In Broadcast - December 2014 - 28

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 38 - DECEMBER 2014

N E W S

InMEDIA

Delivering & Monetising Multiscreen
Services - Now And In The Future
Delivering multiscreen services brings complexities never faced in the video world before...
By Stuart Newton
VP of Corporate Strategy,
IneoQuest

ith different video assets,
protocols,
delivery
infrastructures, encoding,
encryption, locations and the
exponentially growing intricacies
of video-capable devices, there
is a web of complexity that is
incredibly difﬁcult to plan for. Thus,
it is essential to have a strategy
for rolling out multiscreen services.
Fortunately, there are guiding
principles from the past to help
manage multiscreen deployments
today while planning for future
expansion.
Today, consumers want to
watch video whenever they want,
wherever they are, and on whichever
device they choose to use. The
trend of devices being used also
varies dramatically throughout
the day. As a result, the delivery
network is shifting and creating a
number of challenges that soon
become obvious:
* There is no complete visibility into
the video services - many parts
of the delivery infrastructure are
provided by different companies;
* There are many uncorrelated data
sources, which will use their own
formats for data presentation and
database access;
* Lots of technological change:
adaptive streaming, content
delivery networks, protocols,
cloud methodologies, 4K/HEVC,
etc;
* The lack of control and visibility
is fuelling churn-management
issues, as major issues can't
be resolved quickly, and
abandonment trends are hard to
diagnose;
* The lack of behavioural visibility
restricts monetisation potential
through the inability to accurately
target new services and
advertising.
The net result of all this is a repeat
of many of the issues that created
upset customers and internal ﬁnger
pointing in the early days of video
over IP. However, the problem is
severely compounded today due to
the infrastructure segments being
owned by separate companies, the
move to adaptive streaming with

multiple protocols and increased
network load, and the enormous
increase in uncontrolled end
devices. It is therefore essential to
get this under control and build a
solid foundation before additional
technology steps complicate the
issue further.
Diagram 1 shows a broader view
of the delivery infrastructure today
with the different networks showing
possible paths for the video. The
green arrows indicate recommended
operational monitoring points in
the end-to-end chain to check for
video or protocol consistency. The
purple arrows indicate the ability
to collect behavioural analytics for
usage analysis (e.g. which video,
when, where, on which kind of
network/device/OS).
The operational analytics provide
a method of pinpointing where the
video is going wrong in the endto-end chain, and the behavioural
analytics provide additional
monetisation intelligence for better
targeting of services and advertising.
If the two are combined, then we
start to enable more advanced
churn management through
abandonment analysis by crossreferencing behavioural analytics
to operational analytics.
In multiscreen deployments,
depending on the infrastructure, it
is possible to derive behavioural
analytics from several points in
the network. In the above diagram,
the behavioural analytics can be
obtained by monitoring on the
network side at the caching nodes,
or further downstream, such
as the ingress to a mobile core
or Wi-Fi cloud.
This is because the full unicast
adaptive sessions are only visible
after the last caching point in the
network. The behavioural analytics
can also be obtained by monitoring
at the end device player, whether a
tablet, smart TV/STB, smartphone,
games console, or another device,
which can provide additional
information from the player that may
be useful e.g. decoding problems.
Monitoring intra-CDN can provide
operational analytics for intra-CDN

Diagram 1: Operational and behavioural aspects of video delivery
infrastructure analytics

issues, but will only see the requests
for video that the caches do not
already possess.
Having the ability to combine
the independent network and
device data in real-time into a
uniﬁed analytics system allows the
operations and big data teams to
focus on using KPI information for
service assurance and monetisation,
rather than trying to understand
the data in the first place. The
data can then be combined into
simpliﬁed, actionable analytics for
rapid response to customer issues.
This creates improved satisfaction,
generating more viewers and
more revenue (via pay per view
or advertising). The analytics also
allow for better tuning of the content
and loading on the networks so
bandwidth isn't wasted and peak
loading can be more accurately
predicted and controlled.
By combining operational and
behavioural analytics, Video Service
Providers (VSPs) have a complete
view into network and subscriber
behaviour, providing a clear picture
of exactly what's happening within
their networks. In making this
correlation, VSPs can identify
opportunities for monetising their
video services.
There are several pragmatic
steps that can be taken to deliver
and monetise multiscreen video
services, including:
Assure the video quality and
understand your subscribers - video

should be monitored at all locations
necessary to ensure delivery;
Optimise the content and
delivery - leverage operational and
behavioural analytics to tune the
content delivery and infrastructure to
cater for different devices and peak
loading. Build a solid foundation
ready for an increase in subscribers,
and prepare for additional change
through technology advances;
Personalise and grow your
returns - leverage behavioural
data and abandonment rates for
content and advertising to ﬁne-tune
recommendations and services,
and to generate more content
from advertising.
Many of these steps are possible
and will help fine tune services
and advertising for subscribers.
By learning from the past and
leveraging these methodologies,
a solid foundation can be built for
future multiscreen services and to
prepare for the volume of video that
is predicted to consume the mobile
infrastructure.

Diagram 2: Video analytics overview

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In Broadcast - December 2014

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