Media Servers: How Customers and Consumers Access Online Video
The online video future is here, and soon many households will stream all of their video over the internet. How are media servers making that content accessible to viewers? At the recent Streaming Forum conference in London, Chris Knowlton, vice president and streaming industry evangelist for Wowza, explained the popularity of the network DVR (NDVR).
"I think from our customer base it's used. It is a smaller number. It's something that seems to be growing especially as folks try and offer more premium experiences and engaging experiences that allow people to interact and have that great experience that you're used to maybe with a TiVo or some other kind of NDVR device," Knowlton said. "It's one of those areas that seems to be growing rather rapidly as far as the popularity of the feature."
As media streaming has become more popular, Wowza has had to become accessible to a wider and less technical user base.
"For many years Wowza was mostly accessed through XML configuration or command line or API. Very limited UI capabilities," Knowlton explained. "We've put on, finally, a full web-based admin console that allows you to control Wowza from any device, any HTTP browser, so you can now control Wowza from your iPhone or your desktop. You don't have to actually remote into the machine. You can just go to a URL. That's certainly simplified things and made it more accessible for a lot of folks who are used to a graphical user interface and prefer that style of interaction."
For more on media servers, watch the discussion below.
Media Servers: Who Needs Them?
As DASH and other HTTP-based options proliferate, do you really need a media server? Our panellists explore this in several key areas: a move beyond playlists towards stitching ads into primary content, integration of encoders and server software together, ownership of the whole workflow from acquisition to delivery, and more.
Tim Siglin, Co-Founder, Braintrust Digital
Jaron Viëtor, Founder & CTO, DDVTech
Arjen Wagenaar, CTO, Unified Streaming
Xavier Pouyat, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
Chris Knowlton, Vice President and Streaming Industry Evangelist, Wowza Media Systems
Related Articles
How do these three media servers differ in iOS delivery, MPEG DASH, DRM, and other hot button issues? A Streaming Media Europe presentation had the answers.
17 Jan 2013
Modifications to the server also include HTTP origin delivery of ABR content into caching networks
12 Nov 2012
Approaching 1,500 licensees, the Wowza Media Server has become a bona fide competitor to Flash Media Server by offering solid performance at a reduced price.
Tues., July 10, by Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen
10 Jul 2007