Challenge

Astro is a leading integrated consumer media entertainment group in Malaysia and Southeast Asia with operations in Pay-TV and Digital Media. With a customer base of 3.5 million residential customers, approximately 52% penetration of Malaysian TV households, Astro offers 170 TV channels, delivered via satellite TV, IPTV and OTT platforms. Astro provides HD, 3D, PVR, VOD and Online Video services through Astro B.yond and Astro On-The-Go. Fulfilling its promise to bridge the digital divide for all of Malaysia, Astro offers NJOI as an entry-level DTH satellite TV service and is the country’s first non-subscription based satellite TV. Astro was awarded “2012 Brand of the Year” by Malaysia’s Putra Brand Awards for innovation, quality and corporate social responsibilities.

As Astro looked to stream the 2010 FIFA World Cup, they chose Conviva for up to date metrics on audience engagement and video playback performance across all devices. As a large network in Malaysia, Astro required QoE video performance data to ensure their sizable audience was able to watch their favorite VOD content with out issues or errors. In addition, Astro desired deeper intelligence into audience behavior, content preferences and viewing habits.

Solution

Conviva provided Insights for real-time metrics for online content, across multi-device platforms. With Insights, they have an in-depth view into playback performance throughout their end-to-end video delivery chain including the CDN, ISP and video player, across multiple devices, geographies and affiliates. Conviva’s real-time alerting enables Astro to fix the root cause of any video delivery issues. Insights also captures audience reach and engagement metrics to help editorial, research and sales make intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics.

Result

Astro’s partnership with Conviva delivered a successful, quality live stream of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and continues to elevate their streaming services today. Astro’s technical operations team continues to rely on Conviva’s Insights and Subscriber Insights module to understand audience behavior and video performance. Astro is able to view their audience across Astro B.yond and Astro On-The-Go platforms, on multi-devices, with intelligence as to how their audience is engaging with content. Conviva’s real-time alerts fire when an error is detected within the video ecosystem. Astro‘s team leverages this intelligence for rapid decisioning to enhance the user experience.

"We have a reputation to maintain with our consumers, so we couldn’t risk the occurrence of poor online video while streaming the 2010 FIFA World Cup. With Conviva, our entire online audience was able to enjoy the best possible viewing experience during the matches without fail.”
-- Paul Dale, CTO Astro

Challenge

Bloomberg is the leading provider of financial software tools including a trading platform, analytics, data services, and news to financial companies and organizations worldwide. Bloomberg has a global television network, a radio station, and multiple websites with more than 20 million monthly visitors. The Bloomberg app and website provide a global VOD news service as well as live video content.

Bloomberg’s live and VOD video architecture utilizes both in-house and external video services. Previously, Bloomberg relied heavily on their OVP for a majority of the video architecture components. This legacy architecture was not cost effective and limited Bloomberg’s ability to rapidly deploy features and enable high-quality video simultaneously. Bloomberg prefers to bring their CMS and other video services in-house and ensure quality video delivery while expanding their current features.

Solution

Initially, Conviva delivered a discovery gap analysis and provided an end-to-end solution recommendation to provide the ideal solution for Bloomberg. Conviva’s Expert Services team collaborated in building out its Content Management System, In-House Transcoding, Encoding, Origin Storage, CDN, Protocol and Player. Additionally, to support the partnership, Conviva created customized API’s to power in-house dashboards, supporting the video team from editorial, to ad sales, to research.

Result

As an early adopter in online video, Bloomberg built a deep digital presence. Conviva’s Expert Services Team and real-time analytics were able to drive efficiencies. The team designed an architecture that gave Bloomberg full control of functionality, feature velocity and cost, reducing dependency with any single vendor.

• Enabled Bloomberg to scale its business by volume of VOD content, number of live channels, number of apps, and number of platforms without changing fundamentals of the architecture

• Reduced bitrate profiles from 23 to 14, enabling Bloomberg to deliver quality video at top efficiency

• Powered Bloomberg’s in-house dashboards with real-time data, allowing the entire video team to make smart decisions and improve engagement quickly

• Enabled quality live events, including the 2012 GOP debates, by ensuring no issues in the live feed and viewers are able to consume video in real-time.

"Bloomberg is investing deeply in online video to provide viewers with up to date and up to the minute global news. Conviva enables us to deliver video effectively every day.” 
-- Eric Steinle, Head of Product & Design for Web Products

Challenge

CBC Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. The corporation is a leader in reaching Canadians on new platforms and delivering a comprehensive range of radio, television, Internet and satellite-based services. Deeply connected to regional preferences, CBC Radio-Canada is the only domestic broadcaster to offer diverse regional and cultural perspectives in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages.

With CBC’s plans to live-stream the 2014 Olympics, they need to ensure success with a smooth, quality viewing experience. As important for CBC, is continued growth across their diverse set of content. To achieve this, CBC requires video quality excellence, increased bitrates and lowered buffering, as well as better understanding of their audience for an enhanced viewer experience.

Solution

CBC partners with Conviva for both Insights and Precision to ensure video quality excellence. Insights provides CBC with the most in-depth, real-time view into what each individual viewer is seeing and how content is performing as well as the QOE of their video delivery. While Precision preemptively and automatically adjusts the bitrate and/or the source in midstream to keep the video at the highest quality possible while avoiding buffering or player errors.

Result

Precision takes action to improve the delivery of each and every stream. It is able to preemptively avoid quality degradations and outages, automatically. By mitigating the issue prior to any quality issues occurs, each user is ensured a personalized optimal viewing experience. The end result, CBC enjoys worry-free management of their video delivery and are able to focus on other strategic business initiatives. In addition, CBC integrated Conviva’s analytics inside their control room monitoring user experience 24/7 and displaying statistics on trending content to help editorial and research teams make intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics.

"As CBC looks towards the 2014 Olympics, providing a quality experience online, one that properly reflects the premium content and brand of CBC, is imperative for our success. Real-time visibility and providing exceptional video quality without buffering and stuttering is important to our brand and our viewers – Conviva provides the solution for us.” 
-- Rob Fullerton, Platform Product Manager, CBC

Challenge

Channel 4 is the fourth largest public service television broadcaster in the UK, experiencing tremendous growth, with nine million subscribers. Channel 4 strives to be innovative, experimental and distinctive in their services across television, film and digital media. Programming is available on all digital platforms as well as through traditional analogue transmission. Their portfolio includes E4, More4, Film4, 4Music, channel4.com, and 4oD, Channel 4′s bespoke video-on-demand service.

Real-time, accurate and complete data, with specific alerting capabilities is key for the television brand to troubleshoot issues arising in their online video ecosystem. Channel4 requires visibility to better understand audience behavior, support their 4oD registered and improve the viewing experience.

Solution

Channel 4 utilizes Insights for real-time monitoring of each viewer’s experience. Insights reveals audience reach and engagement metrics, which helps editorial, operations and marketing make intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics. Insights provides data on the quality of experience (QoE) such as buffering, start-up time, and resolution, as well as performance metrics on the CDN, ISP and video player, across multiple devices, geographies and affiliates, along with real-time alerts.

Result

Using Conviva, Channel 4 tracks second by second comprehensive metrics on audience engagement and quality of experience (QoE), enabling smart decisioning in terms of content, editorial, marketing and operations. Insights allows Channel 4 to understand audience behavior, provide actionable intelligence to improve service and provide enhanced customer support. Today, Channel 4 is able to fine-tune every component in their video delivery chain. Real-time alerts notify where in the delivery chain interruptions are occurring providing the ultimate efficiency in making accurate adjustments.

"As one of the few top UK broadcasters, we have a responsibility to provide the best VOD experience for our subscribers. Partnering with Conviva’s expert technology team has helped us tremendously – ensuring full visibility and understanding of our video delivery.”
-- Bob Harris CTO

Challenge

HBO contacted Conviva for a full video optimization solution when the premium cable channel became an early mover in the TV Everywhere initiative. HBO’s focus was to provide subscribers with programs and movies on digital platforms, on the go, and at the highest quality possible through HBO GO®. HBO’s partnership expands several years with Conviva including development of their award winning HBO GO® platform.

As a premium cable brand, HBO wants to ensure it is delivering the highest quality video experience available to meet the demand for HDTV quality on multiple devices. HBO also wants to learn from audience online behavior as they continue international expansion in Central Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Solution

HBO signed a 6-year agreement to leverage Conviva’s video delivery optimization product suite. Conviva monitors each viewer’s experience in real-time with Insights and optimizes each stream with Precision. HBO also leverages Insights to effectively retain cable subscribers wanting to access content across multiple devices, on-the-go. Conviva provides extensive expert services including elevating the design and implementation of HBO’s iOS app and providing guidance on strategies to support international expansion including Latin America. Conviva’s expert team built the multi-CDN origin and drove player design.

Result

HBO GO® utilizes Insights and Precision to protect viewers from experiencing interruptions that result in lost audience and decreased viewer engagement. With Insights, HBO GO® has real-time data on each viewer’s Quality of Experience (QoE) and content performance. HBO GO® uses Precision to switch bitrate and stream-source before the audience experiences any disruption (buffering or stuttering), to optimize each stream. HBO GO® has enjoyed significant success. Its high quality video drives more viewers to the cable network and effectively retains cable subscribers looking to access the content they pay for on multiple devices. In the first week, the HBO GO® app reached a million downloads, and today is offered on every major mobile device. In the first month of the Precision launch, HBO captured a 36% increase in viewer engagement. Their quality continues to rank as “best in class” in the industry. HBO GO® viewers watch 321% longer – without interruption.

"We are at the forefront of the industry, leading the way with a new generation of on-demand entertainment, delivering the quality experience fans have come to expect from HBO day in and day out. Partnering with Conviva, with the audience-centric technology and deep expertise we require, has enabled us to reach astonishing growth for our Platform.”
-- Otto Berkes, EVP Technology & CTO

Challenge

Conviva worked with Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Live Smooth Streaming to provide real-time insight on the experience of online viewers to NBC during the network’s coverage of the Vancouver Winter Games from Vancouver, February 12-28, 2010. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform and cross-device browser plug-in that helps companies design, develop and deliver applications and experiences on the Web. A free download that installs in seconds, Silverlight enables a new class of rich, secure and scalable cross-platform experiences. Smooth Streaming, an IIS Media Services extension, enables adaptive streaming of media to Silverlight clients over HTTP. Smooth Streaming provides a high-quality viewing experience that scales massively on content distribution networks, making true HD 1080p media experiences a reality.

Solution

Result

Challenge

Super Bowl XLVI, New York Giants Vs. New England Patriots, was the first ever to be live streamed. NBCSports.com was honored to host this major event. NBCSports is the sports division of the NBC television network, and it broadcasts a diverse array of programs, including the Olympic Games, the NFL, the NHL, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, and the Triple Crown, among others.

When a live event producer invests to broadcast a widely anticipated event, he needs to know what his viewers are experiencing in real time and how many people are watching each second. Given this was unprecedented, the first live-stream ever online, it was imperative NBCSports had experts monitoring the live stream to ensure the video was delivered without issues. They partnered with Conviva to ensure smooth video delivery.

Solution

Conviva’s live event support team monitored the Super Bowl to ensure there were no issues with online video delivery. Conviva’s Insights provided instant visibility with viewer engagement and Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics, with real-time monitoring and alerting. Conviva’s real-time alerts notify where in the delivery chain issues will occur allowing for timely, accurate adjustments to avoid buffering and start-failures. Conviva Benefits Multi-CDN performance monitoring—While the CDN support services on site could monitor its own performance, Conviva, as an independent third party, could see performance across all CDNs Instant, real-time analytics—During the live event, Conviva’s support services were aggregating data every 2 seconds to display the most up-to-date look into what viewers were experiencing and how the audience was engaging with content Localized alerting and diagnostics—Conviva monitored every aspect of the video delivery ecosystem and was able to detect what caused the delivery problem

Result

NBCSports was able to ensure that the first-ever live streaming Super Bowl event had a smooth delivery with minimal disruptions. Leveraging Conviva, NBCSports was able to fine-tune every component in the video delivery chain to improve the experience for each viewer. During Super Bowl XLVI, video start failures spiked, and an alert fired, notifying the team of an error. Using the diagnostic functionality of Pulse, the team was able to localize the error and isolate the root-cause, in real-time. The failure was as a result of two advertisements improperly assigned in the event manifest. NBCSports resolved the issue and prevented further loss of engagement.

"Conviva’s real-time view into our live stream allowed us to avoid massive viewer loss. Additionally, Insights provided deep intelligence into the demographics, reach and engagement for our landmark live-streamed Super Bowl event."
-- XXXXX, SVP NBCSports

Challenge

The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the 21st Winter Olympics, represent the 12th Olympics broadcast by NBC. This major international multi-sport event held February 2010, in Vancouver, Canada. NBC Universal presented 835 hours of Olympic Games coverage on six NBC Universal sites including NBC, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Universal HD and NBCOlympics.com. This broadcast represented the most total hours ever for a Winter Olympics, more than the last two Winter Olympics combined, and the most live hours ever for the Winter Games. The Vancouver Games were the first Winter Olympics broadcast 100 percent in high definition (full HD).

The Vancouver Games were the first-ever to be streamed in full HD online and in order to deliver HD quality, NBC needed to ensure they could deliver the right bitrate profiles and that their HD quality stream was buffer free.

Solution

The Vancouver Games were the first-ever to be streamed in full HD online and in order to deliver HD quality, NBC needed to ensure they could deliver the right bitrate profiles and that their HD quality stream was buffer free. NBC teamed with premier technology vendors, including Conviva and Microsoft, to cover 4,485 hours of events in HD via Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming to a video player based on Microsoft Silverlight. Through close work with the Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Live Smooth Streaming, Conviva’s Insights allowed NBC to obtain real-time data on viewer experience, audience trends, video playback and network distribution performance to ensure good quality viewing during the Vancouver Winter Games. Conviva’s Precision automatically and preemptively adjusts the bitrate and/or the CDN stream to ensure there are no interruptions and that the highest quality is available for each individual viewer.

Result

Conviva’s technology is unique in its ability to scale cleanly to meet the needs and HD requirements of broadcast-sized audiences during peak times. Conviva’s Precision Platform managed the distribution of media over heterogeneous resources with customized policies and control that enabled NBC to stream the highest possible video quality to viewers at any given point in time. By addressing a critical gap in delivery and audience insight left by today’s streaming technology, Conviva’s reliable video platform helped to provide a stable, high-quality online coverage over the 17 days of the Vancouver Winter Games to more than 15.8 million unique visitors during 4.4 million hours of Olympics video.

"Partnering with Conviva for our Winter Games, ensured that we could deliver HD streaming to each one of our viewers and also have accurate intelligence into audience engagement and video performance. Conviva’s real-time intelligence and global policy management was key for our digital team."
-- Eric Black, Vice President - Technology, NBC Sports & Olympics

Challenge

The Oxygen Channel offers unique reality shows and movie programming primarily targeted for women. Content is available on desktop and on their Oxygen Live App with shows including Campus Ladies, Oprah After the Show, Girls Behaving Badly, Snapped and Bliss.

Since launching online, Oxygen has been growing their presence ten-fold across multiple devices. It’s essential that each viewer experience the video in higher definition and without interruption. In addition, Oxygen needs to ensure it can accommodate their exceptional growth in step with the new volume of online viewers.

Solution

NBC Universal brands, including Oxygen, began using Insights to view real-time data for all their online content across multiple devices, geographies and affiliates. With Insights, Oxygen sees issues the user might be experiencing including video start failures and buffering. With real-time KPIs, Insights shows audience reach and engagement metrics, which content is trending, on what devices and helps editorial, ad and research teams make intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics. Oxygen recognizes the opportunity to grow engagement with Precision. Using real-time monitoring of each viewer’s experience and video delivery networks, Precision automatically and preemptively adjusts the bitrate and/or the CDN source in midstream. It ensures each user enjoys a personalized and optimal viewing experience.

Result

• For short form content, the buffering ratio dropped from 2.57% to 1.58% (38.5% improvement)

• Percentage of Buffering Impacted Viewers improved by 21.1% 

• Average bitrate increased from 875 kbps to 1744 kbps (99.3% improvement)

• As an Apples-to-Apples comparison for a series, Oxygen secured a 54.6% increase in minutes per unique and a 14.9% increase in views per unique

• Overall, after normalizing for content popularity, Oxygen secured a total of 36.5% increase in unique video streams with an 87.96% increase in unique retention and a 17.6% increase in Optimized Views

"Here at Oxygen, our fans will always be our top priority. We are comfortable knowing that Conviva monitors and supports us with real-time adjustments for our video stream to ensure an optimal experience for our viewers."
-- Tony Carbone, Vice President Digital

Challenge

Redbox Instant is a hybrid monthly subscription service that combines online video streaming along with DVDs, Blu-ray and video games rentals via retail kiosks. The video streaming service is a joint venture between Redbox and Verizon. The service launched with 4,600 movie titles from media entertainment companies including EPIX, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Relativity and Sony Pictures. Redbox titles can be purchased, in SD or HD quality and are available on iOS, PCs, Android, Xbox, Samsung Smart TVS, LG Smart TVs, and Google TV.

Redbox understood how important their domestic launch was for their audience. Their goal was to provide an identical high quality experience their customers had come to expect from their successful retail kiosk program. Before launching their VOD website, Redbox needed to build their online video workflow. Redbox also wanted accurate, in-depth visibility, across all devices, enabling them to prevent any issues with their steaming service. Finally, it was essential to understand audience demographics, behavior and trends to deliver an ideal viewer experience.

Solution

Redbox opted for Conviva’s expert services for end-to-end workflow consulting, to choose the best options across their entire video ecosystem. Redbox utilizes Conviva’s Insights to monitor each viewer’s experience across multiple devices, and leverages Insights to power and enhance customer service and retain valuable subscribers. Insights delivers audience reach and engagement metrics, enabling Redbox to make intelligent decisions to elevate the user experience.

Result

Using Conviva, Redbox is able to monitor and compare performance across all devices including Apple, Xbox and Samsung, providing complete visibility, enabling them to make informed decisions in terms of content, editorial, marketing and operations. Insights allows Redbox to fine-tune every component in their video delivery chain to improve quality for each viewer. Real-time alerts notify where in the delivery chain interruptions may occur in order to make timely, accurate adjustments.

"In launching our original streaming app, we desired support in building a smooth delivery system to ensure a stellar viewer experience. Conviva’s global intelligence and unsurpassed technology provides the visibility we required to make smart business decisions and improve the viewer experience for our customers."
-- Shawn Strickland, CEO

Challenge

Sony Crackle, the digital network owned by Sony Pictures, is full length, full force entertainment, free of charge and on-demand. Crackle specializes in hand picked movies, TV shows and original programming in men’s favorite genres – such as action, sci-fi, horror, crime and comedy. Sony Crackle, features licensed movies from Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, and Sony Pictures, TV shows from Sony Pictures Television and offers Original Content including The Unknown, The Bannen Way and Chosen.

Since their launch in 2004, Crackle has undergone a transformation to improve their offering and has added additional quality content. Crackle’s focus was to continue growing their customer base while improving the experience. They had crossed streaming issues earlier and were looking to quickly improve quality.

Solution

Crackle utilizes Insights for real-time monitoring of each viewer’s experience across multiple devices. To improve overall quality, Crackle implemented Conviva’s preemptive optimization solution, Precision, utilizing adaptive multi-bitrate and CDN stream switching, it detects, locates and prevents any possible failures before it impacts the viewer. Insights delivers audience reach and engagement metrics, which helps editorial, operations and marketing make informed decisions to improve engagement and economics.

Result

Crackle is able to monitor and compare performance across all devices giving full visibility and enabling them to make critical decisions in terms of content, editorial, marketing and operations. Conviva’s platform allows Crackle to fine-tune every component in their video delivery chain to improve quality for each viewer.

• Significant lift in overall quality and user engagement

• 82.1% improvement in the buffering ratio

• 49.6% increase in the average bitrate

• 2-8 minute increase in minutes watched per viewer.

"Crackle has an unique fan-base; it’s imperative for us to understand their behavior and ensure their experience is high quality. We most definitely want our fans to return often, have a great experience and watch more."
-- Daniel Sanders, VP Technology, Chief Software Architect

Challenge

TV 2 Norway, with 92% household coverage, is the largest commercial television station in Norway. Since 2000, TV 2 has witnessed year-over-year growth in the popularity of online video due to its web TV subscription service, TV 2 Sumo, and its live TV service online, allowing Norwegian viewers to watch live simulcast channels, premium live sports coverage and thousands of hours of on demand television programing.

In addition to accommodating an increased volume of online viewers, TV 2 needs to ensure every member of its online audience is met with a high-definition, high-quality experience despite the inherit volatility of the internet. TV 2 needs complete visibility into their entire video delivery chain.

Solution

To address all of TV 2’s requirements, Conviva provides continuous, real-time insights across the entire audience and online video delivery ecosystem, enabling the Norwegian broadcaster to make quick decisions to improve quality. Through a powerful diagnostics and inference engine, Conviva isolates problems in video players, delivery networks and individual browsers. Real-time alerts notify where in the delivery chain issues occur, providing for swift diagnostics to remedy the situation.

Result

By watching each viewer, every second, TV 2 is able to see first-hand as the audience gravitates towards particular content. Additionally, TV 2 has a comprehensive view into content consumption trends and QoE metrics. Today, as more Norwegians turn to TV 2 for online content, they experience clear, crisp reliable video – free of buffering, stuttering and interruptions resulting in longer viewing sessions.

Challenge

Ustream provides video streaming services to more than 80 million viewers and partners with premiere brands including NASA, Panasonic, Samsung, Logitech, CBS News, PBS NewsHour, Viacom and IMG Media. Ustream hosts streams from notable bloggers, artists, evangelists and politicians including President Obama. They provide a full video production and streaming platform including encoding, live event management, distribution and promotion.

Ustream uses a simple, effective platform to broadcast to millions from any browser and offers a scalable, social, feature-rich live streaming video for every user’s need. As Ustream allows individuals to stream their own broadcasts, they must ensure their offering works seamlessly, without bugs. In addition, Ustream wants to enhance the user experience with real-time, accurate intelligence.

Solution

Ustream’s content and research teams chose Conviva’s Insights to learn when a video is trending or gaining popularity, then in turn capitalize on the momentum to deliver a better user experience and content recommendation. Insights offers real-time visibility and alerts into the entire video delivery ecosystem to address any issues that arise and provide enhanced video delivery.

Result

Ustream began streaming video in a mature market. With Conviva’s support, Ustream is able to provide a premium solution, catering to world-class political, entertainment, and technology outlets. Conviva’s technology allows Ustream to scale and meet the needs and HD requirements of broadcast-sized audiences during their peak live events. Today, Ustream’s technical operations team uses Conviva to ensure live streams from Bonarroo, Six Nations Championship, Apple WWDC, PBS Newshour, AFL, Huffington Post and NASA are streaming at the highest quality and hiccup free.

"Ustream offers a scalable approach to live-streaming. It’s essential that we command an in-depth understanding and have full control of our playback experience. Conviva offers a complete view, which allows us to make adjustments in real-time and ensure the best experience for our viewers."
-- Brad Hunstable, CEO Ustream

Challenge

WatchESPN, the leading sports broadcaster, offers simulcasts of ESPN content including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 and ESPNU through cable providers on their award-winning WatchESPN app. As an early adopter of the TVEverywhere movement, WatchESPN delivers 24/7 live programming from any ESPN network via computer, smart phone, tablet, smart TV and Xbox. Their App’s video is delivered in partnership with Conviva for one single goal: to ensure the best quality experience for their viewers.

WatchESPN clearly understands the critical importance of the digital transition. Their goal has always been to provide the same quality TV broadcast experience to their new generation of fans. As the leader in sports media, WatchESPN wanted to ensure their app provided the most current, trending videos at the highest viewing quality. WatchESPN app is viewed on iPhone, iPad, Xbox, Roku, SamsungTV, Android, Flash, HTML5, and Silverlight. To ensure quality was optimal on all devices, they require a clear view into audience statistics across multiple devices. Critical to their success is the ability to make necessary adjustments in real-time.

Solution

Initially, ESPN deployed Insights to view real-time data for online content across multiple devices, geographies and affiliates. Insights monitors each viewer’s experience and video delivery networks, and captures issues before they happen, including video start failures and buffering. Thereafter, ESPN deployed Precision for real-time adjustments to avoid these issues while increasing the bitrate. With real-time KPIs, Insights shows audience reach and engagement metrics, such as which content is trending on what devices and helps editorial, research and ad teams make intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics.

Result

Conviva’s Quality Metric Lens shows comparison of performance across all platforms in Pulse, allowing ESPN to make the best decisions for their audience in terms of editorial content, ads served and devices. 

• WatchESPN has the lowest interruptions compared to other premium live sites

• Post Precision Launch – engagement per-viewer increased by 42M minutes within the first month, an 18% increase 

"Our customers expect the same high-quality experience on their Iphone as they do on their FlatScreen TV. With Conviva, we are able to ensure that our fans can perfect watches their favorite game, on the go, anytime, anywhere and at the absolute best quality picture possible.”
-- Damon Phillips, VP WatchESPN & ESPN3 via Streaming Media East, June 2013 Success Stories All By Industry By Task By Solution

Challenge

AEG Digital Media is the leading provider of live broadcasting and production services for the digital media industry offering world-class streaming solutions and TV Everywhere services for brands including VEVO, ABC, CBS, Adobe, Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, Fox, Google, American Express. AEGDM has pioneered the use of custom video players that support multiple camera angles, social media widgets and photo sharing, and other custom elements to engage their viewers.

To maintain the highest quality content and extend user engagement, AEGDM required an accurate real-time view of their audience engagement and video QoE metrics. This broadcasting provider had no way of controlling or diverting issues that arose in playback, either from glitches with the video player, CMS, CDN or local IP network. AEGDM also required accurate metrics to power their decisioning for social, editorial and digital marketing.

Solution

AEGDM chose Conviva’s full online video solution including Insights for real-time analytics, and Precision forquality optimization. AEG also leveraged the Event Management Module which offers a granular and self-service live event reporting system. Using real-time global intelligence of each viewer’s experience and video delivery networks, Precision sees issues the user will encounter, including video start failures and buffering. Then automatically and preemptively, Conviva adjusts the bitrate and/or the stream source before any errors occur to ensure each user enjoys a personalized and optimal viewing experience. With real-time KPIs, Insights reveals audience reach, engagement and QOE metrics, to help editorial, research, operations and advertising teams make intelligent decisions to improve engagement for both digital and social initiatives.

Result

This tier-one provider of digital media technology partners with Conviva to deliver an online fan experience that has the same clear, crisp and reliable high-definition (HD) video as traditional television, yet offers the flexibility to be viewed from any device.

Media companies benefit by leveraging AEG’s production expertise in concert with Conviva’s continuous, real-time insights that “watch” each viewer, every second, and Precision’s inference algorithms that mitigate any quality issue before they occur. The result is an enhanced fan experience, longer viewing times and a higher return on investment. Additionally, AEGDM is able to leverage audience data for editorial, marketing and social media efforts. AEGDM has leveraged Conviva to ensure a high-quality, seamless live streaming experience for more than one hundred events including: 

The Oscars
AT&T Masters
The Grammys
Bonnaroo
The Royal Wedding
YouTube/IGN
Copa America
Carnival

Challenge

Virgin Media is a top UK cable pay TV operator and offers a multiscreen, TV everywhere service with the Virgin TV Anywhere Platform, a cloud-based video streaming service which offers all Virgin cable customers 77 live channels and more than 2,500 hours of TV On Demand via the web, Virgin Media’s TiVo platform or via mobile and tablet apps. Virgin offers channels with something for everyone – from talk shows and children’s programming to a wide range of music and comedy. For commuters, Virgin Media has installed a WiFi network in the London Underground, providing watch live television access while commuting to work.

As Virgin Media planned a rollout of their Virgin TV Anywhere platform in September 2012, it was critical they were able to view accurate metrics on the performance. The goal was to guarantee no major issues preventing customers in enjoy the new streaming service. It was essential for the cable provider to capture audience behavior and trends to further improve the overall experience.

Solution

Virgin Media utilizes Insights for real-time monitoring of each viewer’s experience. Insights shows audience reach and engagement metrics, which helps editorial, operations and marketing make intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics. Insights shows metrics on video playback like buffering, start-up time, and resolution, along with real-time alerts, to make timely, accurate adjustments.

Result

Virgin Media is able to monitor their TV Anywhere customers in real-time across all their respective streaming devices. With in-depth metrics on audience engagement, they can make key decisions to improve the user experience. Using Insights and Real-time alerts, Virgin can see how every component in their video delivery chain is performing and take informed actions to elevate their video delivery.

Challenge

Al Jazeera is a broadcaster owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network and headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a multi-national network with multiple outlets in multiple languages. The network was praised by the Index on Censorship for circumventing censorship and contributing to the free exchange of information. The Webby Awards also nominated in the five best news web sites. Al Jazeera English is available via their website, partner sites and via video streaming receiver boxes, such as Roku. The low-resolution version is available free of charge. The high-resolution version is available by subscription through partner sites. Both Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Live can be streamed worldwide.

As Al Jazeera continues to digitally expand, they require real-time, accurate and complete data, with specific alerting capabilities to troubleshoot issues arising in their online video ecosystem. Al Jazeera requires visibility to understand audience behavior and to support customer service issues.

Solution

Al Jazeera utilizes Insights for real-time monitoring of each viewer’s experience. Insight reveals audience reach and engagement metrics, which guides editorial, operations and marketing to take intelligent action to improve engagement and economics. Insights provides data for quality of experience (QoE) such as buffering, start-up time, and resolution, and performance metrics on the CDN, ISP and video player, across multiple devices, geographies and affiliates, along with real-time alerts.

Result

Al Jazeera tracks second by second comprehensive metrics on audience engagement, video performance and content trends, allowing for intelligent decisioning for content, editorial, marketing and operations. Insights delivers audience behavior intelligence. With QoE metrics, Al Jazeera is able to fine-tune every component in their video delivery chain. Real-time alerts notify where in the delivery chain interruptions are occurring providing the ultimate efficiency in making accurate adjustments.

"As a global digital news broadcaster, we have a responsibility to ensure our news is delivered without interruption and in best quality for our subscribers in every continent. Partnering with Conviva’s robust analytics has helped us ensure video availability 24/7 as well as securing a 360 degree view of our online video business.”

Challenge

CNTV is the digital arm of China’s predominant national broadcaster CCTV with a network of 22 channels, accessible to more than one billion viewers. CNTV provides global, multi-language, multi-terminal news to six continents and offers both live and VOD streaming in sports, entertainment and news.

CNTV has initiatives to increase reach and presence globally by expanding their offering for both live and VOD content. As the demand for video streaming expands, viewers worldwide have come to expect higher quality in online streaming. To this end, CNTV needs to better understand their global online video business, including content delivery and consumption. They require visibility into a comprehensive set of metrics to improve their infrastructure. For CNTV, it is necessary to cut buffering ratio in half and improve quality in Africa and North America. They require a Multi-CDN strategy to exploit the capacity of multiple CDN in order to deliver ‘always on’ high quality.

Solution

After an in-depth analysis of CNTV’s existing technology, Conviva’s expert services team built out their multi-CDN strategy and video workflow. To improve overall quality, CNTV implemented Precision, Conviva’s preemptive optimization solution. Precision is the ideal solution to optimize both live and on demand content, for viewers in 190 countries across multiple CDNs. Utilizing its viewer-centric metrics to forecast real-time global and local Internet patterns, Precision detects, locates and resolves any failure before it impacts the end viewer. Additionally, CNTV benefits from Insights, which provides real-time actionable analytics and visibility into the individual viewer’s experience.

Result

With global intelligence, unified multi-CDN and multi-bitrate control algorithms, Precision preemptively optimizes quality for each individual viewer. Precision delivers the best possible video experience to every viewer in real time. Precision increases video resolutions by up to 180% as measured by average bit-rate while simultaneously decreasing buffering events up to 150%. CNTV is able to precisely monitor its online video business and stream quality in real time providing for intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics. After Precision implementation: CNTV doubled average playtime in South America, Europe, Australia and Africa. CNTV buffering ratio was cut in half globally.

"As China’s national broadcaster, CNTV understands the need to ensure the best Quality of Experience for our viewers in every country or continents where our premium content is accessed. The ability to provide quality content globally without the distraction of buffering and stuttering is essential for our brand. In addition, the ability to seamlessly add CDNs in different regions to our own streaming servers allows us to rapidly expand our reach while simultaneously maintaining the highest viewer experience and containing the cost overrun.”
-- Song, Weijun, CTO CNTV

Challenge

The FIFA World Cup™ is an international association football competition, taking place every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930. First televised in 1954, it’s currently the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding the Olympic Games. In 2010 there were 64 matches with 3,178,856 people in attendance. Several content providers around the globe were streaming the world-class experience including ESPN, Astro (Malaysia), CBC (Canada), CNTV (China), TV 2 (Norway) and Univision Interactive Media (U.S.).

Prior to 2010, the online video experience for an event of this magnitude was met with rebuffering and choppy video, causing fans to click away prematurely. To detour an identical fate for viewers during the 2010 World Cup™, Conviva’s patented technology was leveraged to watch every viewer in real-time, predict when an interruption was about to occur and take proactive steps to prevent an unacceptable user experience from happening.

Solution

During the FIFA World Cup™, Conviva powered the live and on-demand online video experience for several content providers globally including ESPN, Astro (Malaysia), CBC (Canada), CNTV (China), TV 2 (Norway) and Univision Interactive Media (U.S.).

To improve overall quality, FIFA implemented Conviva’s preemptive optimization solution, Precision, utilizing adaptive multi-bitrate and CDN stream switching. It detects, locates and resolves any possible failure before it impacts the viewer. Conviva utilized its viewer-centric metrics to forecast global and local Internet patterns for intelligent decisioning. The World Cup benefited from Insights, with real-time visibility into individual viewers across multiple devices, geographies and affiliates. Insights shows audience reach and engagement metrics, which helps editorial, research and marketing make intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics.

Result

The World Cup marked the first time an online event secured a broadcast TV-level audience. Over the course of the 64 soccer matches, Conviva managed more than 200 million streams and reached more than 30 million unique viewers worldwide. In addition, Conviva managed three billion viewer minutes and, on the thirteenth day of the event, maintained 1.5 million peak concurrent viewers simultaneously.

In addition, Conviva helped AEG Digital Media stream the FIFA World Cup™Kick-Off Celebration Concert. Conviva partnered with AEG Digital Media to build an audience-instrumented online video player that ensured the best possible fan viewing experience through the use of Precision’s pre-emptive quality management technology.

"We have a reputation to maintain with our consumers, so we couldn’t risk the occurrence of poor online video while streaming the 2010 FIFA World Cup. With Conviva, our entire online audience was able to enjoy the best possible viewing experience during the matches without fail.”
-- Paul Dale, CTO Astro

"It was important to understand the experience our online audience had during the World Cup at any given point in time. By using Conviva, we were able to gain real-time, granular visibility into the entire video delivery ecosystem from encoders to streaming sources and could quickly identify and remediate issues as they happened.”
-- Rob Fullerton, Product Manager, Audio, Visual and CMS CBC.ca

Challenge

“All the News That’s Fit to Click” The New York Times daily newspaper has won 112 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization. Their website is America’s most popular news site, receiving more than 30 million unique visitors as well as 6 million video streams per month. In the past decade, they’ve grown their web presence significantly with original video content on both their website and App.

The NYT is investing heavily in their online video presence, and it’s paramount to improve their experience across web, mobile and tablet. NYT was looking for accurate visibility into current quality issues and support to effectively deliver online video. It is also essential that their internal teams understand audience behavior and trends in order to elevate the user experience.

Solution

NYT utilizes Insights for real-time monitoring of each viewer’s experience. Insights delivers audience reach and engagement metrics, which helps editorial, operations and marketing make intelligent decisions to improve engagement and economics.

Result

Using Conviva, the NYT has full visibility of their audience and quality metrics, enabling them to make smart decisions in terms of content, editorial, marketing and operations. Insights allows NYT to fine-tune every component in their video delivery chain to improve quality for each viewer. Real-time alerts notify where in the delivery chain interruptions are occurring which provides confidence in making accurate and timely adjustments.

"Being at the forefront of the news industry, we are creating a new generation of video content, therefore, delivering a sound, quality experience is essential for the New York Times. Partnering with Conviva’s expert team has helped us ensure we have full visibility and understanding of our video delivery."
-- Director of Video Product Management