About the session
Recently, much hype and excitement has surrounded over-the-top (OTT) television delivery, but few are aware that the reliable HTTP/TCP transmission method used for OTT completely destroys the fundamental understanding and practices for managing delivery quality. From the days of analogue television to today's digital transmission standards, reception impairments have always been all about "losing something": you lost signal, lost synchronization or lost packets. It is overwhelming to lose packets that cause the bulk of all problems in today's MPEG systems - whether IPTV, DVB-S, DVB-T etc. Simply put, reliable TCP connections don't lose packets. If a packet is lost, a re-transmission request is made and the packet is re-sent. Therefore, reliably delivering TV content to the next generation of devices (iPhones, iPads, etc) requires a new toolset for managing quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE). Delivered over HTTP, traditional methods no longer apply. This presentation introduces the key concepts behind OTT delivery, the old and new technologies required, the challenges of delivery, as well as a new suite of performance metrics that are unique to OTT television.
