Due to AI buildouts, the cost of memory and SSDs is skyrocketing, even for consumer SSDs and gaming hardware. Four months ago, I bought a SanDisk 1TB Portable SSD for $79.39. Today it costs $109.99, although Amazon currently has it on sale for $99. Thanks to buildouts for AI workloads, both DRAM memory used for RAM and NAND memory used for SSDs are in short supply. To put it in context, to support OpenAI’s massive Stargate data center initiative, the company signed deals with Samsung and SK Hynix for 900,000 DRAM wafers per month, which could amount to 40% of current global DRAM output.

According to CyberPowerPC, “global memory (RAM) prices have surged by 500%, and SSD prices have risen by 100%,” forcing them to raise pricing on PC gaming builds. Even though SSDs in AI servers aren’t the same as those in gaming PCs, NAND production for these AI server SSDs can divert from that for consumer SSDs once supply is limited. In September, Western Digital announced HDD price increases and shipping delays of up to 10 weeks, while SanDisk raised NAND pricing and Micron implemented a week-long pricing freeze.

Now, the gaming industry is watching to see if graphics cards are next to see a significant price increase, since the same production facilities that make memory for AI servers and RAM/SSD also produce graphics cards. AMD has already announced small GPU price increases, with more expected.

Netflix’s latest tech blog details how AV1 now powers approximately 30% of all Netflix viewing (on demand), following the launch of AV1 support on Android in 2020. While H.264/AVC remains the primary codec for Netflix viewing, the company expects AV1 to become the top codec very soon. Some other key takeaways from Netflix’s post:

• AV1 sessions use one-third less bandwidth than both AVC and HEVC, resulting in 45% fewer buffering interruptions
• On average, AV1 streaming sessions achieve VMAF scores that are 4.3 points higher than AVC and 0.9 points higher than HEVC sessions
• 85% of Netflix’s HDR catalog (from the perspective of view-hours) has AV1-HDR10+ coverage, and this number is expected to reach 100% in the next couple of months
• The AV1 specification incorporates a unique solution called Film Grain Synthesis (FGS), allowing Netflix to deliver a realistic cinematic film grain experience without the usual data costs
• Netflix is evaluating the use of AV1 in live streaming to deliver high-quality live experiences to large audiences without compromising video quality, and to reduce its delivery costs
• AV1 offers an opportunity to make graphic overlays highly customizable, since layered coding is supported in AV1’s main profile
• Over the past five years (2021–2025), 88% of large-screen devices, including TVs, set-top boxes, and streaming sticks, submitted for Netflix certification have supported AV1, with the vast majority offering full 4K@60fps capability

Netflix says it is excited about the forthcoming release of AV2, announced by the Alliance for Open Media in September, with an expected release at the end of this year.

If you are looking for details on the CDN industry, including marketing sizing, vendors, and trends, do_not_buy any report! I will provide the data to you free of charge. Reports on the market are stealing users’ money by listing “current vendors,” as Limelight, Lumen, StackPath, Verizon, and others that went under years ago, were acquired, or shut down their CDN services. Many also incorrectly list vendors, including Telestream, Citrix, Kaltura, Imperva, Airtel, Brightcove and others that don’t offer any CDN services.

The worst offenders are reports authored and sold by Precedence Research, Grand View Research, Fortune Business Insights, Fact MR, SkyQuest, Avania, IMARC Research, Future Market Insights and Roots Analysis, among others. Many of these reports also misspell vendor names (Cloudfare, Lemelight) or suggest that Verizon is an “emerging market participant” and that Fastly is a “new startup.” The average cost for these reports is $5k, with some costing twice that. Most have no author listed, and those that do list an author also cover markets tied to pharma and automotive. These authors have no understanding of the CDN market.

Many of these reports also suggest that the CDN market is in the tens of billions of dollars today, and some suggest that Netflix and YouTube resell their CDNs to other content owners. Nearly all reports I have seen don’t clearly explain or define how public CDNs disclose their revenue to Wall Street, and they use terms like “video” to describe all delivery revenue, which is inaccurate. See my posts at cdnlist.com and cdnmarket.com for market sizing and vendor list, and please get in touch with me if you need any updated data.

I have not seen a single report on the CDN market, issued by any third-party research firm or Wall Street analyst, that is grounded in facts. If you know of one you think is decent, I am happy to review it and provide my feedback. (dan@danrayburn.com)

For those suggesting that Brightcove is no longer in the market or that everyone has been fired since the Bending Spoons acquisition, that’s far from reality. In the eleven months since being acquired by Bending Spoons, Brightcove has added more features, functionality, and focus than standalone Brightcove ever achieved in the same period. Looking inside my Brightcove account, it’s great to see how much has been added and enhanced.

The company just refreshed its website with a clean, modern look, refocusing its messaging on what its platform does and where its sweet spot lies in the market. They also rolled out a vertical video gallery template across their platform, 4K support for live streaming, auto captioning, a new metadata optimizer tool, and the ability to localize videos into over 50 languages directly within the platform.

In the new year, they plan to roll out a new player UX/UI, a native recommendation engine, a modern gallery experience, the ability to do more with interactive video, and what they are calling AI Content Multiplier, which can turn a single piece of content into various clips.

A lot of progress has been made since the acquisition, and that’s the strength of Bending Spoons: knowing how to build and enhance software services at scale with focus, with focus being the keyword. Previously, Brightcove tried to be everything to everyone and built features that weren’t needed by its core customer base. Part of its business had turned into a pro-services show, which is not its strength. It’s good to see Brightcove back to its roots, offering solutions for two use cases in the market: corporate comms/marketing and broadcast/OTT streaming.

Let this sink in. From December 25-27, five NFL games will be played, none of which will be broadcast nationally on TV, during some of the largest viewership windows. Netflix has two games on Christmas, Amazon has one, Peacock has one on the 27th, and the NFL Network has the other. Four games are streaming exclusively across three different platforms. Local NBC affiliates will show the exclusive game on Peacock, and all NFL games will be available OTA.

This shows just how much the NFL is relying on streaming services for distribution and for global reach, something broadcasters can’t provide. Netflix and Amazon have international rights to their Christmas games, except in a few territories, including Canada. All games will also be available internationally via DAZN, the league’s international partner for NFL Game Pass.

Netflix’s streams will not be in HDR, even though CBS is producing the games for Netflix. Peacock will be in HDR, as will Amazon’s, and NBC will produce Amazon’s Xmas game, just as they do for all of the TNF games.

I don’t expect record viewership this year for the NFL Xmas games, when compared to last year, since the 2025 matches aren’t as good. The Dallas Cowboys and Washington Commanders will kick things off at 1:00 PM on Netflix, followed by the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions at 4:00 PM. All but the Lions have been eliminated from the playoffs. Things will switch to Amazon Prime for the final game, which features the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos, but the Chiefs have already been eliminated, and Patrick Mahomes is out due to injury.

Netflix and Amazon have filed appeals with the Lazio Regional Administrative Court in Italy in respect to their CDNs. Last August, Italy’s Communications Regulatory Authority (Agcom) decided to extend the general authorisation requirement, under the Electronic Communications Code, on Netflix and Amazon, stating their CDNs should be regulated as telcos and pay network taxes.

As both Amazon and Netflix rightly point out, private CDN services should not be regulated like telcos, and Netflix states that “there is no legal basis to support it, and it is contrary to European and Italian law.” Agcom lacks a clear understanding of how private CDNs work; otherwise, they would know that CDNs are not electronic communications networks, and Netflix’s CDN does not carry any third-party data.

Agcom argues that CDNs are networks capable of transmitting signals and, therefore, are subject to authorization under the Electronic Communications Code. Netflix states that requiring the company to obtain a telecommunications operator’s license could result in servers being relocated elsewhere, requiring data to be delivered from further away and negatively impacting the viewing experience.

Rumors suggest that Agcom is considering adopting a regulation that takes into account the type of internet service in its decision and whether the EU, with the new Digital Networks Act, intends to move in the same direction.

For the past two days, I’ve been using Amazon’s new Vega OS-based Fire TV Stick, and I’m not impressed. Amazon claims the value of the latest model is “remarkably fast app launches,” but when tested against the Fire TV Stick Max, there’s no difference in speed.

I tested Netflix and Prime Video load times on both devices ten times each, and the average load time for Netflix on the Vega-based device was 14.03 seconds. On the Max device, the average time was 14.06 seconds. When testing Amazon’s Prime Video app, the average load time was 10.2 seconds on the Vega-based device and 11.3 seconds on the Max device. No customer is going to notice a fraction of a second in app loading times.

The Max device does boast better specs, featuring 2GB of memory and a Quad-core 2.0GHz processor, compared to the Select’s 1 GB and Quad-core 1.7 GHz. But according to Amazon, the Vega-based device doesn’t require as much memory or a faster processor because container apps in the cloud are streaming the actual app from Amazon’s cloud servers.

Setting up the device took nine minutes because the remote wouldn’t pair out of the box. It kept telling me to use new batteries, despite them being new from Amazon, as verified by a battery tester. The device required a software update as expected, followed by a four-minute restart. An hour after using the device, the remote decided to do a two-minute software update. The new Select device features a more rounded remote and has replaced the dedicated Hulu button with one for Peacock.

I’ve come across a few online mentions suggesting it is possible to sideload apps onto a Vega OS Fire TV device using a command-line interface similar to Android’s ADB utility; however, I don’t see how that is possible, and I haven’t seen anyone demonstrate it working in the wild. Unlike Android-based Fire TV devices, where you can turn on Developer Options in the About section, I’ve not found any way to do this on the Vega-based device. I “think” that only registered developers will be able to enable developer mode. Still, it’s unclear at this time, and I don’t know what the reference means in Amazon’s documentation when it lists a command for running an app that has been sideloaded.

For developers whose app is delivered via Amazon cloud app streaming, note that the Vega-based stick won’t support local device access, picture-in-picture, live TV EPG integration and continue watching row references. Amazon also notes that running the Fire OS app in a cloud container will cause the IP address seen by the developers’ content delivery network to not align with the IP address seen by the developers’ back-end servers. As a result, Amazon says local ad targeting may not function correctly, VPN inhibitors might be falsely triggered, other geo-fencing solutions might not function as expected, and High-traffic events might trigger denial of service attack warnings.

To address these problems, Amazon says apps can be configured to support IP tunneling, where all IP traffic is routed through the device. However, Amazon notes that enabling IP tunneling may increase lag in customer interactions and reduce the speed of content catalog browsing and other app interactions, which is why it is not enabled by default. Amazon advises developers to contact Developer Support if they encounter this problem, to request that their app be enabled with IP tunneling. This all sounds like a lot of work for the developers to ensure customers get the experience they expect, and I wonder how many developers will dedicate time to supporting a single Fire TV model.

For an understanding of how video playback in Amazon cloud app streaming works, Amazon’s developer page provides a detailed step-by-step: (copied word for word from Amazon’s page)

1. Customer UI interaction on device are sent to the app instance running on Fire OS in a cloud container.
2. A customer interaction with app instance results in a content play request.
3. App instance calls to developer CDN gets routed to on-device streaming player.
4. App instance uses MediaDRM and MediaCodec interfaces which are bridged to device streaming player.
5. Device media player fetches content from developer CDN.
6. Device streaming player sends non-AV payload to app instance for state synchronization.
7. Device streaming player decodes the AV payload using on-device secure video pipe.
8. Playback information is synchronized between device and media player in app instance context.
9. App instance streams UI to device client.
10. App instance UI is composited along with the video content and rendered on the device screen.

The Vega-based Fire TV Stick currently costs $14 more than the newest Fire TV Stick 4K model, although pricing varies based on whatever discount Amazon is running at the time. No consumer will choose the more expensive model simply because it runs on an OS owned by Amazon. Of course, Amazon’s pricing strategy could quickly change at any time, and I expect it will.

I believe it will enable Amazon to offer the cheapest Fire TV model ever, as Vega OS is a simpler platform that requires less from the device’s hardware compared to Fire OS. That should be just fine for consumers who don’t care and overlook the limited capabilities and limited app ecosystem. A significant limitation is that the Select device does not support live view picture-in-picture. If customers purchase it under the assumption that it’s faster than the Max device, they will be disappointed.