Synamedia Saves Operators Up To 50% Of OTT Costs With Streaming Aware Machine-Learning Capabilities

Posted by Synamedia

Synamedia, the world’s largest independent video software provider, today announced new automation capabilities for its Virtual Digital Content Manager (DCM) with Smart Rate Control that will save operators up to 50% of bandwidth and storage costs.  Using machine-learning (ML) and Stream Video Quality™, Synamedia’s patented lightweight and real-time quality metric technology, the solution automatically scales based on bandwidth requirements to minimize costs while providing consistently high video quality and without impacting the encoding computational complexity. It will debut at The 2019 NAB Show in Synamedia’s booth, #SU10125.

This new video processing technology automates the time-consuming activity of setting the quality level and cap bitrate by leveraging ML techniques.  It can operate on the individual bitrate profile level, thus does not assume that two channels behave the same nor that the content of a channel is equally complex over the course of time, thereby providing greater flexibility and scale capabilities.  

Currently, standard Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) solutions leverage output profiles that are set to constant bit rates with varying picture quality. This can often result in more bandwidth usage than is required due to varying quality level targets, such as switching from a high impact football game to a more static interview.  Synamedia’s Virtual DCM with Smart Rate Control and Automation scales as needed according to bandwidth requirements, minimizing distribution and storage costs while ensuring that the expected high-quality viewer experience will not be compromised.

Operators looking to deploy on a large scale quickly benefit from Synamedia’s automation capabilities because the need for trial and error testing is eliminated. This is particularly important when distributing sports content, which can be inherently complex to encode due to the many movement variations that would traditionally require individual encoding settings. Synamedia’s Virtual DCM with Smart Rate Control and Automation sets target quality levels and bitrate caps per the ABR bitrate profile for each channel in a network. It also automatically makes adjustments when needed, thus eliminating deployment time, increasing bitrate efficiency, and uncovering new routes to cost savings.  It also supports both H.264 and H.265 coding and is future-proofed for future codecs.

“Today, competition is fierce, and no one is more keenly aware of that than our customers. They need a competitive edge and they look to us to help them discover one.  Our new Virtual DCM with Smart Rate Control and Automation delivers on that challenge head first,” said Julien Signes, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Video Processing at Synamedia. “Operators tell us that our new automation capabilities are a first in the industry and can open up efficiency and scalability possibilities like never before. This is one of the many ways we help them win and keep viewers.”―BCS Bureau