2009: A Breakthrough Year for Online Video
July
Michael Jackson's death in late June attracted so much global attention that 25 June was dubbed by some content delivery and network operators as the day the internet crashed. Given the huge spike in traffic following the announcement that the entertainer had been rushed to the hospital, network operators worked together on the subsequent streamed memorial service, which was held on 7 July and watched by a record-setting number of global viewers.
July was also the month in which Microsoft launched Silverlight 3. Microsoft claims adoption is growing, with Silverlight 2 available on about 1/3 of internet devices, and the company used Wimbledon Live as an example of Silverlight's scalability, where 6,500 minutes of live streaming and on-demand content were streamed. Over 650,000 streams were served to over 20,000 concurrent viewers.
August
Google and On2 jointly announced that Google intended to acquire On2, maker of the VP6, VP7 and erstwhile VP8 codecs, as well as embedded H.264 solutions. The reasoning behind the acquisition fueled various speculations as to Google's intent, and the intended merger completion—originally set for December 18—has been postponed until at least mid February 2010.
Both Apple and Microsoft used August as a month to tout their upcoming operating systems (Apple's Snow Leopard (10.6) was launched in September and Microsoft's Windows 7 was launched in October). Both operating systems shared a common streaming theme, with HTTP streaming of adaptive bitrate content (fragmented MPEG-4 "chunks") being integrated into the desktop video players on each platform.
September
The annual international broadcasters' show in Amsterdam each September, IBC, was the setting for Elemental Technologies to show off their Elemental Server, a GPU-based transcoding engine that the company claims can do the work of multiple CPU-based transcoding boxes. Elemental showed a further refinement at Adobe MAX 2009 in Los Angeles in October and then launched the Elemental Server at NewTeeVee Live in San Francisco in November.
In September, Akamai also launched its Akamai HD network and announced the network will be used to deliver 720p HD Silverlight streams of the 2010 Winter Olympics from Vancouver.
October
Streaming Media Europe 2009 took place mid-month, with a 32% increase over 2008's attendees, powered by discussions of timely topics such as online video platforms (OVPs) and HD content scalability. Yet community was also a key topic, as Myles MacBean shared in his keynote regarding Disney's portal strategy.
"I think Walt Disney, if he were around today, would be leading in the creation of virtual worlds," said MacBean, Vice President, Disney Online EMEA. "Walt focused on storytelling, innovation and quality, taking special stories and placing them in magical worlds."
MacBean dealt with the issues that a content owner of a major media company faces when it moves to a new medium. MacBean used his keynote to address the variety of mediums, the target audience, Disney's strategy and the impact on the value chain. MacBean noted that Disney was highly focused on strengthening the brand and staying on message, talking about how streaming and community building can help drive the overall vision.
November
Streaming Media West 2009, held in mid-November in San Jose, California, featured a keynote by Mark Whitten, General Manager of Xbox LIVE. Whitten highlighted the European launch of Sky's content on the Xbox, acknowledging that the roll-out of live and on-demand streaming content from Sky was more popular than anticipated. Whitten said that the service was now fully functional and was a precursor to other content partnerships.
"What you see in Sky rollout is our vision of how the world should work," said Whitten. "But we don't need to own the content so we're very open to partnerships. My goal is to use those partnerships to get the Xbox into the living room in all houses, making it input number one."
December
While the BBC Trust had quashed iPlayer federated plans in late October, limiting the ability to parcel out work on rapidly porting iPlayer to a variety of mobile and internet device platforms, December saw some positive news for Project Canvas. The BBC Trust provisionally approved the video-on-demand venture, using an IPTV set-top box with Canvas software to bring on-demand programming to viewers with Freeview and Freesat digital TV services, following the BBC, ITV, RTL’s Five, and BT.
Finally, Amazon announced that its cloud service, which allowed file storage and delivery, would move further into the traditional CDN space by offering Flash streaming. Amazon had pushed storage prices down when its cloud service ramped up in early 2009, and the anticipated effect of Flash streaming on Amazon may continue to lower margins for CDNs as we head into 2010.
This brief overview of 2009 is just a glimpse of what occurred in a fairly eventful year for the streaming industry. As I mentioned at the outset, this overview doesn't include many of the other key events in various industry verticals, so be sure to check out the 2010 Streaming Media Industry Sourcebook for additional insights.