Yospace looks to tailor content to individual viewers
Yospace will focus on its system to tailor individual content without disturbing the stream. Its technology replaces content and advertising in real time at the headend, meaning that it is delivered as a single stream without buffering, freezes, or lost video. According to the company, every single stream can be personalized for a specific viewer.
The Yospace approach is based on two key technologies. First, it interfaces closely with the broadcaster’s own playout automation system so it can switch to alternate content with frame accuracy. Second, because the content replacement and streaming distribution are offered as a cloud service, the system can scale to any number of simultaneous viewers and complexity of content replacement.
Given sufficient granularity in the subscriber management system, a unique and tailored commercial break can be tailored for each individual viewer. Taken together, the Yospace innovations mean that broadcasters can now support the delivery of linear programming to alternative platforms with a powerful commercial proposition.
“Everyone agrees that multi-screening and delivery to mobiles, tablets, and computers is one of the top issues to be debated at IBC this year,” said Tim Sewell, CEO of Yospace. “Our unique technology is already exciting the broadcasters who are trialing it, and the whole team is looking forward to discussing detailed implementations with broadcasters from around the world at IBC this September.”
With “TV everywhere” a top priority for many broadcasters, the company will also unveil its CSM Cloud Network, a distributed network of servers specializing in OTT simulcast delivery with dynamic content replacement capabilities. The first phase of the network has been rolled out throughout North America and Europe and allows broadcasters to quickly establish simulcast streaming services with personalized content replacement without the need to move from their established content delivery network partners.
Providing the service in the cloud means that it is readily scalable to any size of operation, as well as being quick to deploy. The Yospace CSM Cloud Network is geographically diverse, which means loads are balanced while ensuring that end users are serviced from the Yospace servers closest to them, reducing response times by avoiding network congestion.
“The Yospace CSM Cloud Network adds a lightweight control layer to HTTP-based streaming, potentially for a global audience,” said David Springall, CTO of Yospace. “Through its integration with ad/content decision platforms, it delivers personalized advertising or content replacement for live or linear streaming while using existing CDNs to deliver the heavyweight video data, so is complementary to existing delivery networks.”
“The cloud is not always appropriate for all broadcast operations, but in the case of enhanced multi-screen distribution the benefits are clear,” he added. “While we offer our technology to customers or OEM partners to implement their own networks, we believe this geographically distributed and horizontally scaled network offers real operational benefits to broadcasters who wish to rapidly roll-out reliable advanced multiscreen streaming for live event TV.”
A project, for real-time content replacement at ITV in the UK and using Yospace technology, has been shortlisted for the prestigious IBC Innovation Award for Content Delivery.