Making Streams Green: The Steps to Sustainability in Broadcasting and Video Streaming
可持续发展正在改变商业格局, 广播和流媒体行业也不例外. While business and technology factors used to be the main considerations when choosing a technology partner, now sustainability has become the third pillar that organizations simply cannot ignore.
一些最著名的投资机构, such as BlackRock, 现在，把可持续投资放在商业战略的最前沿, 受环境保护的影响, Social, 和治理(ESG)计划. Assets of global sustainable mutual funds are expected to grow from just below $0.从2013年的5万亿美元增长到2013年的近2万亿美元 2028.
Increasingly, investors will refuse to consider any sort of investment that does not have a strong commitment to sustainability, 在未来五年左右的时间里，这一点可能会变得更加突出. Broadcasting and streaming companies therefore run the risk of losing substantial investment if they fail to pursue sustainable practices.
The Sustainability State-of-Play
变革的压力也来自于终端用户. Netflix在一份ESG报告中公布了2020年的年度碳足迹, 结果让许多消费者感到惊讶. 流媒体服务提供商大致生成 1.1 million metric tons of CO2 last year, equivalent to the yearly emissions from approximately 240,000 passenger cars.
As consumers become more aware of the carbon impact of the organizations they buy from, 他们现在更有可能转向更环保的选择, 特别是在COVID-19 pandemic. 事实上，研究发现 four in five 消费者更喜欢从可持续的卖家那里购买, 这很可能延伸到他们对流媒体服务的选择上. 虽然意识在增长, the broadcast and streaming sector has so far made little progress from a regulatory standpoint, 除了一般的二氧化碳，几乎没有可持续发展的目标2 政府层面的减排目标.
The silver lining, however, 可持续发展协会的萌芽是否已经开始萌芽. Greening of Streaming, 该协会是其创始成员之一, is a new association that brings together organizations in the streaming industry to share best practices and drive greater energy efficiency across the sector.
The onus now sits with broadcasters and streaming service providers on a global level to adopt sustainable practices within their processes and services to drive real change from within, 他们可以采取一些关键步骤来确保这一点.
Ensuring Green Initiatives
随着可持续发展成为组织战略的核心要素, broadcasters and streaming service providers need to consider the carbon footprint associated with a streaming processing solution. They must also optimize processes to reduce the power consumption of hardware and software by implementing best practices.
从长远来看，有两件事可以帮助获得尽可能高的效率. One is the introduction of new codecs; the second is encoders using standards-compliant algorithms. 两者可以一起工作以降低比特率和带宽消耗. 这将导致更低的碳足迹，因为更少的存储, 流功能和缓存是必需的. 然而，这种策略确实会产生立竿见影的效果. 部署新的编解码器需要新的设备, which has its own implications in terms of physical components and how this adds to carbon emissions. 组织需要采取额外的措施来立即做出改变.
The CDN and Shared Resources
Ten years ago, 选择行业解决方案主要是基于它们的性能, such as how many channels could be produced on a given server for encoding and the content delivery network (CDN) hit ratio. While these performance criteria are still applicable and remain crucial to market competitiveness, meeting them also contributes to improving sustainability: it makes video delivery more efficient and less wasteful in the use of resources. 通过改进压缩技术降低比特率, for example, 在单个服务器上启用更多通道, 从而降低整个CDN的带宽消耗. 通过优化CDN缓存，可以促进更绿色的服务.
An elastic CDN can also enable the system to bring the most popular content to the edge, away from the central hub, 确保观众能够快速访问他们最想看到的内容. 同时对观众有益, this also means that the content will no longer need to be delivered from the central location. This helps to reduce the necessary bandwidth and costs, enabling more sustainable practices.
共享工作流和百家乐软件, 还有即时包装商, 还有助于减少带宽需求, 从而提高可持续性. 一个单一的工作流程可以用于直播和时移视频, 这意味着每个配置文件只需要发送和存储一次. Technology solutions allow broadcasters and streaming service providers to deliver content with just-in-time processing, 确保仅在观众需要时才处理内容. By producing on-demand, 减少对硬件百家乐软件和CPU存储的需求, leading to lower power consumption and increased sustainability of the service.
Contributing to the Battle Against Climate Change
Broadcasters and video service providers can ensure that their services become more sustainable by adopting an end-to-end solution that reduces storage, 带宽和硬件要求. 这将大大节省三个“范围”的能源。 as outlined by the 温室气体(GHG)议定书, which highlights the importance of the environmental contributions of suppliers of video compression and streaming solutions. 随着该行业受到投资者和终端用户更严格的审查, making video delivery more sustainable means that organizations in the broadcast and streaming sector can play a significant role in the collective drive toward reduced carbon emissions, 帮助减轻气候变化带来的风险.
[编者注:这是来自 Ateme. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]
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