Adaptive Bitrate Streaming Fundamentals

Delivery of television over the Web has become a key technology we all now recognise. From YouTube to the BBC iPlayer most people have used a web site offering such services. However, most people have experienced difficulties and frustrations with early offerings of the technology. To be successful WebTV must have the right content matched with careful encoding, simple player technology and good delivery network design.

Internet video is hot. User generated content, live streams, WebTV, IPTV, radio and even High Definition content are growing in popularity. For network owners, content is a challenge but so too is the matching of delivery network design to customer demand. Delivery of video and television to mobile devices is a key sector of the market.  These devices can connect through WiFi, mobile 3G/4G networks, in-house wired networks with hotels or via domestic/business carrier access networks. A very wide range of networks speed and delays are possible. The ability to deliver adaptive bit rate streaming is therefore vital.

Designers of consumer products such as digital TVs and set top boxes need to understand the principles of delivering video and television through the wide variety of networks using TCP and UDP protocols. It is important to understand how throughput varies across these network options as well as the impact of packet loss and variation in network delay.

This hands-on course will allow attendees to explore the limitations of the protocols used to carry Video over HTTP, configure adaptive bitrate servers, encoding streams for adaptive delivery and constructing manifest files.

Who should attend this course:

This course is intended for engineers, service designers, developers and systems engineers involved in the development of WebTV products and services. Hands-on exercises will use Windows based PCs or laptops connected to in-class Internet Simulators to test performance under controlled fault conditions. Attendees will be given an opportunity to connect their own iPAD, Android and iPhone devices to the in-class WiFi service to experience the services that they build on real devices.