s full spectrum of services.

Oracle is also using software-defined video processing solutions from Elemental. The company has integrated these solutions seamlessly with Adobe Primetime to enable the delivery and monetization of premium content to IP-connected screens. Elemental video processing components support the delivery of live, linear and video-on-demand (VOD) content for Adobe Primetime-supported multiscreen deployments.

Pay-TV goliath Sky has taken the same tact as Telstra--it is dumping cash into Elemental as an investment, as well as using the company’s solutions. "This investment builds on Sky's existing commercial relationship with Elemental and our leading position in internet-delivered video, and enables Sky to tap into the company's experience and expertise in this area," wrote Emma Lloyd, Director of corporate development and start-up investments for Sky.

Mobile operators and SDV

Mobile network operators face the same challenges that traditional pay-TV and OTT video providers face, but have been slower to adopt SDV. However, their strains are compounded by their capacity constraints, and the fact that the mobile operator is often the default support provider for mobile video. If Netflix goes glitchy on a smartphone, who complains to Netflix? On the contrary, T-Mobile gets the call. Ericsson predicts that the number of IP-video-capable devices will approach 15 billion in the near future, so the time is now to explore a transition from expensive, slow-to-deploy, static video delivery models to flexible, lower-cost, adaptable, and intelligent alternatives.