Antik Media Streamer

End-to-End TV Everywhere delivery system  

 

Live Streaming

• Powerful scalable HTTP Live Streaming Solution for global live content delivery. Ideal for low-speed and unstable access network conditions and OTT distribution thanks to state-of-art segment streaming feature.
• Allows unicast streaming using HLS protocol
• Allows to stream up to 2Gbps of traffic per individual server (based on your server hw e.g. when using 1mbps stream system can serve up to 1000 users simultaneously, increase of streaming capacity is possible.)
• Allows to pre-buffer the content into client device memory
• Fast-zapping support- using burst data transfer which can pre-fill buffer rapidly to decrease zapping time
• Full recovery of the stream in case of network drop-out (up to 30s) – non-visible for the viewer
• Includes segmenter which push segments into RAM to increase system performance
• Allows to setup length and number of segments stored in playlist of the server
• Monitoring interface visualises:
  • total data inflow into modul
  • input stream bitrates (coming from ingest module)
  • count and length of segment in playlist
  • playlist status
  • segmenter process uptimedestination IPs input stream bitrates (coming from ingest module) replicator uptime

 

Catch-Up TV Modul (TV Archive)

• records all content of the specific stream and allows access to it using EPG information
• includes segmenter which creates 10s files- directly enables to use HLS protocol for content delivery
• High availability – even curently played program can be accessed (less than 2 minutes from original playback time)
• Uses HLS protocol for streaming, so all the features described in Live Streaming can be utilized
• allows to define time braks in broadcasting to save space during black screen period
• Large scale archiving (depends on storage capacity)
• Intelligent erasing mode – identify oldest records and deletes them to free-up diskspace for new recordings
• Integrity analyser detects content drop-outs and enables them to other CDN components

• Uses HLS protocol for streaming, so all the features described in Live Streaming can be utilized
• Monitoring interface visualises:
  • Catch-up segmenter process status and uptime
  • Input stream bitrate
  • disk storage usage
  • number of days archived in the individual stream
  • unused content still available in storage
  • record integrity within actual day
  • detailed fine-grain integrity information for each recording day- includes timeline to visualise archived content and drop-outs
  • count and length of segment in playlist
  • actual total bitrate
  • estimated remaining archiving time according to actual bitrate

 

Archive Snapshots Module

• Creates snapshots for each video segment which was recorded by Catch-up TV module
• Allows comfortable end-user seeking in archived TV content
• Recorded pictures can be easily used for other Streamer modules
• Different snapshots profiles- profile name, picture size, resize method (LetterBox, Pan&Scan, Fill-in), background color (for LetterBox resize method), picture format
• (gif, bmp, jpeg), picture quality, jpeg compression quality, brighten effect
• Monitoring interface visualises:
  • profile list
  • snapshoter process status and uptime
  • last processed segment for each channel
  • snapshot browser – to visualise all snapshots recorded

Archive Mirroring Module

• Archive mirroring from other CDN server – to overcome content distribution problems on large distances or variable quality networks when continuous live stream is unavailable
• It can be effectively used to achieve high scalability using mirroring together with Load Balancer Module
• Monitoring interface visualises:
  • mirroring process status uptime
  • source server IPs
  • time of last successful synchronization
  • unused content still available in storage
  • disk space usage
  • mirroring progress bar

 

Video-On-Demand

This is an End-2-End system for a movie content preparation (encoding), storage, balancing the load, streaming and protection. Our robust segment streaming and buffering SW enables you to deliver content even in a lower quality Internet networks. The replication SW enables you to hold the VOD data load under control around-the-clock and ensure a non-stop operation even in the unlucky situation of partial server hosting drop-out.

The VOD is the easiest way of watching movies online. The user is able to watch a movie just  by a few clicks on his/her remote control. This video content will start immediately, the user doesn’t need to wait on the full movie download as it is instantly streamed to the end-devices.

•  Searching by the title, year, actor, genre, news and others
• Rate the movies or choose the movie with the highest rating amongst your network
• Filter by date, name, rating
• Virtual keyboard controlled by remote control or IPTV Multimedia keyboard
• Read movie description and watch movie trailer
• In more detailed view of movie description are also displaying similar movies
• Billing system connector

GUI & Management

It is a web based Middleware, which secures the management of the VOD content and presnts the user interface for an access to the VOD from the client’s device (set-top box). It’s able to scale the application on a large numbers of devices. It contains the billing connector module, which enables a secure invoicing for the seen content. It also cooperates with the Load Balancer to enable an immediate playing of  avideo content straight after a movie has been purchased meanwhile, it reserves the VoD storage capacity.

Streamer & Storage

It is a module of the Antik Media Streamer which secures placement of the video content and provides it to the client’s devices. The content must be prepared in form of a media package, which is an output of the VOD Encoder product. The VOD streamer provides the content through the HLS protocol, which enables a fluent and stable streaming also in slower networks. Thanks to the buffering it is capable of overcoming a short network downtimes without having the client side noticing it. Thanks to a real time streaming, it’s not necessary to wait for the download of the whole movie to the client’s device. The storage cooperates with the Load Balancer, and thus allows a scaling of the content into multiple servers while increasing the capacity and the load balancing. At the same time, the Load balancer is authenticating client and allowin an access to a secured content. As this module is an application of the Antik Media Streamer, there are all the monitoring functions and tools of this application available.

Recommended configuration:

• Quad Core Xeon
• 6GB RAM
• RAID: Hardware RAID5 adapter, 512MB, battery backup
• HDD: 8x SAS min. 300GB 10K-15K
• Ethernet: 2x 1Gbit/s

 

VOD Encoder

This device encodes the VoD content into the HLS format, so that it can be stored on the CDN servers. It also supports an automated transcoding thanks to a transcoding queue. It offers many supported video formats like .avi, .mp4, .mpg, .and, DVD ISO images and lots ofothers. The VoD Envoder is easily controlled through the web interface which allows upload of big files into the queue. The Multi user support allows the sharing of the transcoding service. Multiple audio tracks are also supported as well as the DVB subtitles used in the DVD discs.

Features:

• Multiuser queued transcoding
• Transcodes into HLS format
• Video formats support: .avi, .mp4, .mpg, .and, DVD ISO images and many other
• Web interface control
• Support of multiple audio tracks
• Support of DVD subtitles

The system is based on a standard open source operating system Linux, which minimalizes deployment costs. Additionally, this product can be easily installed on a dedicated server in any hosting data center. The product contains an advanced remote management and monitoring applications.

Recommended configuration:

• Core i7 processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 500 GB HDD
• Operating System Ubuntu Server 12.04 64bit

Encoding process:

• Login in to web based application
• Upload movie(s) using integrated JAVA applet
• Enter basic information about movie and define bitrate
• Enqueue movie for encoding
• Wait until movie is being encoded
• Download final movie package
• Transport encoded package on VOD storage server (product Streamer)

Requirements:

• Client side JAVA browser support (for large files upload)

Example of movie encoding

• Video format (avi, mp4…) -> encode -> HLS (customized for VOD)
• Encoding duration: from 2 to 5 hours (depending on the movie length and HW server configuration)

 

Time-Zone Shifting Modul

• Shifts the playback time of live stream
• Modul is targetted to be used in case of streaming to global time zone different than the timezone of content origin
• More shiftited streams from one source - Allows multiple time off-sets of the same content (TV channel) using the same data to save storage
• Support long playback time off-sets (storage size is the only limit)
• Uses HLS protocol for streaming, so all the features described in Live Streaming can be utilized
• Monitoring interface:
  • zone-shifter process status and uptime
  • input stream bitrate
  • availibity of each shifted playlist
  • unused content still available in storage
  • storage usage
  • count and length of segment in playlist

 

 Antik TV Stream Cache

The global TV streams delivery is now even more stable and reliable with the Antik StreamCache System. It secures a good quality linear, timeshifted or archive TV distribution around the world at reasonable costs even to areas with expensive backbone connections.

• Automatically routes stream request to the appropriate cache server based on
  • servers utilisation
  • rules
  • routing tables
• Cache servers ingests only streams which are used by at least one end-user device which leads to significant bandwidth savings on channels entered into streamer nearest cache server selection based on IP address group rules (e.g. geography, provider IP block)
• Alternative cache server prioritization based on routing tables enables to create robust redundant content delivery networks
• Multiplatform – STBs, mobiles, tablets, PCs as end devices

  

Load Balancer

The managing CDN server cluster, checking in periodical intervals and their status, and forwarding clients to each server depending on required service. In case of a failure of a CDN server, the Load Balancer will redirect end customers to a working CDN server. It allows an uthentication of the end customer devices and manages the access to the content and services. It contains statistical functions for the analysis utilization rate and the recording data about the watched content for the billing purposes and for the audience measurement. It also contains the monitoring interface for the CDN server cluster surveillance.

• Regularly checking status of CDN servers
• Active failover protection in case of HW failure
• Advanced login features allowing connectivity with billing system
• Managing CDN server cluster
• Client authentication and authorization with advanced per session generated passwords
• MPEG4 SD/HD AVC to MPEG4 SP/ASP
• CIF, or QCIF 2x to 12x depending on format conversion