Downtime Management in Multi-CDN Steering Systems - $15
Date: March 21, 2025Topics: 2025 BEITC Proceedings, Cybersecurity for BroadcastersManaging CDN failures in multi-CDN streaming environments requires a careful balance between maintaining Quality of Experience (QoE) and ensuring timely detection of CDN recovery. Traditional methods rely on external probes or client-based monitoring, both of which have limitations in accuracy or feasibility. This paper explores an alternative approach that strategically assigns a small subset of users to a failing CDN while dynamically adjusting their Time-To-Live (TTL) based on buffer length information. By leveraging buffer-aware content steering, the system ensures that only users with sufficient buffer capacity are temporarily assigned to the faulty CDN, minimizing rebuffering events while maintaining continuous monitoring of the CDN’s recovery status.
Through simulations, we evaluate the trade-offs between different user assignment strategies and demonstrate that a Rotating Sacrifice with Buffer-Based TTL approach provides an effective balance. This method achieves rapid recovery detection, typically within seconds, while keeping QoE degradation at levels comparable to a baseline approach where no monitoring is performed. The findings highlight the benefits of incorporating buffer length data into the content steering process, leading to a fairer and more efficient multi-CDN orchestration. We advocate for the inclusion of buffer-level reporting as a standard parameter in content steering systems to improve resilience and service continuity in large-scale streaming operations.
Gwendal Simon | Synamedia | Rennes, France
Drone Measurements Validate the Accuracy of Simulation for FM Pattern Verification - $15
Date: April 3, 2024Topics: 2024 BEITC Proceedings, Radio TopicsAn extensive amount of experience has been gained in both drone measurement techniques of television broadcast antennas and data analysis using electromagnetic simulation. Through comparison, drone measurements and simulation predictions have time and time again validated that the techniques provide accurate measurements and predictions at UHF and VHF frequencies. Now that the FCC television channel Repack has passed, extending what has been learned to the FM market will provide new opportunities for FM broadcasters. Understanding the limitations of “old school” FM pattern range measurements and the power of computer simulation will be discussed in this paper. It will also include case studies, one of which would be impractical for any far field range and can only be realized using simulation and validation using drone-based measurements.
John Schadler | Dielectric LLC | Raymond, Maine, United States
Jason Schreiber | Sixarms | Gold Coast, Australia
Dynamic Ad Insertion through [Data Distribution as a Service System (DDaaS) – MMT Protocol – Broadcast Application] without Internet connection - $15
Date: April 3, 2024Topics: 2024 BEITC Proceedings, Applications of ATSC 3.0 TechnologyOver-the-Air (OTA) advertising lacks features provided by its Over-the-Top (OTT) counterpart due to the one-way nature of OTA advertising. Introducing the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 standard and its approach to broadcasting information utilizing the Internet Protocol (IP) narrows the gap between the two environments. While there are similarities in the mechanisms to create regionally addressable advertisements through OTT and OTA (utilizing the ATSC 3.0 standard), they are not identical, primarily due to the latter being a one-way broadcasting system. This paper introduces two potential solutions to provide targeted advertising through the timely insertion of advertisements into live TV programs. We also review a Data Distribution as a Service (DDaaS) platform and the ATSC 3.0 MPEG Media Transport (MMT) protocol, which are integral to making these solutions feasible.
Sangsu Kim | One Media Technologies | Hunt Valley, Md., United States
Niakam Kazemi | Sinclair Broadcast Group | Hunt Valley, Md., United States
Easy Authentication for a Seamless TV Everywhere Experience - $15
Date: April 26, 2020Topics: 2020 BEITC Proceedings, Optimizing the OTT User ExperienceThe promise of TV Everywhere (TVE) is simple: enable subscribers to watch all their pay-TV content anytime, anywhere and on any device without having to log-in repeatedly. However, to deliver on that promise to subscribers, content providers must work with video service operators in a certain way.
The myriad of proprietary content provider-operator relationships makes it hard to achieve a friction-free user experience due to the need to entitle subscribers repeatedly. Users don?t want to be forced to log-in multiple times to watch their favorite content, whether at home or on the go. This is becoming increasingly crucial since the growth in content consumption is in time-shifted mode and on devices other than the fixed family room TV. Consumers will abandon an operator, resulting in costly churn, if the content they already pay for cannot be easily enjoyed wherever they are.
This session will suggest how a common authentication system can reduce friction within the content distribution workflow and ultimately enable TVE services with an ease that consumers want and expect, making the subscriber value proposition ?stickier? while reducing churn.
Steve Oetegenn | Verimatrix | San Diego, CA, United States
Elastic Frame Protocol: An Open-Source Alternative to MPEG-2 TS - $15
Date: April 14, 2023Topics: 2023 BEITC Proceedings, Media WorkflowThis paper looks at the use of framing and multiplexing protocols in broadcast media. In it, we identify several inefficiencies that have arisen from using MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) in some areas of modern IP-based media transport and discuss how the new open-source Elastic Frame Protocol (EFP) attempts to avoid these issues. Areas discussed include protocol overhead, timeline and time stamps, error detection and recovery, (de)multiplexing, complex transport architectures and flexibility. MPEG-2 TS has the advantage of being almost universally supported in broadcast media transport. But we found that EFP provided significantly lower overhead, 64-bit timestamps and much improved possibilities to detect packet loss and correct packets that are delivered out of order.
Mikael Wånggren | Agile Content S.A. | Stockholm, Sweden
