In the U.S. alone, TV advertisements are a $71 billion industry. But for cable TV, that revenue is shrinking.

Americans are increasingly cutting the cord, leaving traditional ad-supported broadcasts and cable to plummet. Whether this is due to the overwhelming sentiment that TV advertisements are not relevant, or to the convenience offered by OTT services, fewer Americans have cable TV in their homes than ever before.

In response, advertising dollars are increasingly shifting away from cable TV and toward digital streaming to meet customers in their preferred settings – but that’s not the only challenge to overcome in regaining revenue.

Americans still consume an average of four hours of TV per day, but they’re now doing it in an environment where each player device can deliver ad personalization (given the user identification methodologies unique to the web). For broadcasters still using hard-coded advertisements in their streams, they run the risk of showcasing dated or irrelevant ads that need to be replaced.

For broadcasters looking to offer advertisers -- and viewers -- personalized ads using dynamic ad insertion best practices, the broadcast standard SCTE 35 signals are a modern solution to this problem. 

Here’s everything you should know about how OTT content distributors can use the cue tones built for analog broadcasting to power ad-supported linear streams across platforms such as Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel, IMDb TV, Plex, and Xumo. 

SCTE 35 is a standard created by ANSI and the Society of Cable and Telecommunications Engineers that lays out guidelines for inline cue tone insertion in streams. Also referred to as markers, these signals indicate where content distributors could insert or splice content into a stream.

For example, if a local news station received a stream from a national news broadcaster, the stream might be marked in areas where the station could replace national ads with others that were more relevant to the community.

Cue tones originated as a means to signal commands to equipment, particularly when to start or stop. This was especially useful with cartridge tapes, as the tape would otherwise play in a loop. Originally, cue tones occurred as DTMF tones, or subaudible tones that could not be heard by normal listeners. As broadcasting shifted to digital means via IPTV, cue tones likewise became digital. Now, the markers are read by computers and no actual subaudible tone exists.

Applied to QAMP/IP, Title VI/TVE, and live or time-shifted delivery, SCTE 35 is the core signal standard for advertising, programming, and content distribution control. It was originally designed for ad insertion, but the digital nature of SCTE 35 markers brings greater flexibility to their use.

SCTE 104 and SCTE 35 work together to help with personalized ad placement, but many people are still confused about their relationship and differences.

In short: SCTE 35 cues exist within the MPEG transport stream. In contrast, SCTE 104 messages are sent between systems via TCP/IP.

SCTE 104 markers are inserted by an automation or playout system prior to sending the baseband video feed to the inserter. Once the feed reaches the encoder, those markers get translated into compressed stream markers to be transmitted with the content. The compressed markers are what SCTE 35 defines.

Think of it this way: the markers inserted under SCTE 104 are requests for content insertion. The markers inserted by SCTE 35 are what helps to fulfill those requests.

When an SCTE 35 marker appears in the program, it signals to broadcasters where they may splice other content into the feed. Typically, these spaces are predefined in 15-, 30-, or 45-second chunks  (though they don’t have to be). Broadcasters then decide what to do with that slot. Some options include:

Replacing low priority national ads with more relevant local ads

The diagram below illustrates a SCTE-35 embedded programmed HLS stream.

Besides ad insertion, SCTE 35 lends itself well to program segmentation. In program segmentation, content distributors split up content into different chunks for management purposes. The most common and readily visible example of this is chapters in recorded TV shows or movies.

Once segmented like this, a content distributor can add, change, or remove different parts of the program depending on their needs. For example, legal reasons might require a local station to black out a chapter of a movie. 

A content distributor could make a segment of content unavailable for web delivery. Likewise, another chapter might be replaced with a provider ad or local content that’s more relevant. 

These segments are unnoticed by the end viewer but give stations and content distributors significantly more control over the content they show.

OTT has some natural advantages for ad insertion. Specifically:

Unicasting means that each device connects to the server independently. It’s possible to leverage this to deliver more personalized ads because the device can read the SCTE 35 marker and reach out to the server for an ad.

Sequences of fragments are individually decodable – they don’t require the segment before or after it. That simplifies splicing and increases flexibility with how the ads are inserted.

Ad insertion with SCTE 104/35 works with SVOD, TVOD, and AVOD – it’s not server-dependent because the actual marker insertion happens before the server receives profiles and constructs manifests.

Likewise, OTT feeds are able to carry SCTE 35 markers that they receive from the transcoder. In other words, you’ll still handle SCTE 35 markers on the programmer side. 

When profiles get created, the transcoder will need to create segments that align with these markers. However, once compiled into the manifest, you’ll simply determine whether the playback device requests an ad (client-side insertion), or whether to manipulate the manifest itself to insert the ad (server-side insertion).

And since splicing is so simple, testing your ad insertion for live streams becomes a breeze. Any good live streaming platform available out there will have the ability to read markers, let you insert ads, and test beforehand what the final playback will look like.

It doesn’t take a well-funded research study to tell us what we already know: people hate ads. However, the data can support two very important considerations surrounding viewer behavior:

On-demand viewers are more averse to ads: 56% of on-demand viewers say they tend to mute ads on the TV versus 48% of live TV watchers. 54% of on-demand viewers say they don’t trust ads on TV, while only 48% of the live TV watchers share a similar view.

Despite consumer disdain for ads, Americans still tolerate them: 47% of Americans now subscribe to free ad-supported streaming TV services, or “FASTs.”

On one hand, we have on-demand viewers reporting their anti-ad viewing habits. On the other, we have almost 50% of Americans tolerating ads if it means they get access to free TV. Both of these points can lead us to the same conclusion: the better or more targeted the ads, the more engagement and money broadcasters can make off them.

SCTE 35 can help with that. If you have the power to serve up personalized ads to viewers, then SCTE 35 markers make it easy to identify where in the stream you can put them.

Personalized, On-Demand Content Just Became Realistic

With the rise of OTT streaming, content distributors have a new set of tools for easily delivering on-demand content. And SCTE 35 has found new relevance, promising the means to serve up personalized, on-demand ads to the viewer. Say goodbye to irrelevant or hard-coded ads in your OTT stream. Say hello to a new way to insert content and grow your revenue.

If you want to learn more about Zype's video platform and how our monetization solutions can help you leverage technologies like SCTE 35 to send targetable data back to your ad server for pinpoint ad targeting, click here. 

A Complete Guide to SCTE 35 for OTT Ad Insertion [2021 Edition]

Want to deliver targeted, personalized ads? With SCTE 35 personalized ads are a reality in streaming. Learn how to leverage SCTE 35 in this guide.

Live streaming has exploded since the beginning of 2020. It’s now worth an astounding $184.27 billion – up 99 percent from 2019.

There’s little wonder why. Forrester once found that live video content holds viewer attention ten times longer than pre-recorded videos. Live content feels exclusive, and it produces a stronger sense of connection.

However, all of that explosive growth comes with challenges. Notably, live streaming has always suffered from quality and availability challenges. In response, many companies have turned to CDNs for live streaming.

With a CDN, live streaming becomes much more scalable and improves overall stream and playback performance.

With a multi-CDN, the benefits are compounded.

Here is everything you need to know about live streaming CDNs, and what to look for when choosing a multi-CDN vendor.

Live Streaming CDN: What Is Multi-CDN Delivery?

Ever wondered why it only takes a second to stream a video hosted on a website on the opposite side of the world?

It’s because that content provider is using a content delivery network, or CDN.

A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers and services distributed across a wide geographic area to accelerate the rate at which your audience can access your content. Rather than forcing your computer to talk to a server that’s on the other side of the world, you access a “cache server” or “edge node” that’s located much nearer to you. That edge node swaps content assets between other nearby nodes, as well as with the origin server. The result for customers is faster delivery of content and services.

For enterprise customers and large broadcasters, however, a single CDN can be overloaded. This is especially true for live streaming with large audiences. Likewise, smaller companies may find a single CDN inadequate if they wish to operate globally.

In such instances, a multi-CDN becomes necessary.

A multi-CDN involves a combination of several CDNs – usually (but not always) from different providers. Rather than having a single origin server where the content is housed, a multi-CDN leverages several origin servers, each with its own legion of edge nodes in nearby regions. Requests for content are simply routed to the most appropriate CDN to ensure speed and accessibility.

However, if that sounds like a lot of infrastructure, that’s because it is. Multi-CDNs are often expensive to set up, but with the rise of cloud computing, they don’t have to be.

Cloud Computing Makes Multi-CDNs Accessible

Cloud computing has made multi-CDNs much more accessible to non-enterprise customers. Instead of requiring a whole assortment of hardware, a single platform ingests your content and distributes it to origin servers located globally that were already built by the company.

It’s the buy it versus build it argument.

Building your own video infrastructure gives you more control, but it’s slower and more expensive. In contrast, cloud-supported multi-CDNs deliver reliable, fast, high-performing delivery on a global scale – with a faster time to market and guaranteed reliability.

That’s great for both smaller businesses and larger companies that need additional CDN support only some of the time – such as for traffic offloading during live events.

A multi-CDN has many benefits, but live streaming is where they become more noticeable.

If you want to deliver a top-notch viewer experience, a multi-CDN becomes more essential the bigger and more spread out your audience becomes. That’s because it:

·   Optimizes costs. A multi-CDN using the cloud has built-in features for reserving resources, managing consumption, plus keeping infrastructure lean and efficient.

·   Improves overall performance. Network availability and latency issues are all but eliminated. Viewers access content faster, with less lag and fewer hiccups.

·   Powers the scaling of products or services. Scaling with a traditional CDN is difficult. In contrast, a cloud multi-CDN can do it automatically according to need in either direction.

·   Enhances service resiliency. If one CDN goes down for any reason, another stands ready to take its place.

·   Increases geographic distribution. Reach your fans no matter where they’re located and give them the same viewing experience as those closest to you.

·   Solves network congestion. A multi-CDN prevents origin servers from becoming overwhelmed and eliminates the risks associated with a DDoS.

Questions to Ask When Choosing a Multi-CDN Vendor

As CDNs become commoditized, plenty of vendors have sprung up to meet the need. According to Deloitte, the global CDN market was worth $14 billion in 2020, growing at an annual rate of 16 percent.

CDNs have played an essential role in the explosive growth of the internet and using one is a smart move for companies seeking to expand their content’s reach. However, not all multi-CDN vendors offer the same thing. Here are a few things to ask potential vendors when shopping for a CDN for live streaming:

·   What traffic management options are there? How does your infrastructure support traffic offload to protect my origin servers?

·   How does your service provide observability into the platform? Can I proactively identify when something might go wrong and fix it to prevent a disruption in streaming?

·   How many CDNs are used? How do you ensure consistency and availability during live events?

·   What processes do you have in place to ensure resiliency and continuous service when one or more CDN is down?

·   How scalable is your platform? Will it be able to handle a surge in audience traffic?

·   What security measures do you have in place? Will my live stream be secure from DDoS attacks?

·   How does your infrastructure handle quality challenges, particularly those at the edge? Do you use peer2peer CDNs?

A Better Video Experience For Your Viewers

A CDN can make sure your content stays available, secure, and – most importantly – truly live. By routing traffic to edge nodes, a CDN keeps traffic dispersed and away from your origin server. That means no more network congestion, streaming lag, and quality issues that can drive away viewers.

Multi-CDNs are the way forward for live streaming and thanks to the cloud, it's easier than ever for companies to embrace a Multi-CDN strategy in pursuit of the best possible viewer experience.

Looking to give your customers a better video experience?

With Zype’s Content Delivery you can get enterprise-level CDN support on a global scale. Our multi-CDN approach covers VOD, Live, and Linear video content delivery and  provides amazing geographic coverage across thousands of POPs. It is engineered to be resilient and scalable, so you can stream your video to wherever your customer is, on whatever device they choose.

Live Streaming CDN: Why a Multi-CDN Strategy is Key to Viewer Experience

Building software teams that produce amazing outcomes is hard. There is plenty of competition, many different areas of expertise, and in this “remote-first” world we now live in, there are few opportunities to meet someone face to face, whiteboard or socialize with them, and get a sense of their personality and whether they would be a good fit for your team. 

At Zype, we know a thing or two about developers and engineers. We've hired our own fair share of super talented ones, plus we build tools for them to use everyday. So here are some tips for executives and management teams that want to build a culture of awesome hiring in engineering:

As we wrote back in 2018, I still believe that two of the most important qualities of a software engineer are:

However, when committing yourself or your People Ops team or Engineering leadership to hiring, there is more to be done to prepare, execute, and ensure long term success for your company, your management, and the team member.  

It is so important to discuss values early in the hiring process. From the job description, through the content of every interview, you should make sure your hiring team knows that values matter, especially when hiring highly skilled employees like engineers.  Ultimately, you are doing the candidate a big favor by focusing on values. If they are aligned, it will likely be a great relationship. If they are not, they will likely not proceed in your process (either they’ll opt-out or you will). Focusing on values upfront saves you and potential candidates so much time and energy in the long run.

For example, one of Zype’s core values is Courage. We might ask in an interview, “Did you ever have a situation in which you knew that the software you were shipping was going to be substantially late, and there were many other team members and customers depending on its delivery?  How did you deal with that? Can you tell me a real story where that happened in your career?”

The answers to this sort of question - the theoretical and the actual real story - will tell you so much about how the individual aligns with your values.  No wrong answers - just insight.  

Engineers love technology. Your engineering team probably has many amazing acronyms and codewords - SQL, API, Scrum, Terraform, JQuery etc - that they are super proud to be experts in.  That said, managers need to look beyond the acronyms and into the aptitude.  

Is this engineer dogmatic or open to new technologies?

Is there corollary experience that relates to our needs that we can coach up on?  Maybe someone has Oracle experience, but not PostgresQL. Is that okay? Probably.

More importantly, is he/she an amazing problem solver? We make sure to ask about problem-solving in our interviews and dig in for stories about real challenges candidates have faced and overcome in their careers.

Finding a candidate with experience that exactly matches your current team and technologies, is incredible, but unlikely, so it’s important to get a sense of whether or not this person is eager and willing to learn and adapt. 

If you don’t look like a company that has an awesome engineering culture (even if you do), you’ll miss out on so many great opportunities to work with talented engineers. 

Does your team publish anything in open source communities or in Github (publicly)?

Are you talking about engineering at your company outside of your own four walls?

Is your company participating in any industry forums that have engineering communities? If not, give your engineers the tools and support to show off their work and engage in these community discussions. This type of organic discovery is priceless when it comes to finding new talent. 

Once you have a candidate, are they meeting other great engineers at your company to give them a sense of “home” that they can buy into? 

Lastly, but possibly the most important: are you asking everyone you speak with - “can you recommend a great engineer?” I’m sure a large percentage of your contacts probably know someone that is looking for a new challenge. Just ask.

Finding and hiring software engineers and developers is difficult, but there’s no need to over complicate the process. If you lead with company values, search for aptitude, and build an engineer friendly brand that is welcoming to new team members, you will find awesome individuals to join your company. 

Bonus tip: if you haven’t already, ask your own engineers--why did they join your company? How did they find you? What about the product or team attracted them? No one knows better than your own people, so be sure to tap into these resources as well. 

How to Hire Awesome Software Engineers and Developers

Zype's CTO's take on how to hire awesome software developers and software engineers for your team

Netflix serves over 6 billion hours of content per month, globally, to nearly every country in the world.

Building a system that can scale to that volume of customers while delivering high-definition video with zero lag requires significant engineering effort. So let’s  dive deep into Netflix's technology stack and cloud infrastructure to examine what tools, processes, and architecture they use to deliver their high-quality content to viewers around the world.

Before the era of "Netflix and chill," remember when Netflix physically delivered mail-order DVDs to your doorstep?

The company racked and stacked physical servers in on-premise data centers that they owned. These data centers housed databases and applications Netflix used to track customers, maintain inventory, and store customer billing information.

By the time broadband became common and everyone owned a smartphone, Netflix needed to deliver videos to computers, internet-connected TVs, and mobile phones in order to evolve.  This meant moving away from a traditional data center and harnessing the power of the public cloud.

In 2008, Netflix started migrating its on-premise servers and applications into Amazon Web Services (AWS) after experiencing an on-premise data center outage that stopped the business for three days. Startled by the lack of resiliency, they were able to move 100% of all assets into the cloud over seven years and remain one of the pioneers of cloud computing.  

After partnering with AWS, it found that operating costs had gone down and their price per stream was a fraction of the cost. From there, Netflix passed those savings on to its customers. 

Cost reduction was not the main reason we decided to move to the cloud. However, our cloud costs per streaming started ending up being a fraction of those in the data center -- a welcome side benefit.
Netflix blog

By utilizing cloud services through the AWS architecture, Netflix had the flexibility of adjusting scale according to the services used and was (and still are) able to provide these services at a monthly charge that customers felt was reasonable.

In 2000, Blockbuster had the opportunity to buy Netflix for $50 million. When the deal fell through, it turned out to be the best thing to happen to Netflix. Over the next 17 years, Netflix had tremendous growth that took its market cap to over $242 billion. Part of this growth can be attributed to its migration to a refined cloud architecture.

When AWS teamed up with Netflix to grow its streaming service and do away with on-premise data centers, the focus shifted to engineering efforts and advancing streaming service capabilities within the Netflix AWS architecture.

However, while Netflix found a solution to scaling, it still needed to find solutions for bandwidth and lag-free video streaming. In the early days of the web, the bandwidth required for video streaming was challenging to overcome when developing these platforms. AWS had the solution that Netflix engineers were looking for, and it came in the shape of a cloud.

We have this insight because Netflix is prominent in the cloud community for sharing their knowledge during the migration to the cloud, as seen on their blog:

We rely on the cloud for all of our scalable computing and storage needs — our business logic, distributed databases and big data processing/analytics, recommendations, transcoding, and hundreds of other functions that make up the Netflix application.
-Yury Izrailevsky, Stevan Vlaovic and Ruslan Meshenberg of Netflix

Taking a peek into their architecture, Netflix maintains hundreds of AWS accounts that isolate the various parts of their business, from Subscriptions to Content Delivery to Personalized Recommendations.

Netflix can quickly develop features because all of its engineers are empowered to launch resources in their appropriate accounts without getting approvals from various parts of the company. By utilizing AWS Organizations and Account Units, Netflix can organize their engineering teams' applications, providing engineers autonomy and speed.

Within these AWS accounts, engineers use a myriad of technologies to deliver high-fidelity video streaming.

Let's start with how Netflix can serve videos. All content is stored in object storage like Amazon S3 and cached using AWS CloudFront. This enables Netflix to distribute video content all around the world with low latency speeds.

Videos need to be ultimately transcoded into various formats for optimal viewing based on the device used for watching. Connected TV and mobile video is transcoded differently from desktop videos because of the different screen sizes, resolution, and network availability.

Take, for example streaming from a phone. You will go in and out of signal depending on where you live, and in order to continuously deliver video, the service needs to adjust and buffer so you dynamically have a consistent viewing experience. This transcoding is called H.264, and Netflix can do this by harnessing the power of AWS Elastic Transcoder, which takes videos and formats them appropriately.

Video streaming, however, is only a small part of the picture.

Customers have a smorgasbord of choices when watching videos on Netflix. To keep customer engagement and retention high, Netflix employs a personalization algorithm to help uncover videos that a customer may be interested in based on their previous viewing history. This means that all interactions when watching a video must be recorded.

Netflix does this by utilizing data streaming technologies like Kafka and storing data in NoSQL databases like DynamoDB – a key-value and document database achieving single-digit millisecond performance at any scale. It's a wholly managed, multi-region, multi-active, robust database with fixed security that can handle over 10 trillion requests per day. During peak viewing, this tech stack can support over 20 million requests per second.

Netflix engineers can then write applications deployed on AWS EC2 or AWS Lambda that accesses this data to compute personalized videos to show. For this reason, many of the fastest-growing companies such as Airbnb, Lyft, and Redfin, also industry-leaders such as Capital One, Samsung, and Toyota, depend on the scale and execution of DynamoDB to maintain critical workloads.

In all areas, Netflix's tech stack wins out above its competition. J.D. Power and Associates published a survey that found Netflix customers reported fewer service problems than other popular streaming services. 

By eliminating its need for a large data center of its own, which would require costly upgrades over time, Netflix had a fluid infrastructure that was easy to adjust as needed for more beneficial uses of data resources. 

However, not all data is stored in a database and some is better suited to be stored on disks. Netflix is known to employ Hadoop to aggregate various data types and move them into data warehouses or other databases across the company. Netflix has data science teams that sift through this data to conduct business analytics, like determining how many customers are watching a specific movie or how likely someone will unsubscribe from the service.

While it is impossible to analyze every part of Netflix's business, the above describes a few major components for delivering online video.

To enable these features, developers need to quickly deploy their code, which is tested and can be rolled back if a bug is introduced. This is no easy feat, and Netflix has developed a very sophisticated Continuous Integration & Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline for providing a mechanism to deploy cloud applications.

Netflix invented and open-sourced their tool, called Spinnaker, which allows developers to make small changes, roll them out with automated tests, and then get them live to a small subset of users. When the confidence level that a bug has not been introduced increases, the changes then automatically rolled out globally over time.

One of the major discussion points when moving to the cloud is security and Netflix has publicly documented its security practices. It locks content by region, so a movie that the company only has rights to in The United States, for example, does not make its way to other regions. Netflix does this by employing DRM solutions in the cloud.

Internally, Netflix uses AWS IAM to lock permissions for employees and applications with the least permission privilege. Even if a user becomes compromised, the damage they can do is minimal, as they would not have access to the entire set of assets in the cloud.

Being in the cloud also means using SaaS products internally to improve the productivity of the workforce. Netflix uses Jira software for managing engineering tasks and Confluence for documentation requirements.

With a large workforce, managing passwords is difficult, so Netflix employs single-sign-on technologies like OneLogin to allow access to various SaaS products without remembering hundreds of different passwords. SaaS tools are constantly changing, and knowing Netflix, they will be adapting to be more efficient.

The Netflix tech stack incorporates multiple programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, Python, Kotlin, and Swift. Netflix's scalability and security are the results of its use of Python. Kotlin comes in handy with other programming languages by granting necessary tooling support. 

Python is one of the world's fastest-growing programming languages and is used for everything from operations management/analysis to networking and security. Netflix utilizes Python throughout the entire content lifecycle. Netflix’s  OTT architecture also supports Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for innovations like data-economical encoding and user personalization – giving each user a unique experience and ensuring the content presented to them is personalized to their preferences.

The Netflix tech stack also contains fully comprehensive libraries that improve user experience (UX) and acts as a highlight for the development process. Netflix secures its user-friendly interfaces with React (also known as Reactjs/React.js/ReactJS), the JavaScript UI library, and applies NodeJS as a framework and WinJS to aid in Windows applications development.

The user never sees the technology stack that goes into streaming their favorite content, but the Netflix engineers are constantly working to improve its platform. For this reason, Netflix has been able to remain the global leader in streaming video.

In fact, Netflix is so synonymous with streaming that the word “Netflix” has become a verb in our daily vernacular.

Netflix has worked continuously to improve video quality for its members worldwide. One significant breakthrough in its continuous attempts to improve UX has been what Netflix calls its Per-title Encode Optimization. Introduced in December 2016, Per-Title Encode Optimization introduced the idea of customizing encoding based on the complexity for better resolution and bitrate selection for each video sequence. 

This coding language provides a significant improvement over previously framed resolution and bitrate generation. It does this by taking into account the characteristics of video and optimizing coding performance by selecting parameters. 

Another remarkable milestone has been Per-Chunk Encode Optimization as part of the Mobile Encodes for Downloads initiative - the concept of equalizing rate-distortion slopes that work and provide notable enhancements. 

GitHub is another application Netflix uses for code collaboration and version control. They also use LogicMonitor for execution monitoring and Apteligent (previously known as Crittercism) for mobile error monitoring.

The ambitious team at Netflix is the perfect example of how a company can keep pace with technological advances while still remaining core to its primary deliverable. For consumers, the technology powering the backend is unknown, but the amount of streaming it deploys showcases that they have a winning service that continues to achieve remarkable growth.

Building Netflix's Backend… The Easier Way

Developing video on demand requires a large engineering staff, hundreds of millions of dollars in cloud computing (if you are going to operate at a Netflix scale), and a decoupled architecture that allows applications to scale so that they are resilient in the face of performance issues and outages.

For most companies, building this infrastructure is either too expensive, too time-consuming, too resource-intensive, or too risky. For many, emulating the Netflix tech stack is like a pipe dream; even if you know how they have built things out, it doesn’t make it easy to imitate.

This is why Zype was created. We’ve developed a  powerful suite of products that allows you to manage your video across every channel from a single platform with all the built-in tools you need to build or augment your existing OTT video tech stack. From VideoMeta CMS, Video CRM, encoding, playout, and content delivery tools, Zype leads the way for companies to use pre-existing technologies to build and scale their video infrastructure. 

Zype can help offload many of the heavy lifting operations required to deliver OTT video. I encourage you to check us out.

Netflix Tech Stack: Breaking Down Netflix's OTT Architecture

We dive into Netflix's technology stack to examine what tools and architecture they use to deliver their high-quality content streaming services.

Netflix, Amazon, Uber, and Etsy. What do these innovators share in common? 

If you guessed mass adoption of APIs to help them to scale to great heights, you win a gold star. If you are considering an API-first approach in your video infrastructure, you win five gold stars (or probably just read the title of this piece).

As these leading enterprises can attest, success can quickly become a development teams’ scalability nightmare. However, for product and development teams who are tasked with building video streaming infrastructure, scalability is not the only thing video APIs, specifically, can help with. 

Below, we will take a closer look at the benefits of using an API-first video infrastructure: a developmental approach that favors APIs above all else.

The shift for the aforementioned companies was related to an adoption of the microservice architectural style, or further defined, “an approach to developing a single application as a suite of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often an HTTP resource API.” 

With streaming leader Netflix showing how it overcame scaling challenges with an API gateway that was handling two billion API requests a year (in 2015), we can begin to understand, if by example alone, that streaming providers have a lot to leverage within the API-first software development ecosystem.

In software development, API-first means approaching development with APIs as the first consideration. As opposed to the traditional style of building all functions into a single piece of code, API-first breaks the single code base into features that can be run autonomously. 

Why You Should Consider an API-first Video Infrastructure

API-first software has evolved in recent years from just a buzzword to a growing industry standard, thanks to the multitude of benefits associated with the approach:

Video developers can leverage API-first video infrastructure to reduce the total cost of innovation, both during the critical experiment stage as well as for long-term operations.

Early in the software development process the costs of building video infrastructure can add up quickly. Since much of that development is likely to be commoditized features or functions that already exist with APIs, it is both logistically and financially unnecessary to build them in-house.   

Longer term, having API endpoints for video allows developers to take advantage of the collective innovation that comes from video infrastructure providers, reducing cost to maintain software as well as getting economy of scale in costs for critical operations like content delivery and encoding.

When it comes to launching tech projects, especially apps, time is not on your side. Speed to market is an increasingly important factor, as everyone is trying not only to be better, but also to be first. 

Using an API-first infrastructure allows teams to make much needed (or last-minute) changes while maintaining a flexible design.  

Rather than worry about running open-source encoders, managing servers, orchestrating tasks and monitoring, an API-first video infrastructure will deliver the outcomes of those “homegrown” tools at a lower total cost. Other benefits include less stress on your development team, and support from competent providers.

Instead of building out tech that has no value outside of the organization, engineers can leverage APIs to tap into the functionalities they need while enhancing the already existing core functionality. This approach allows teams to run quick tests, make changes, and invest in where they see traction and user adoption without having to figure everything out from scratch. API-first offers a flexible design strategy; of “use what you need, discard what you don’t need.” 

APIs can often be integrated into whatever workflow and language you have. Engineering teams can use APIs for integrations to in-house or third-party systems (ex: tapping in and maintaining existing workflows or authentication).

Better User Experience (UX) and Developer Experience (DX)

Users and developers alike benefit from an API-first approach. Building applications based on microservices, which are the arrangement of coupled services or features, can help establish a smoother and seamless user experience. Since end-users directly benefit from a better developer experience, leveraging more consistent and reliable APIs will allow programmers to create projects with increasing ease. 

It is difficult to develop advanced video products without having specific engineering skill sets on a team. APIs’ functionalities will cover video encoding, streaming, and scalability, leaving less for a team to cover internally. Thus, teams can focus their efforts on differentiation, rather than spending time working on commoditized products.

API-first is ever-expanding with new offerings driven by market changes. As APIs' growing importance shows no signs of stopping, developer teams will need to face them to “future-proof” their designs and keep pace with the ever-shifting industry. 

One of the advantages of API-first architecture is leveraging APIs with built-in authentication, authorization, and threat protection. At various connection points, APIs can offer layers of security firewalls and provide additional protection within the system. 

Leveraging API-First in Your Video Infrastructure

Actionable ways to undertake an API-first approach:

Intermesh mobile and tv ecosystems for streaming

Connecting to membership and authentication systems.

The beauty of API-first design is that it allows developers to innovate and experiment, usually with public APIs, so companies can toggle what API strategy will provide the most significant ROI.

If the world of video APIs has your team intrigued on how to proceed, or you are still unsure of just how to integrate APIs into streams or manage these different protocols, then reach out to our team of experts at Zype. We provide the infrastructure, APIs, and product tools to help developers launch awesome video apps and experiences.

Zype provides easy-to-use APIs to build typically challenging workflows like creating, scheduling, and archiving live events through a single API call. We’ve built a comprehensive and connected API-first video infrastructure for engineers and developers to consider as they are developing their projects. 

If you are interested in learning more, please visit https://www.zype.com/developers.  

8 Benefits of Using an API-first Video Infrastructure

We discuss the benefits of using an API-first video infrastructure versus the single codebase approach. Benefits include cost, time to market, and more.

The logistical and financial costs associated with a DIY video infrastructure have made many companies rethink their video stack. The need to innovate and deliver exceptional user experiences means that product and development teams need to take a concentrated look at where they focus their time, money, and resources, and consider whether they can tap into existing technologies that still allow them to focus on differentiation.

The pressure to innovate leads many video teams to the critical decision of whether to build, maintain, and scale their video stack in-house or purchase from one or many software or platform providers to achieve the streaming capabilities they need. 

When it comes to this build versus buy choice, there are pros and cons to both. Below, we will compare the build versus buy decision as it relates to video platforms - specifically OTT distribution - so you can better determine what is best for your company.

Should You Build or Buy Your Video Infrastructure Platform? 

Video streaming has many development-intensive challenges inherently built into it: video players, compression, delivery, content management systems, ads, storage, CRMs, and more are all parts of the very complex streaming ecosystem.

From the consumer perspective, the needed functionality and features of a desirable video streaming experience mean that brands of all sizes have to measure up to the most popular platforms or risk a poor user experience that ultimately results in churn. 

Teams are tasked with build amazing video streaming experiences and control their innovation cycles. However, not all product teams have deep expertise in broadcast/video engineering, software engineering, and other various skill sets, making these innovation cycles challenging.

But streaming providers don’t need to be overloaded if they find the human resource challenge too cumbersome. They have another option: to use, or “buy,” existing video platforms and APIs that connect and integrate with the systems they have in place. Today, virtually all the moving pieces of a formerly disparate video ecosystem are available to complement one’s needs. 

While not all companies may fit in one build-it or buy-it bucket, it’s important to consider the pros and cons of each.

Build It: Pros & Cons of Building a Video Infrastructure In-House

By birth, the streaming industry is based on innovation. Perhaps this is why so many companies are wed to the build-it approach. For an industry that got its roots in disrupting traditional cable, much of the pros on building are versed in innovation and control.

For many, owning 100 percent of one’s IP means controlling all innovation cycles of OTT distribution. In a fast-moving, technology-reliant industry where the streaming wars get more challenging each year, having an internal infrastructure allows them flexibility and velocity to act how they want, when they want.

Developing video infrastructure in-house offers the benefit of building and investing in tech assets that create value for customers. Examples of these assets include admin panels, video players, content recommendation engines, or localization UX.

Given human capital constraints around costs and skill sets, perhaps the most common reason companies hit roadblocks with the choice to build is cost. Underestimating the total cost of ownership and management of video infrastructure can delay innovation.

At a minimum, the development team needed to build, optimize, and scale a video infrastructure includes: 1-2 backend developers, 1 UI/UX designer, 1 frontend developer, 1 project manager, and 1-2 QA specialists. This team also needs to be well versed in the various requirements of each platform, as there is great disparity across the different endpoints available for streaming video. 

OTT Distribution: Breaking Down the Build vs Buy Strategies

We compare the build versus buy business models - video APIs, integrators, connectors - as they relate to video platforms and  OTT distribution.

Products

Services

Solutions

Featured Content

Resources

Featured Content

Developers

Live Streaming CDN: Why a Multi-CDN Strategy is Key to Viewer Experience

THE ZYPE BLOG

Categories

A Complete Guide to SCTE 35 for OTT Ad Insertion [2021 Edition]

Live Streaming CDN: Why a Multi-CDN Strategy is Key to Viewer Experience

How to Hire Awesome Software Engineers and Developers

Netflix Tech Stack: Breaking Down Netflix's OTT Architecture

8 Benefits of Using an API-first Video Infrastructure

OTT Distribution: Breaking Down the Build vs Buy Strategies

PRODUCTS

SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTER

SERVICES

DEVELOPER HUB

COMPANY

RESOURCES