Video delivery technology is the chain of software between a studio and a viewer's screen. It compresses the video, plays out channels, delivers the video from servers near each viewer, inserts ads, protects the video from piracy and measures the quality of every stream. Most streaming services and broadcasters buy these pieces from specialist companies, rather than build them.
Consider what happens when someone presses play on a new film. The film starts within a second or two. If the network slows down, the picture turns blurry for a moment, then sharp again, but it does not stop. Six kinds of product make this possible.
Video encoding and transcoding comes first. Raw video is enormous, so an encoder compresses it, using a video codec. It also makes several copies of the same video at different qualities. The copies are then stored on servers in many cities by a content delivery network (CDN), so that each viewer receives the video from somewhere nearby.
The video player for apps sits at the other end, inside the viewer's app. It switches between the copies as the network speeds up or slows down. This is called adaptive bitrate streaming, and it is why the picture blurs instead of stopping.
Server-side ad insertion (SSAI) places ads into the stream on the server. So two people watching the same show can see different ads. Video DRM and forensic watermarking uses encryption so that only paying viewers' devices can play the video. It also hides an invisible mark in each copy, which shows whose copy was pirated. Video quality of experience (QoE) analytics measures every stream as it is watched, and shows where viewers are waiting or the picture is freezing.
Some buyers do not want to assemble six products. A white-label streaming platform is a complete, ready-made streaming service that a broadcaster or a coaching company puts its own name on.
TV channels use part of the same chain. A channel's schedule of programmes and ads is played out around the clock by cloud playout software. Many free channels on smart TVs run this way. The buyers of all this technology are streaming services, TV broadcasters, pay-TV operators and cinema chains. Several of the leading companies in this field were founded in India.