The EBU is a member of a newly formed group aiming to create momentum towards the broad adoption of the MPEG-DASH standard. DASH (dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP) is designed to address the dramatic growth of Internet video by defining a universal delivery format. The DASH Promoters Group, which is showing the first DASH live video channel playout at the Mobile World Congres in Barcelona this week, brings together a wide cross-section of media, telecoms and IT organisations.
The demo, at the Qualcomm booth (#8B53), consists of a BBC World feed that is encoded by Harmonic in London in switchable H.264 streams using the DASH ISO Base Live Profile. The feed is transported via Akamai's CDN to Barcelona and displayed via wifi on a Qualcomm Snapdragon tablet with less than 20 seconds delay.
Addressing streaming issues
The DASH standard incorporates all of the best elements of proprietary adaptive streaming solutions designed to solve the classic issues users see when they stream video: intermittent stalls, poor video quality under changing network conditions, and significant video start-up lag. For EBU Members DASH is likely to become an important tool as the Internet grows in importance as a delivery channel both for catch-up services, second screen applications, and other innovations. A recent EBU TECHNICAL webinar provides an overview of the technology, the standardization process, comparisons to existing proprietary solutions and steps towards deployments.
EBU contributing
As a member of the DASH Promoters Group, the EBU will contribute to efforts to align ongoing DASH standards development, promote the use of common profiles across industry organizations, and facilitate interoperability tests and plug-fests to demonstrate the usability and completeness of the DASH standard. Any EBU Member that wishes to take part in this work should join the Strategic Programme on Broadband Networks (BBN).
Microsoft, Netflix and Qualcomm are the founding members with other members including: Adobe, AEG Digital Media, Akamai, BuyDRM, Digital Rapids, Digital TV Labs, Dolby, EBU, Elemental, Envivio, Ericsson, Harmonic, Intertrust, NDS, Packet Ship, Path1, RGB Networks, Samsung, Thomson, University of Klagenfurt and ZiXi.