Take your encoding and transcoding knowledge to the next level with this instructional webinar, starting at 2pm ET, that will highlight the latest advanced encoding techniques. Get details on delivering higher video quality at lower bit rates and how to prepare high quality video for delivery to any screen using multiple formats. The webinar will cover advanced practices from Telestream, Harmonic, Haivision and Sorenson Media and will cover:

• advances in AVC algorithms
• advanced GOP features in H.264
• live and file-based transcoding workflows and requirements
• different frame types, what they are and what they mean
• how to optimize encoding presets
• optimizing video for the iPad and Apple TV
• what are the hot new formats, who's using them, and what settings do we recommend?
• how to prepare content for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH)

Register here and bring your questions for the presenters for the live Q&A portion of the event.

I’m pleased to announce that in conjunction with our Streaming Media West show, taking place Oct. 30-31 in Los Angeles, we will be launching a brand new conference focused on video deployments within the enterprise and education verticals. While a portion of the content at our East and West shows have always included topics pertaining to video within the firewall, we think more focus is needed on enterprise video and will now have a whole show dedicated to the topic.

Called the “Enterprise Video Conference“, the event will be two-days in length and have two concurrent tracks with case study presentations, round-table panels, how-to sessions and possibly their own keynotes. While I wanted to wait until the website was up before I announced the show, I need to get started on the agenda and the call for speakers.

In addition to the work I will be doing to plan the show, I am also recruiting an advisory board of industry experts as well end-user customers who deploy and use these solutions every day to help me plan the content of the show. Multiple enterprise organizations who deliver video inside the firewall have agreed to help as well as numerous universities. I’ll announce the advisory committee shortly and if anyone wants to be considered for an advisory role to help me shape the content of the conference, please reach out to me ASAP.

As with all of our events, end-user customers are going to be a key focus of the show. There will be room for vendors to speak as well, but I really want to highlight as many customer success stories as possible. Vendors have done an excellent job at getting many of their fortune 500 customers to speak and present at past shows and I’ll looking for suggestions for the Enterprise Video Conference as well.

Until the website is up with more details, anyone interested in getting involved, submitting a customer to speak or wanting to pitch me any ideas or suggestions can simply send me en email. I don’t have deadlines yet for speaking submissions, but I suspect the deadline will be in about 30 days from now. Those interested in potentially being advisory members or moderators who want to organize a session of their own need to contact me quickly – by the end of this month.

There are tons of conferences and shows in the industry, but very few are focused, bring a qualified audience and are geared only towards the use and adoption of video amongst enterprise and educational institutions. This isn’t our show, it’s the industry’s and this is your chance to give feedback, pitch in and help make the Enterprise Video Conference show people that there is more to video than just media and entertainment content. Video deployments inside the enterprise and edu don’t get enough credit and with your help, we can change that.

So if you have ideas, suggestions, want to speak, moderate or be involved in way, the flood gates are open. Email me, call me (917-523-4562) and please realize that speaking spots will go fast. The content for this conference will come together quickly, so don’t wait too long to reach out if you want to be involved.

The call for speakers for the next Streaming Media West show, taking place October October 29-31 in LA, has been open for a few weeks and anyone interested in potentially presenting or speaking at the show needs to submit a proposal via the website. The deadline for proposals is June 22nd. Proposals are always welcomed after the deadline, but I get seven or eight times the number of submissions I can use by the deadline, so getting it on time is important.

At our May show in NYC, I cut out 1/3 of all the round-table sessions and replaced them with how-to presentations. I will be doing the same for the West show which means there will be fewer spots for speakers on panel sessions. Attendees have told us to "talk less and show more", so that's what we're doing with more hands-on presenters. If you'd like to pitch a hands-on presentation, please look at the list of ones we had at the May show to get an idea of the topics we cover.

I get asked time and again how I pick speakers and for info on the speaker selection process, as well as what is required from vendors if they want to speak. I've explained that in detail on my blog many times so if you are new to the process, please see my post here that explains it in detail. [Here's How Vendors Can Speak At The Streaming Media West Show In LA] While the post talks to last year's show, it still applies.

Based on the proposals I have already received, I probably have 75% of my topics decided upon and outlined. But if you want to moderate a session and help create the content and invite speakers, please contact me ASAP if you haven't already.

Also, I know that many other shows wait till a month or two before the event to place a lot of their speakers. I have 150 speakers, 20 how-to sessions, four workshops and two keynotes over three days, so a lot of the planning happens well in advance. Trying to get a speaking spot last minute is nearly impossible, so please understand that when you call me two weeks before the show asking why you can't speak.

We'll be adding a new conference to the West show this year called "The Enterprise Video Conference". The purpose of the conference is to have a dedicated event focused on the enterprise and education verticals and their adoption of video. I'll post more info on my blog about that event shortly and will announce a list of industry executives who make up the advisory committee helping us plan the new show.

It seems a week can’t go buy without my RSS feed being full of articles talking to the demise of the TV medium and its business model. This in the face of record profits by operators like Comcast, reports from cable operators of no subscriber losses of any significance and MSO’s seeing their average revenue per user (ARPU) growing every few quarters. Yet even in the face of all this data, many in the media seem to have a personal agenda of wanting to get others to agree with them that cable TV is a dying medium and that it will follow the downward spiral of the newspaper business.

Their arguments, if you can call them that, are almost always based on the speculation of products that don’t even exist yet, think Apple TV, or al la carte pricing, and they try to argue that one medium, like online video, will replace another service instead of being a compliment to it. Many are under the assumption that they know what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for and are quick to count new services as a disruptor, even if there are no customers. The media is so adamant about saying how much consumers hate paying their cable bills, even though we have the evidence to prove that so far, consumers have not voted with their wallets and canceled their cable in any large numbers. You almost never see any of these articles mention that there are more than 100M consumers in the U.S. who pay for cable TV or that to date, all combined, the cable TV operators haven’t even lost 1% of their subscribers in any one-quarter.

None of that seems to matter though because these days, if you write about the online TV business, it seems you are almost expected to bash cable TV and spend more time creating the title of your post than the actual contents. Many writing about the cable TV industry try to top one another with headlines that spew doom and gloom for the cable TV industry, using words like “death” and “dying”. Their motive is to entice a reader with drama, rather than to inform them of what’s really going on. Many write about how easy it is to cut the cord and speak to it as a viable alternative to cable, but then have never used the devices and platforms they are writing about. They aren’t hands on, don’t know how the services work, and the vast majority of those who write about the online TV space couldn’t even tell you the simple mathematical formula used to figure out how much bandwidth an online video stream takes up.

Probably eight out of every ten articles I read about the cable TV industry never seems to tell the story of what’s actually taking place with cable TV today. All the media wants to do is speculate about what could or may happen down the line and they are more concerned with trying to crystal ball everything, instead of looking at real data we have in the market today. Naturally every time I write an article like this I get comments from people who say that they are talking about the “future” and that I must be an idiot not to agree that the TV model will change. If by idiot you mean realist, I’ll take that as a compliment because change does not imply “disruption” or “death” like many suggest. And many of these authors are some of same people who were saying in 2007 that the cable TV model will be dead in a few years and that TV everywhere, Netflix and the Apple TV box would “kill” off cable. Five years later, none of that is true, TV everywhere is hardly deployed and Apple has only sold 5.5M of their $99 Apple TV’s in the past 21 months.

Today I read an article that started off by saying, “it was only a few years ago that it looked like TV was a dying medium.” Really? To whom? It didn’t look like that to anyone with any sense. While some might argue with my notion that many posts about cord cutting don’t contain lots of data, the problem is that the data they highlight is 100% irrelevant. Firms spend a lot of time and money to collect data from consumers who say they don’t want to pay their cable bill and want to cut the cord. But the only thing that matters is not how many say they “want” to do it, but how many actually do. Is anyone surprised that when you ask consumers if they’d rather get something for free instead of paying for it most say they would? That’s suppose to be the data to support their cord-cutting argument? It’s useless.

It reminds me of when Netflix announced their higher pricing. Analysts surveyed customers and then said that Netflix could lose up to 30% of their members because they were so up in arms about the higher prices. However when it came time for Netflix to report their numbers, Netflix didn’t lose a lot of members at all. Because complaining about not wanting to pay for something versus actually canceling the service are two very different things. But these are the kinds of meaningless data points writers use to try to sound rational, as if it gives them ammunition for their argument. I’ll go back to my earlier example. Why is it that the majority of cord-cutting articles never mention how many total consumers pay for cable or satellite TV? Go back and look at the last five articles you read about cord-cutting. I’ll bet you all of them didn’t give out that data. Because the moment they do, their title loses all of its punch and it’s no longer as dramatic as they made it out to be.

It’s also clear to see from most of the posts about cord-cutting that the writers don’t have any real understanding of how video is delivered on the Internet. They think of themselves as being experienced with technology but the fact is, most of them have never worked at a technology company. They are quick to talk to the content choices, syndication models and what consumers want, but not about whether any of these services can or will work from a technical level. Every time some kind of new service is announced, they don’t question the technology, what the quality is when compared to TV, how the service could scale, what the QoS is or how it actually works. Far too many hear how it works, might see a demo and then assume it could displace a large portion of an already well established offering like cable TV that has been proven at scale.

Today, far too many bloggers who cover the topic of cable TV and the impact online video is having write for headlines. Opinions are giving as facts, real data is ignored and unreliable data is quoted as scripture. Too many writers want to use words and phrases to always show the negative side of something, instead of telling the story of what’s really taking place. Look at how many authors spend so much effort to try and convince the reader that they should cut the cord and dump cable. Why? As a writer for a news outlet, that’s not their job. I believe the job of the media should be to tell a story and not to try and spend so much time and effort trying to get the reader to agree with the author’s opinion that cable TV is dead or dying. Give out the data, present the facts and then let the reader decide on their own. Trying to use doom and gloom to sell a story is a bad approach to take to editorial.

All of the presentations and sessions from the Content Delivery Summit are now online and available for viewing on the show website at www.ContentDeliverySummit.com.

You can also download all of the presentations from the event on the agenda page. You may use use or embed the videos any way you like. The Twitter hashtag for the event is #cdnsummit

I strive to always be available to everyone and respond to emails and calls within 24 hours, but on Friday, I will be having surgery on my arm which will result in me being offline for at least a few days, if not a week. So please note that I'll reply to emails more slowly than usual and if it's urgent, please call me on my cell at 917-523-4562. Don't worry about bothering me, I'll probably be bored with nothing to do.

I was hoping I wasn’t going to have to write this post today, but it’s clear that far too many people on Wall Street either aren’t reading the details of what Netflix announced, or are simply trying to create a panic for their own benefit. I’ve seen quite a few reports this morning from those who put out coverage on Akamai and while some of them are on point, many of them are full of inaccurate information. I’ve also gotten a lot of questions this morning about Netflix’s CDN news, so I will try to answer those questions in this post as well. [updated: Level 3 has just posted their thoughts on the Netflix news]

At the time of this post, Akamai shares are down almost 6.5% on the Netflix news. While I’m not one who speculates on share prices or gives out any kind of share guidance or recommendations, the real impact on Akamai by Netflix building their own CDN is minimal. Far too many on Wall Street want to imply this has a big impact on Akamai’s business or that this is the start of a new trend of content owners taking their video delivery in-house. This could not be further from the truth. We have public data in the market to prove it, yet many want overlook that data to support their own agenda to investors.

From what I know, the vast majority of Netflix’s video traffic in North America is delivered by Limelight and Level 3. While Akamai does have some of the U.S based traffic, it’s not a big percentage. I estimate that Limelight and Level 3 deliver more than 80% of Netflix’s U.S. based video traffic. While Akamai delivers a larger portion of Netflix’s video outside of North America, Netflix still does not have many subscribers outside the U.S. so the overall traffic volume isn’t huge. In addition, these caches being deployed by Netflix are for video traffic only. Netflix also uses Akamai for other services like small object delivery and these caches only support the delivery of video content. So none of Akamai’s small object delivery business, or Amazon’s AWS business with Netflix is impacted in any way, which was something Netflix confirmed for me during my call with them yesterday.

I’ve also seen some suggest that Akamai lost an opportunity to sell Netflix their managed or licensed CDN platform. It’s clear that anyone who implies that does not have an understanding of what a licensed and managed CDN platform is for or how it works. Licensed and managed CDN platforms can only be deployed inside a carrier’s network. They are licensed to network operators who own their own network. Since Netflix does not own a network and is placing their caches inside third-party networks, there is no way a licensed or managed CDN platform could work for what Netflix is building. So Akamai didn’t “miss out” on any kind of licensed of managed CDN sale with Netflix.

Next up is the absurd notion I have seen from far too many people implying that over time, Netflix will be in the CDN business competing against vendors like Akamai and will deliver content for services outside of Netflix. Statements like this show a complete lack of knowledge of how caching works and what Netflix’s caches do. Not only are Netflix’s caches setup to only proactively cache Netflix’s content, but they are not demand driven caches. Netflix caches use a pre-population method that works for a set library with a known set of subscribers, but would not be appropriate for a general-purpose CDN or caching system. So Netflix’s caching platform, as it stands now, would not even work to cache content the way ISPs do it today with transparent caching platforms.

I’ve seen some suggest this is a new trend in the market, content owners delivering video themselves, and then they mention Facebook or Apple as those who may follow Netflix’s route. Why that is possible, and likely, that’s not a “trend”. How many companies are there the size of Google, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo!, Netflix or Microsoft? Very, very few. Not to mention, most of Facebook’s traffic is small object delivery, not video. There are maybe half-a-dozen content owners who are delivering enough volume of bits, have the technical expertise and have the money to build out their own CDN. If half a dozen companies end up doing this themselves, out of thousands of CDN customers, that is not a “trend”.

Many have stated that in addition to Akamai, Limelight Networks is also at risk since Netflix accounted for about 11% of Limelight’s total revenue in 2011.While that is accurate, Limelight has had this happen before with both YouTube and Microsoft taking their traffic off of Limelight’s network over an extended period of time. I’m not implying that Limelight will automatically be able to replace that revenue over the next 18 months time, they will have to work to do that, but it’s not something they are unfamiliar with and all of the CDNs have known of Netflix’s plans for some time. While I saw one report say that Netflix’s news “could deplete revenue for third-party CDNs“, that’s a completely overblown statement.

I’ve also seen members of the media get into the act by saying third-party CDNs could see, “sizable amounts of revenue depleted“. If Akamai loses 1% of their revenue, over an 18 month period of time, from one customer, is that a “sizable amount”? Of course not. But the people writing these pieces have no clue how the business works and what the real numbers are, or else they wouldn’t speak in such general terms.

This reaction to Netflix’s news by many on Wall Street reminds me of a similar reaction Wall Street had when in December of 2007, AT&T announced they would spend close to $70M dollars to grow their streaming and caching services. Akamai’s share price fell more than $2 dollars that day, and tons of Wall Street analysts downgraded the stock saying that AT&T would now move into the market and take share from Akamai. Six months later, AT&T made another CDN announcement that they would build out their CDN to have 400 Gbps of global capacity by the end of the year. Rather than look at real numbers, like the fact that 400 Gbps of capacity would only be 20% of the network capacity Limelight had at the time, Wall Street once again implied it was doom and gloom for CDN competitors. Of course that didn’t happen and five years later, AT&T isn’t any closer to impacting any of the major players in the CDN space.

Far too many Wall Street analysts want to create uncertainty, panic and confusion when news like this comes out. I wish they would focus more of their time and efforts on learning more about how these technologies actually work, how they are deployed, what they cost and better understand the competitive landscape. If you cover CDN vendors in this space and you don’t know what DSA or FEO stands for, don’t know how transparent caching works, why or how a licensed or managed CDN is deployed, or what services the CDNs actually offer, then you really can’t expect to be taken seriously when you publish coverage that is heavy on fiction instead of facts.

Note: Not all Wall Street analysts do a poor job in their coverage of the CDN space. Some know the space well. But ever since about a year ago when Akamai’s share price dropped, many new analysts have jumped in to cover CDN vendors and they have no expertise or insight into the CDN market at all. As a result, the quality of the coverage put out on CDN vendors as a whole has really suffered in the past 18 months.

Related Post:

The content delivery market is rapidly changing with new products and services coming to the market including licensed and managed CDN, dynamic site acceleration, front-end optimization, mobile content acceleration and transparent caching. If you’re a bit confused by all of these different technologies, I’ve provided definitions of some of the various technologies below.

• Dynamic Site Acceleration (DSA): Dynamic site acceleration is a suite of technologies and products that deals with optimizing dynamically served content across the network. Traditional DSA services often include TCP optimization, route optimization, connection management, on-the-fly compression, SSL offload and pre-fetching technologies.

• Front-End Optimization (FEO): Front-end optimization technologies help to reduce the number of page resources required to download a given page and makes the browser process the page faster. FEO technology isn’t used to bring content closer, but rather makes the content itself faster by optimizing the client side delivery of website resources.

• Transparent Caching: Transparent caching platforms make intelligent decisions about which content can and should be cached inside a carrier’s network. By deploying intelligent caches strategically throughout their networks, operators can cache and deliver popular content close to subscribers and reduce the amount of transit traffic across their networks.

• Over-The-Top Video (OTT): Over-the-top is an industry term used to describe a video service that you utilize over a network that is not offered by your cable company (example: Netflix). It’s often referred to as “over-the-top” because these services ride on top of the service you already get from your ISP and doesn’t require any business or technology affiliations with your cable TV provider.

• Federated CDN: Federated CDN is a term used to describe the idea of carriers and telcos getting together to connect their CDNs with one another, thereby creating a “federation” of content delivery networks. These carriers and telcos would trade traffic across their private CDNs, with the idea of trying to bypass service based content delivery networks.

• Licensed/Managed CDN: Licensed and managed CDN refers to software and services aimed at helping telcos, carriers and service providers build and deploy their own CDN services inside their network. Licensed CDN refers to the licensing of CDN software to the carrier who then builds a CDN solution on their own. Managed CDN is when a service based content delivery vendor helps build and manage the CDN component of the carrier’s network for them.

• Application Acceleration: Application acceleration is a suite of technologies that combines fast packet processing with SSL acceleration, connection multiplexing, dynamic caching and adaptive compression to improve application response times. These technologies enable enterprise customers to accelerate the delivery of internal, external and latency sensitive applications to distributed users across the Internet or via their enterprise network.

• Mobile Content Acceleration: Mobile content acceleration technologies are designed to specifically eliminate latencies found on mobile broadband networks to reduce page load times on mobile devices.