AI is a transformative force in the media and entertainment industry, reshaping how video is delivered, monetized and consumed. For streaming providers, broadcasters and sports networks, AI has become a cornerstone of innovation. Leveraging AI, service providers can deliver higher-quality experiences while reducing operational costs and unlocking new revenue opportunities.

AI is being applied across the entire video delivery chain, driving efficiencies for video service providers and enhancing viewer engagement. From smarter video compression to workflow automation, audience engagement and monetization, AI is powering the next era of video streaming.

Achieving Smarter Video Compression with AI
The latest video compression technologies are using machine learning to mimic the human visual system, intelligently allocating bits where they matter most to viewers.

This approach brings efficient variable bitrate encoding to the ABR ladders used for OTT delivery and provides up to 50% bitrate savings while maintaining exceptional video quality. Through a two-step AI/ML pipeline that includes offline learning and real-time encoding, AI optimizes compression efficiency, reducing both storage and CDN costs for service providers.

Ultimately, AI enables service providers to deliver UHD-quality video and beyond at significantly lower bitrates, cutting costs without compromising the viewer experience. For viewers, it ensures consistently smooth, high-quality streams, even in situations where bandwidth is constrained.

Increasing Workflow Efficiency through AI Automation
AI-based analysis is now reducing the human labor involved in creating video streaming channels, helping service providers scale faster and more cost-effectively. There are several key applications where AI is improving workflow efficiency for video streaming.

Automatic scheduling and channel creation: With AI-driven automation, tasks that once required hours of manual configuration can be performed in minutes. For instance, AI models can automatically generate schedules for linear streaming channels as well as create new channels based on topics or themes.

Automatic ad break detection: Through AI, service providers can automatically insert ad breaks in VOD assets and live content, enabling monetization of any feed without the need for production crews or manual operations.

Dynamic brand insertion: AI is opening up new opportunities for dynamic brand insertion, also referred to as in-content virtual product placement. This approach goes beyond traditional ad breaks by seamlessly blending branded content into the video stream. For example, AI can digitally insert a targeted ad in the form of a billboard, logo or product directly into the scene. While typically processed offline rather than live, these techniques create highly targeted monetization opportunities, allowing service providers to maximize ad value without disrupting the viewer experience.

Real-time sports highlights: Service providers are leveraging AI to create sports highlights in real time. Using AI streamlines highlight production, enabling broadcasters and streaming platforms to meet the viewer demand for engaging, bite-size content.

Driving Audience Engagement via AI
Viewer expectations are evolving rapidly, particularly for live sports streaming where real-time interaction and personalization are becoming the norm. Service providers can stay ahead of this trend and transform fan engagement by leveraging AI and generative AI.

AI-based analysis, combined with generative AI tools, is enabling automatic creation of highlight clips, automated translation with voice cloning or over-dubbing across multiple language and interactive fan experiences. For example, a live sports event can be delivered with localized commentary in multiple languages, ensuring global accessibility and inclusivity.

AI-driven sports clipping further enriches programming by automatically detecting high-action or emotional moments and re-packaging them for social media or second-screen experiences. This not only boosts engagement but also extends monetization opportunities through new ad inventory and sponsorship placements.

Elevating Monetization and Personalization via AI
AI is enabling contextually relevant advertising, boosting monetization for streaming providers in today’s highly fragmented and competitive market.

Leveraging AI, service providers can automatically detect ad breaks in live sports content and insert the SCTE-35 markers needed for downstream ad insertion. When offering innovative in-stream ad formats such as split-screen ads or dynamic overlays, streamers can use AI to detect high- and low-action moments in a game and trigger the automatic insertion of the in-stream ad units.

Delivering contextually relevant full-screen ads and non-intrusive in-stream ads will boost viewer engagement, satisfaction and loyalty to the streaming platform. For service providers, this translates into higher ad revenue, reduced churn and stronger relationships with viewers.

The Bigger Picture: AI as a Catalyst for Video Streaming Efficiency & Revenue Growth
AI has become a catalyst for efficiency and revenue growth in the video streaming industry. By optimizing compression, streamlining workflows, boosting viewer engagement and unlocking monetization, AI enables media companies to thrive in a competitive environment.

At a time when audience expectations are soaring and profitability pressures are rising, AI provides media companies with critical tools to stay ahead. As service providers embrace AI across their video streaming operations, they will be empowered to streamline video workflows, deliver richer streaming experiences and capture new revenue streams, creating lasting value for viewers.

TV TECHNOLOGY:What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trend at the 2019 NAB Show?

JEAN MACHER: The media and broadcast industries are thriving and changing, and in order to keep pace our customers need to run simpler, leaner operations. At the 2019 NAB Show you can expect to see all-IP, all-software solutions for maximum workflow flexibility, cloud and SaaS for business agility, and AI and machine-learning technologies that enable breakthrough improvements in media processing.

TVT:What will be your most important product news?

MACHER: Our VOS360 Video SaaS continues to gain enhancements to its cloud-native media processing capabilities and support a variety of new workflows. For OTT workflows, VOS360 SaaS now provides content monetization through support for targeted ad insertion, content replacement and blackouts.

For channel origination workflows, our VOS360 solution supports UHD HDR playout, as well as new advanced scheduling capabilities. Additionally, VOS360 SaaS can be used for ATSC 3.0, offering an efficient centralized model for ATSC 3.0 encoding, statmux, and delivery to remote TV stations, all provided as a service.

TVT:How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

MACHER: All of Harmonic’s expertise in video processing, playout, and OTT delivery is available in our cloud-native VOS software, which is deployable as a Video SaaS, as a cluster on-premises, or on traditional appliances. VOS software provides deployment flexibility and supports a wide range of business models, from skinny bundles to Disaster Recovery as a Service, UHD HDR live streaming and more. By providing our customers with an end-to-end workflow solution, we’re enabling them to launch video streaming services faster and run simpler operations. The VOS solution is exactly what our customers need in this new TV world, where disruption becomes the norm. In that context, our VOS offering is unique to the industry.

TVT:What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year?

MACHER: The NAB Show is much more than a broadcast trade show; it is the main event for television in any shape or form. It is the one opportunity to connect with a wide array of customers, from established TV players to new entrants that are trying to compete in this industry. The exhibit and the conferences are the best platform to showcase our revenue-generating solutions and introduce forward-looking technological innovations.

LAS VEGAS—For attendees exhibiting or attending the NAB Show, the industry has changed so much in such a short time as technologies, platforms and consumer habits evolve on a pace never before seen.

Jean Macher, director of market development, broadcast for Harmonic
“There are so many transformations in our industry for our customers, content producers, broadcasters, and distributors,” says Jean Macher, director of market development, broadcast, at Harmonic in San Jose, Calif. “We are trying to help them transform their operations.”

TRANSFORMATION THEME
One of the most important transformations is the ongoing transition to move video operations to the cloud. This has become a given for most operations, although the change is happening at varying speeds, depending on the region and the type of customer, according to Macher.

Last year, Harmonic introduced the VOS Cloud comprehensive software solution, and VOS 360 dedicated end-to-end video cloud service. Both of these pure native cloud solutions run on public or private clouds, and Harmonic focused initially on workflow for OTT-in-the-cloud.

“This year we’ll show new features like time shift, ingest, and new workflows,” Macher said. “Our goal is to progressively bring all our technology, expertise, and intellectual property to these cloud solutions.”

Two new workflows take VOS beyond the OTT space: playout in the cloud, where the company is bringing all the expertise it has developed through its established Spectrum playout solution to VOS Cloud and VOS 360; and a second new workflow called “Distribution 2.0.” This is the ability to take video signals from a site or premises to the cloud, then distribute it back to another site over the public internet.

“This is a managed way for moving content, either from point A to point B or from many sources to many endpoints using VOS Cloud and VOS 360,” Macher said. “In a way you can see this as replacing or complementing some of the distribution being done by satellite with the cloud and public internet.”

REPACK REDUX
With the spectrum auction completed, broadcasters are starting the repack process while also considering whether or not to deploy ATSC 3.0. Broadcasters may have less spectrum after the auction and repack, but they still need to find room for all of their existing MPEG-2 channels, while making room for ATSC 3.0 signals.

The answer is better MPEG-2 compression. “This is where we come in with our Electra X2, which is our full-software encoding appliance with PURE codec and FlexStream stat mux,” Macher said. “This is how we can optimize all the MPEG-2 channels and reduce the bandwidth needed to run them… it’s about making room, freeing up capacity for ATSC 3.0.”

OTT DEMOS
OTT delivery has become as important as broadcast delivery for many customers, according to Macher, and the Harmonic booth will feature new innovations with specific demos.

One demo will involves EyeQ, a booster for Harmonic’s codec that increases compression efficiency by as much as 50 percent by modelling and leveraging the human visual system. On the booth, expect to see a constant bit rate image on one screen, and a variable bit rate image on a second screen driven by EyeQ’s human eye modelling that steals bits where they aren’t noticed to provide what Macher says is a “better picture at half the bit rate.”

Also promised are a series of QoE demos on various devices, some with IQ and some without.

UHD PROGRESSION
Harmonic will also have dedicate a portion of its booth to UHDTV. “We’re starting to see a shift from proofs-of-concept to real deployments,” Macher said. The booth will feature an end-to-end workflow for UHD, with master control, contribution, ingest, playout, automation and graphics, and broadcast and OTT encoding.

Macher added that a currently unnamed customer operating a new UHD (with HDR) OTT channel will be a booth highlight.

He thinks a fair number of UHD channels might launch this year, but big events such as the 2018 Winter Olympics from South Korea and the 2020 Summer Olympics from Tokyo are obvious near-term drivers.

Beyond UHD, the booth will also feature a virtual reality demo, showing how tiling can be used to improve the immersive experience.

Harmonic will be in booth SU1210.