UnReal Video Hosting

MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DISTRIBUTION ON THE WEB

Digital media has delivered new ways for consumers to experience video and audio content as part of the overall Web experience. With more than one billion people online and broadband Internet access quickly becoming a reality in U.S. and international markets, enjoying Web content is becoming much faster and easier with improvements in broadband digital media technology. Among online households, 42 percent are now equipped for broadband access, growing at a rate twice as fast in the year prior to March 2006 than in the same time frame from 2004 to 2005. This will jump to 58 percent in 2006, increasing the appeal of home Internet access to digital media. (For more information, see References, "Global Market Forecast for Internet Usage and Commerce.")

But as consumer expectations for digital media rise, the entertainment industry is challenged with finding ways to deliver content on the Web that is high quality, secure, and supports their business models.

Windows Media technologies and the upcoming rich media client platform with Silverlight (formerly known as code name "WPF/E") bring great improvements to the challenges of delivering content on the Web. Windows Media improved Web-based digital media playback experiences with improved audio and video quality, including surround sound, reduced or eliminated buffering, and upgrades to the industry’s leading media player, while Silverlight enables simplified delivery of cross-platform, cross-browser rich audio and video experiences. The platform also boosts the media and entertainment industry’s bottom line by offering more efficient codecs that save on bandwidth costs, better advertising model support, and several digital rights management (DRM) enhancements for content security. It has the additional value of putting content providers back in control of their media platform. Content providers can "own" their content with their choice of branding and interactive elements in the player, and by providing more control over content programming and delivery through enhancements in playlists, advertising insertion, and the ability to monitor content delivery.

This paper will explain how Windows Media and Silverlight enable media and entertainment industry content providers to improve content distribution on the Web.

The Challenges

Several challenges lie ahead for content distribution on the Web, including:

• Quality. To date, most people have experienced "buffering" delays while accessing streaming media content on the Web. Most consumers do not have the time or the patience to wait through buffering delays for the audio and video streams to play, or they lose interest while waiting and go somewhere else on the Web to get what they are looking for. The quality of the video and audio provided on the Web is also far below the standard of broadcast television—blocky video and tinny audio can work for short, free clips, but is too fatiguing for the consumer when viewing long-form content, and much harder to get consumers to directly pay for. Consumer expectations are set by their experience when watching TV—both in the video and audio quality and in the quality of the delivery.
• Security. Media and entertainment content providers must have assurances that their content will be protected and secure according to their business models. At the same time, consumers want easy and convenient access to entertainment content on the Web.
• Reach. Similar to the slow start that the cable TV industry experienced, broadband is a slow-but-growing market with strong future forecasts. By 1970, cable was in only 6.7 percent of TV households. In 1975, when HBO sent down signals by satellite, cable TV entered a new era, and by 1990, penetration was up to 56.4 percent. (For more information, see References, "Television Bureau of Advertising Online.") Reach today also means including support for a number of platforms to reach targeted audiences.
• Costs. Content delivery on a large scale requires great bandwidth throughput and storage to maintain the content. Production costs associated with digital media commerce include content creation, delivery, storage, and hosting. For digital media, commerce costs include transaction processing and licensing, plus tracking and reporting.

The Solution

The Windows Media platform was designed with these challenges in mind. Features were built to improve quality while cutting costs and integrated DRM will enable content providers to improve existing digital media monetization strategies and develop new ones.

• Improved Playback Experience for the User. Windows Media provides unmatched audio and video quality at any bit rate. From the optimized dial-up experience to home theater-like experiences for broadband and beyond. Features such as Fast Streaming eliminate or reduce buffering and delays. Consumers have an experience with their digital media similar to what they’re used to getting when watching movies or listening to music at home.
• Content Security. The platform improves on Windows Media digital rights management (DRM) with additional support for live DRM and additional DRM support on devices.
• Cost Reduction. Windows Media technologies reduce costs for content providers in two ways:
  • Better Server Scalability. Windows Media 9 Series serves at least twice the concurrent streams per server as its predecessor by optimizing content delivery based on the bandwidth available on the network at any given time. This significantly reduces server bandwidth costs.
  • New and Improved Codecs. Microsoft has delivered continuous improvement with the Windows Media Video and Windows Media Audio codecs, with 15 to 50 percent efficiency gains release-to-release depending on bit rate, while maintaining backward compatibility for deployed players. The Windows Media Video 9 codec delivers great quality from mobile to Web to IPTV, to HD. In addition, the Windows Media Video 9 codec has recently been standardized by SMPTE as VC-1, and is being used outside of Windows Media in such diverse technologies as HD DVD, Blu-ray, and DVB-H. Windows Media and VC-1 have broad support from developers of leading content creation and workflow tools along with chipset manufacturers, resulting in an end-to-end ecosystem of support.
• Bringing Digital Media to a Wider Audience. More efficient delivery and playback of digital media, combined with the increasing popularity of the secure Windows Media Player (with more than 700 million instances already delivered worldwide) is bringing digital media to the mainstream. This, plus a rapidly growing broadband subscriber base, means that content providers can potentially reach the volume of users that many of their digital media business models require.

The Windows Media Platform

What exactly are Windows Media technologies? The Windows Media platform provides a set of components for creating, hosting, securing, and delivering digital media (audio and video) for playback over a computer network, such as the Internet or a corporate intranet, or in theaters and on home entertainment systems that use physical formats, such as CDs and DVDs. The Windows Media platform is available as part of the Microsoft Windows operating system, including Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003.

Windows Media technologies are also broadly supported outside of the Windows ecosystem, including licensed playback solutions for Mac and Palm, and many stand-alone devices with integrated Windows Media technologies.

The Windows Media platform supports a wide range of business models and custom solutions for rich digital media content and services. It is a complete digital media platform that is designed so that each component works well separately, but when deployed together on the Windows XP and Windows Vista client operating systems with Windows Server 2003 operating systems, they deliver the best digital media experience for users and the greatest benefits to content providers.

Windows Media architecture follows a simple formula for the creation, distribution, and playback of digital media. The diagram below provides a high-level architecture overview of how customers can stream both live content and on-demand content on the Internet and intranets using the Windows Media technologies:

To help you understand how Windows Media supports a wide range of business models and custom solutions for rich digital media content and services, this section details how the release enables home theater experiences, delivers secure content, reduces costs, provides for more advertising support, and allows content providers to reach a wider audience.

Enabling Rich Media Experiences

Consumers’ expectations for their digital media experiences have moved beyond wanting basic audio and video; consumers now want a new level of audio and video to match the high-quality home theater and audio systems they have in their living rooms. This demand has increased as the audio hardware associated with PCs continues to improve; for example, new surround sound speakers are appearing on computer desktops, and Windows Media Center experiences can be easily "extended" to the living room with the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system.

Windows Media technologies enable content providers to meet these expectations and to deliver:

• Great Audio Quality at Any Bit Rate. Correct codecs provide for the different audio requirements of content providers. With compression improvements across the board, full discrete 5.1 surround sound can be delivered at only 128 kilobits per second (Kbps), and 24-bit audio, Windows Media delivers a voice codec that provides mixed-mode voice and music, enabling high-quality audio for typical Internet radio content at very low bit rates. In addition, Windows Media 9 Series offers variable bit-rate codecs that optimize bit rate throughout the file to put the bits right where they’re needed, decreasing Windows Media Audio 9 and Windows Media Audio 9 Professional file sizes even further.
• Great Video Quality at Any Bit Rate. At launch, Windows Media Video 9 delivered a 15 to 50 percent improvement over Windows Media Video 8, and has provided two major backward compatible improvements since then. Today, a Windows Media Video 9 file has up to three times the compression rate of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. This improvement, along with support for the standards-based VC-1 codec, allows content providers to deliver better-quality video over the Internet reliably and cost-effectively to more households than with other technologies. For broadband users, this means being able to experience full-screen, high-quality video streamed or downloaded from the Internet in less time than ever before.
• Great Content Authoring Tools and Services. Windows Media customers enjoy a broad ecosystem of professional tools and services for the encoding, enhancement, and publishing of video. For live events and general encoding, Windows Media Encoder is available as a powerful and freely downloadable tool for delivering live and advanced on-demand content. With the announcement of Microsoft Expression® Media, customers have a solution for the import, enhancement, and publishing of Web-optimized video with Silverlight and the power to handle batch encoding server-side. There are also a wide variety of third-party tools and services build on Windows Media components that enhance solutions that are targeted at enterprises and other vertical markets.
• ReducedBuffering Delays. Windows Media effectively eliminates buffering time and reduces the likelihood of an interruption in play due to network conditions, whether a user is playing a single piece of content or switching seamlessly between on-demand clips and broadcast streaming channels. Content providers have more control of this experience through their servers, so they are able to control their bandwidth costs.
• Better Playback Experience. Because Windows Media technologies take the media-rich capabilities in Windows XP and Windows Vista to a whole new level, users will enjoy the best playback experience for local or streamed audio and video. With new "Instant-On, Always-On" streaming support, it also delivers the best streaming experience for Windows and the Web. Content delivery to any content provider’s customer base will be unmatched through the Windows Media Player. For browser-based content, Silverlight offers high resolution (vector-based) graphics and overlays such as titles, logos and effects, seamlessly integrated with the video experience.

Delivering Secure Content

The need for strong digital rights management (DRM) technology has increased due to one of the hottest trends on the Internet: downloading licensed—and in some cases, unlicensed—audio and video content. If left unprotected, this digital media can be easily copied and distributed. Consequently, content providers face serious challenges in protecting their rights over this digital media.

With Windows Media Rights Manager, content providers can use license registration and media file encryption to protect their digital media rights. Windows Media Rights Manager 9 introduces enhancements to digital rights management solutions.

The Windows Media DRM solution is also uniquely available to content creators, who can choose between purchasing their own DRM solution, or outsourcing DRM to a third party. Content companies get to choose and deliver their own business models.

Live DRM

Existing audio and video files aren’t the only material that can be sensitive and proprietary. Live event broadcasts can contain information that needs to be protected from unauthorized viewing or copying.

Secure content distribution for either live or on-demand streamed audio and/or video content is possible through Windows Media Encoder. During a live event, content that is being captured from a device such as a digital video camera attached to a computer can be protected "on the fly." This also works for live broadcasts of pre-encoded content; an encoder can apply DRM during a real-time broadcast of a file. In either case, the content goes to precisely the audience that the content provider intended.

Windows Media Encoder includes complete integrated support for other license server providers, allowing content authors to easily define rights and other properties for their content.

Device DRM

This new platform brings the user closer to the vision of playing DRM-protected content on any device, anywhere, anytime. Devices that use Windows Media Rights Manager can be used by consumers to securely transfer files from their PC or the Internet. Once the content is on the device, the device follows the license to enable the user to play the content for a given number of times or for a certain length of time—whatever business rules that the content provider of that content has established.

This feature of the series is a small and fast application that can run on any type of chip. It may be ported to any platform to enable the different devices of the digital media device network. Windows Media DRM offers content owners and consumer electronics manufacturers a low cost and efficient solution to DRM-protected devices. Silverlight also supports DRM as a part of the platform, starting with content protection that meets the majority of business needs for customers in its first release.

Reducing Costs

Windows Media 9 delivers a substantially lower bit-rate at the same quality, compared to competing technologies. This means that content providers can significantly reduce costs through increased server power and lower bandwidth costs, while providing high-quality audio and video with significantly reduced bit rates and file sizes.

Windows Media Services 9 Series is one of the components that is a major factor in overall cost reduction for content providers. This is a feature of Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, and Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition, as well as the upcoming Microsoft Windows Server® Code Name "Longhorn" operating system that is slated for release in 2007. Windows Media Services combines unparalleled power, security, and intelligence to break through the barriers to bringing digital media mainstream in the enterprise and on the Internet.

Windows Media Services introduces new server capabilities that help in overall cost reduction and provide revenue opportunity, including:

• Ease of Administration. With familiar Microsoft Management Console (MMC) administration and flexible HTTP administration, Windows Media Services 9 Series allows consumers to administer servers from any device with a Web browser.
• Scenario-Based Wizards and Help. User-friendly features make it easy for non-streaming experts to get started doing powerful and advanced streaming tasks.

In addition, because the Windows Media Viewer 9 Professional codec delivers approximately three times the compression efficiency of MPEG-2, dramatic improvements can be made in video quality for download-and-play or for delivery using physical media, such as CDs or DVDs. This means that content delivery quality and efficiency greatly increase while costs essentially remain the same.

Improving Advertising and Branding Support

Windows Media delivers more robust advertising support and real-time server-side playlist programming functionality, which gives content providers the ability to increase their advertising revenue. Improvements include:

• No Buffering Ads. With Fast Streaming, users don’t have to wait through a buffering ad and then wait again while the content buffers.
• Cross-platform Web playback with Silverlight. Available for deployment in the first half of 2007, the new Silverlight browser plug-in integrates rich animation, graphics, and dynamically resizable audio/video playback in a Web page. Programmable using standards-based AJAX, rich media experiences and players based on Silverlight are capable of running cross- platform (Windows and Mac) and cross-browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) using a lightweight download. Silverlight is available for evaluation as a customer technology preview on the Silverlight Web site and will be a freely-available download in final release. Silverlight enables many new models of integrated advertising with video, including rich media advertising updated on the fly, custom targeting each viewer, and integrated "call to action" options while the video is playing.
• Ad Logging and Measurement. Broadcasters must be able to measure usage to fine-tune the effectiveness of their ads and to provide reporting back to advertisers. The new platform provides the advanced usage reporting that is necessary to ensure broadcasters’ ability to accurately and effectively track and report on advertisement reach.
• Server-side Playlists. Playlists provide an entirely new level of dynamic "on-the-fly," personalized, and reliable content programming.

• In-Stream Ad Types with Seamless Transitions. Support for new types of ads in a streaming playlist include Macromedia Flash, JPG, GIF, and Animated GIF. Support for these new types enables content providers to repurpose existing ad inventory from the Web to use in streaming playlists. In addition, transitions between items in a streaming playlist are now seamless—even between different types—creating a more TV-like experience.
• HTML View in Windows Media Player. Content providers now have a way to provide an enhanced playback experience for their content right in the Windows Media Player: They can show HTML in the "Now Playing" section of the player while their content plays. This capability includes HTML for video, so for both audio and video content, contextual links and advertising can be integrated into the Player while content plays. This gives content providers a much greater opportunity to reach their users, while users get to enjoy premium content in the Windows Media Player without needing to deal with a separate Web browser.

Reaching Wider Audiences

There are a number of ways Windows Media technologies help content providers reach broader audiences and bring digital media into the mainstream.

Broad Player Adoption with Windows Media Player

More than 700 million copies of rights-capable instances of Windows Media Player have been distributed to date, so content owners are ensured of broad reach for their content and services. Each of these instances supports Windows Media digital rights management (DRM), providing a path for secure content delivery to the consumer.

Two Embedded Player Options

In addition to the widespread popularity of Windows Media Player, many content providers currently use the Windows Media Player control in a Web page to create a streaming media experience for their users. In some cases where cross-platform playback support is needed, a new Silverlight client may be used in the near future.

• Cross-platform Web playback with Silverlight. Available for deployment in the first half of 2007, the new Silverlight browser plug-in integrates rich animation, graphics, and dynamically resizable audio/video playback in a Web page. Capable of running cross- platform (Windows and Mac) and cross-browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) in a lightweight download, Silverlight supports Windows Media and VC-1 codec-based content, streamed or progressively downloaded. For more information, see the Silverlight Web site.
• Rich Windows-based embedding with Windows Media Player control. Control that is delivered with Windows Media Player is improved with support for additional environments, including Firefox and Netscape. This allows content providers to reach the greatest number of users with the new platform features. The control also has additional features, such as an innovative new "Time Compression" feature that makes it possible for content to be played back slower or faster than real time without any pitch-shifting effect, allowing users to better absorb content—a particularly useful tool when studying distance learning material or corporate presentations. The image below shows how this feature appears to the user within Windows Media Player 11.

Great Quality with Less Bandwidth

Content providers can now reach a wider audience through the ability to deliver high-quality content to not only broadband, but also narrow-band users, and still provide a great audio and video experience. For example, content providers who deliver digital media content at 500 kilobits per second (Kbps) can now deliver that content at a far smaller bit rate—even 50 percent less—without compromising quality. This means that users with only 250 Kbps connections can now access content that previously they could not because of bandwidth contraints.

Video Frame Smoothing is a key feature that gives low bit-rate users smoother video playback. This feature makes low frame-rate video content smoother by "interpolating" the missing frames and smoothing out the motion in the video, dramatically improving quality without any increase in the video bit rate. Content providers also can provide an entire customized experience to their audience with the new skins and extensibility models in the Windows Media Player 9 Series.

Growing Device Support

Today, more than 500 devices use Windows Media technologies for compression, distribution, and playback of digital media. The ability for consumers to experience media and entertainment content with these devices is growing at an exponential rate.

Silverlight is also being developed to deliver interactive audio and video experiences for devices, to be made available at a later date. Furthermore, leading DVD format chip manufacturers, including Cirrus Logic Inc., ESS Technology Inc., LSI Logic Corporation, STMicro Electronics, and Zoran Corporation have licensed Windows Media technologies. DVD player manufacturers that have announced support for Windows Media include Panasonic, Apex Digital Inc., Shinco (Jiangsu Shinco Electronics Group Company Ltd.), and Toshiba Corporation. In addition, VC-1 has been selected as a mandatory codec in both of the leading next-generation high-definition optical disc specifications: HD DVD (DVD-Forum) and Blu-Ray (BDA).

Windows Media Content Provider Scenario

This section details a scenario that describes a content provider who delivers streaming content.

Stephanie is a senior vice president of new business development for a major sports franchise. Her company has challenged her to build a new online business around their live sporting events and sports radio. Her biggest challenges are keeping costs down, finding flexible options for delivering content that incorporate the company’s business model, and providing customers with the high-quality experiences they have grown to expect from the company’s other media properties.

Stephanie decides that the Windows Media platform will provide the foundation for the new business. The entire platform is integrated, from the content creation tools, to digital rights management, to a world-class player, so she’s confident that deployment will go quickly and smoothly. She’s especially interested in the Faststream capabilities of Windows Media Services 9 Series in the Windows Server operating systems and is eager to try out the Silverlight client for cross-platform playback.

TV-like Quality

Fast Streaming means that users can have "instant gratification"; they click the stream, and it starts playing instantly. There are no more customer service calls because of lengthy buffering! Users can switch back and forth between streams—from golf to baseball to basketball to soccer—with remote-control-like swiftness. And, with new "Instant-On/Always-On" capabilities, viewers can now watch content on the Web just like they watch it on TV, because the "Fast Cache" feature caches enough of the streaming content to ensure that it doesn’t start to rebuffer in the middle of the content or get disconnected. Third, if the worst does happen, and the network momentarily fails, "Fast Reconnect" players automatically re-establish the stream when the network comes back up.

While the benefits of Fast Streaming are obvious, Stephanie was a little worried about what Faststream might do to her bandwidth costs and server performance. She quickly learned that, unlike other streaming technologies, Windows Media technologies put the content provider in control of how much bandwidth to offer for Fast Streaming capabilities and allows the content provider to adjust that bandwidth for optimum server performance.

In evaluating the new audio and video codecs, Stephanie was pleased to find that the new codecs saved her 15 to 50 percent in file size, compared with the previous version, with the highest gains at the higher video bit rates. Stephanie decided they’d take advantage of these improvements in quality by reducing costs on their overall streaming and by offering new, higher-quality files to broadband users, who are able to experience stunning full-screen, high-quality video.

Improved Support for Programming, Revenue Generation, and Customization

With dynamic server-side playlist control, Stephanie’s programming director is able to swap programs in and out of the live radio station without interrupting the stream in progress. Using the old streaming technology, any changes in content would disconnect users from the stream as the server was updated. They would then have to re-engage the stream and start watching all over again. Now, ads, late breaking news, and announcements can all be added "on the fly."

Ad insertion is also improved with the Windows Media platform. Built-in support addresses a wide variety of advertising types, including bumper, trailer, and interstitial ads, and is able to handle many of the ad types that Stephanie’s company is currently serving with their content, including HTML, JPG, and Flash. And with Faststream, there’s no buffering of the streaming ads, so users quickly get to the content they want. Windows Media Services 9 Series also provides the advanced usage reporting necessary to ensure that she can accurately and effectively track and report on advertisement reach.

In addition to revenue from ad insertions, the site now drives pay-per-view revenue from the live sporting event broadcasts. Live sporting events can be secured with live digital rights management protection, ensuring that the content is securely viewed across the Web. Anyone with Windows Media Player can easily get a license and view the event. With more than 700 million secure instances of Windows Media Player delivered today, the company has instant access to a mass viewing audience.

Furthermore, Windows Media allows Stephanie’s developers to create rich HTML to be synchronized with the video and audio content in the Windows Media stream. This provides them with total control to customize the user experience with branding, ads, messaging, dynamic HTML links, and more. The content can be scripted to use this customized playback even on content that is syndicated to other Web sites.

Scalability and Reliability

The new features are great, but Stephanie needs to plan for the increased hits on their servers once they start promoting the new site and services. In server tests, they find that they are able to serve twice as many streams per server as before, using standard off-the-shelf hardware.

The Windows Media platform proved to be a successful end-to-end solution for providing a customized, high-quality customer experience with integrated support for revenue generation, while cutting costs and increasing scalability and reliability.

Conclusion

As more and more users are able to access an evergrowing amount of content, and as users' expectations for audio and video quality run higher, content providers in the media and entertainment industry are finding that using a powerful, extremely flexible and economical digital media platform to deliver that content is mission-critical to their business.

Microsoft's goal with the Windows Media platform is that media and entertainment content providers realize that it is the best solution for overcoming the challenges they face today and that they use it to improve Web-based digital media playback experiences, reduce overall costs, and deliver secure content to a much larger audience. New investments in rich media presentation such as Silverlight will easily take advantage of existing Windows Media infrastructure to deliver cross-platform, cross-browser experiences on the Web today, and devices in the future.