CES 2014: iStreamPlanet Adds PlayReady for Live and Live Linear

Keeping in line with their habit of marking the advance of its Aventus workflow solution at major industry 甚至ts, iStreamPlanets announced this week at CES that cross-platform content protection with Microsoft PlayReady was now available for live and live linear streaming in the software-as-a-service product.

The company first unveiled Aventus at 流媒体 West 2012, 然后在NAB 2013上宣布测试版可用, and followed with the news that the cloud-based service was widely available at IBC in September. The new support for PlayReady is available as a product service update to existing Aventus customers.

这似乎是一个渐进的变化, but it's one that  iStreamPlanet vice president of product marketing and services says was high on existing and potential customers' wishlists.

"All content partners want the ability to offer thier conenet to IP-connected devices. We implemented AES when we launched, but customers wanted PlayReady," 科尔说. “内容保护之后，就是商业规则了. They want to make sure whatever business logic is in place can be enforced throughout the delivery to all the devices." Aventus will roll out PlayReady for Smooth Streaming first, followed by HLS. True to Aventus' design, it will be available for both live 甚至ts and live linear delivery.

The PlayReady SDKs for iOS and Android also support DASH as well as Smooth Streaming, which will help Aventus achieve full DASH support later this year, says iStreamPlanet principal video specialist Alex Zambelli, who created all the encoding profiles available to Aventus users (customers can also input their own profiles and save them as presets). Currently, Aventus supports output to HLS, HDS, and Smooth Streaming, and later this year, RTMP.

“有很多工作流程仍在使用Akamai HD, RTMP被发送到哪里，Akamai做transmuxing, 所以我们会提供支持,赞贝利说.

Aventus目前的合作伙伴包括NBC和微软, with whom iStreamPlanet will work to deliver the Sochi Olympics. Aventus will be running in Microsoft Azure using Azure Media Services. 微软将提供原产地服务, dynamically remuxing content from Smooth to HLS and other formats, Zambelli说. Aventus将处理所有的实时编码.

Other partners include online video platforms like thePlatform and Ooyala, customers that are known for VOD but can now say they support live, 科尔说.

Aventus is available as both SaaS and via APIs for customers who want to integrate it with their own interfaces. Cole says the company expected about 80% of customers to want the APIs, 但实际上更像是50%. Part of the appeal of the SaaS is the simplicity of the interface, 它可以让用户在分秒内打开一个频道, 甚至, if the setup doesn't include explaining each step to a journalist in a demo. 一旦一个频道上线, iStreamPlanet's telemetry shows not just whether or not it's functioning propertly but also where any problems might be occuring—ingest, 视频转码, 音频转换, 或其他地方.

Another appeal is that iStreamPlanet has built its own live encoder that can work on commodity x86 hardware, meaning that no special hardware is required for customers to use it. 在构建其编码器之前, iStreamPlanet itself found that after live 甚至ts were over, they'd have purchased dedicated hardware encoders that sat idle until they were needed. By using x86 hardware, customers can repurpose those units when they're not in use.

虽然CES上的很多宣传都是围绕4K的, that's not something Zambelli sees as a big part of Aventus' future.
“我们使用MainConcept编解码器, 他们已经宣布支持HEVC, 我们最终会实现它,他说. “至于4K，市场需求并不大. 1080p is still next generation for a lot of customers; most are still asking for 720p. We're not trying to compete on features, but on usability, accessibility, and simplicity."

Cole says the company has been surprised that not all of the companies they've been speaking to at CES are broadcast and entertainment. “在IBC, 主要是媒体和娱乐公司, 因为这就是这个节目的意义所在,她说。. “在过去的六周里, 虽然, I've been impressed with the number of enterprise customers who are showing interest. 直播对很多垂直行业来说非常重要, for things like town hall meetings and big 甚至ts like CES."

And 甚至 虽然 Aventus represents the company's move from services to software, iStreamPlanet still offers the same full range of 甚至t services it always has. "As we've gone from purely services to services and software, it's important to note that we haven't abandoned those services we've always provided,赞贝利说. "We've got satellite dishes and partners around the world. 我们有获取信号的技术, and the broadcast operationss people who are 24/7 and know how to manage 甚至ts."