No matter how much the technology and quality improves, it can still be a challenge to set up and deliver live streaming to an audience of any size. Come see how to set up several live streaming workflows with Wowza Streaming Engine, step-by-step, from video capture to playback and all points in between. In this session, you'll see live demos for several typical scenarios, including adaptive bitrate streaming, traditional unicast streaming, and multicast streaming in an enterprise, as well as cloud-based processing and delivery. As part of building these out, we'll use both Wowza and third-party technologies. We'll cap off the session with a look at future-proofing your streaming infrastructure and upcoming technologies, such as MPEG-DASH, HEVC, and HTML 5.1.

Part one of this workshop will discuss factors to consider when choosing a camera, audio system, lighting gear, background, and when and how to choose a video mixer. This session will also focus on the nuts and bolts of production, covering skills like setting exposure, connecting camcorders to microphones and soundboards, setting up lighting, and what kind of clothing you should direct your on-camera subjects to wear. Attendees will leave this session knowing the gear they need to produce a high quality live event and how to use it. See SM4 below for the second part of this two part seminar!

The capabilities of HTML5 web browsers, both on mobile devices and desktops, are changing rapidly. As a video content producer, you need to have a video player that can respond to these changes as browser vendors release new features. But how do you plan for uncertainty? In this workshop, we review popular video player frameworks such as those provided by jPlayer (jQuery plug-in), MediaElement.js, Video.JS, JWPlayer, and others. You also learn how to pick the proper media encoding strategy for your video distribution needs, and how to plan for scaling video content types as browser features such as MPEG-DASH begin to emerge.

Part two of this workshop will focus on streaming, planning, and implementation. Topics covered include how to choose a webcast platform, alternatives for delivering the encoded stream to the streaming server, and bandwidth requirements. The session will also cover how to choose a live streaming encoder and how to configure the encoder for delivery to your selected platform. Finally, the session will focus on planning, and attendees will receive planning and implementation checklists that will help them execute their live events as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

Launched in 2011, Twitch is the world's leading video platform and community for gamers where more than 45 million gamers gather every month to broadcast live video, watch and chat about gaming. In February 2014, Wall Street Journal ranked Twitch as the 4th largest website in terms of peak internet traffic in the U.S. fortifying the brand as an entertainment industry leader and the epicenter of social video for gamers.

Netflix has educated the consumer to access content via branded apps on every device that supports video. Enabled by app stores and supported by TV Everywhere authentication, TV brands can distribute their own apps to deliver first-run content to more platforms than ever. This session will discuss the growth and evolution of TV as an app, including the key platforms, the key market segments, and implications for the relationship between consumers, TV brands, and their traditional pay TV distribution partners.

There are a host of live streaming options available today, but most break down when the crowd gets too large. In this session we will explore techniques successfully used to provide a satisfying live viewing experience at very large scale. Learn from experts who have conquered the myriad technical challenges—how to present live video to many people, in many formats, on many devices, over many networks—all at the same time. Specifics such as encoding, transcoding, bitrate variation, distribution, mass authorization, and more will be discussed.

Most consumer brands have developed some presence on YouTube, but paid media on the entertainment behemoth remains a mystery for many. Should YouTube be treated as an extension of search or television, performance or branding? Is cost-per-completed-view an appropriate performance metric? With easy access to TrueView ads through AdWords, should media agencies oversee these budgets? This session will discuss multi-channel networks and YouTube technology partners, looking at how they add value and how brands should work with a third party to manage content on YouTube.

Most publishers today have to distribute to three sets of screens: desktop, mobile, and TV. This session will start by detailing the playback capabilities and technology compatibilities of all three platforms. Then it will explore the technical issues and feasibility of producing one set of streams for all platforms, including how technologies like transmuxing and live transcoding can simplify the overall distribution workflow.

With video rapidly growing as a medium for communication across all areas of the enterprise—marcomm, training, collaboration, compliance—how can you take advantage of your existing investments in content management, knowledge management, and search platforms to make video a first-class content asset? This panel will discuss and recommend best practices for helping ensure your videos can be found, shared, and watched in the right context and within the platforms already in use today.

Smart TVs present the best opportunity to completely change the landscape of the connected living room. In this session, Dan Rayburn will demo the latest connected TV platforms from Samsung, Sony, Vizio, LG and others. Attendees will see an overview of what each manufacturer has to offer, including the latest content developments on the platform, the killer apps, and hear what the business models look like for content owners streaming video to these devices and how these TV platforms are going to evolve over the coming years.

In 2007, Netflix had a humble streaming service that consisted of an Internet Explorer plugin and a couple of thousand titles. Today, there are millions of active Netflix devices including smartphones, tablets, game consoles, and connected TV’s. In addition, Netflix' streaming library has grown to tens of thousands of titles including Emmy award winning originals. This session looks at the Netflix encoding service, looking at the key engineering decisions around video encoding. Some of the topics that will be covered include scalability, progressive and parallel video encoding, and Netflix’s 4K video encoding pipeline.

As the MPEG-DASH standard grows in popularity, a common question is “Where are the players to consume DASH content?” In this session, we will explore how to consume DASH content, including parsing the manifest, retrieving the segments, choosing appropriate bitrates, and playing back the content. This session will focus on playback natively in a browser without plugins, but is also applicable to Flash, Android, and iOS developers.

Video in the classroom isn't a new concept, but as streaming media becomes a mainstream staple in the household, it's only natural for the technology to trickle into education. This session will explore how universities are bringing live and VOD streaming into the classroom, including a closer look at how its being deployed, which use cases are showing the best success and best practices that should be followed.

We’ve been hearing about corporate YouTubes for a while; or services that allow employees, partners and other stakeholder to upload video to a site with structured moderation and security. But how do these differ from a traditional online video platform and what features should you consider when choosing between different options? In this session, attendees will learn what a corporate YouTube is, hear about the most common use cases and see a demonstration of the content upload and moderation workflow for various solutions on the market. You’ll walk away knowing what a corporate YouTube is, why you might want one, and how to identify the differentiating  features of various systems.

As digital video ad spending is on pace to reach $12 Billion by 2018, currency measurement services and technology is becoming more important for content creators as they look to monetize their media. This presentation will highlight technology innovations in measurement and the latest viewing trends impacting the digital video ecosystem.

This presentation will help attendees identify their unique requirements for an effective video management solution. We'll also look at what particular techniques are necessary to deliver high-impact, brand-enforcing messages with video and imagery in a multi-channel way. We'll look at the options facing buyers looking for new technology for video review, approval, and delivery on mobile devices. Get advice on how to get to a vendor short list, submitting brief and useful RFPs, what questions need to be asked, and other tips to ensure you choose the right solution.

This session examines commercial deployments of DASH based solutions across the spectrum of media delivery. Learn from operators why they made the decision to move to DASH, lessons learned in the practical implementation of DASH, and future plans around this format. Come find out what you can actually deliver using MPEG-DASH with existing products and services in market today.

This session will cover technology and platform trends including industry best practices for fast tracking digital content support on legacy and next generation connected devices. Connected devices offer a tremendous distribution platform for content owners and digital distributors, but to benefit from the broad connected device ecosystem companies must navigate an application support environment comprised of hundreds of disparate platforms, APIs, and SDKs. Attendees will hear from industry experts what silicon vendors, technology providers, and CE device manufacturers are doing to help content distributors and digital service providers facilitate device coverage.

This session will discuss tips and tricks, best practices, and lessons learned regarding the technical setup of live streaming production. Learn how to stream multiple formats, use social networking overlays, and leverage adaptive bitrate streaming. Speakers in this session are the ones in the trenches, producing some of the largest live events you see on the web today.

The use of streaming video containing rich product information is becoming more and more commonplace for online commerce. This session will explore best practices, examples, concepts, and future possibilities for how streaming video can drive e-commerce. Areas of examination will include content creation, interactions, purchase conversion, video commerce platforms, social sharing, and video analytics. In addition, the session will look into the convergence of streaming video with mobile commerce, social commerce, and location-based commerce.

Factors such as the proliferation of devices with differing capabilities, concern over the use of ad blockers, and the need to insert digital ads into live streams have driven many distributors to move ad insertion management from the video player to server or cloud-based solutions. While this approach can reduce the complexity of player applications and provide improved streaming performance and reliability, it can also introduce some tradeoffs in advertising functionality. Attendees will hear the views of leading media outlets and technology solution vendors on this emerging trend in video streaming.

It seems every year the online video space is inundated with the next big thing and a push toward the latest technology must-have. In years past, we saw pushes for 3D streaming and HEVC; this year, it’s all about 4K. This session will cut through the 4K hype and discuss what real-world impact 4K could have and what the requirements really are to stream in 4K. Hear from experts from various sides of the industry to get some clarity on what 4K will cost content owners to implement, how QoS will be addressed, and what the future may hold for 4K streaming.

Video in education has moved beyond simply capturing classes and letting students review online. Video is truly changing the way institutions are delivering education. Progressive institutions are delivering “Global Classrooms” where students—and even multiple professors—are located in classrooms around the globe. At the other extreme, institutions are delivering education to mass audiences through online video. Multiple business models are being developed, including charging for classes, providing them for free, and even offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Hear about the challenges and successes from those who are experimenting with these new business models.

The rise of mobile high-speed devices with inconsistent implementations of HTML5 technology has increased the need for cost-effective content distribution services that handle all the messy work of formats, playback consistency, and access control. While more and more SMBs are using freemium services such as YouTube and Vimeo to address their initial needs, many content owners need more customization and control of their content. In this session, you learn how freemium services compare to those of higher end premium services offered by vendors such as Brightcove, Ooyala, and Kaltura.

This past February, viewers consumed NBC Sports Group's Winter Olympic digital offerings in record numbers: 61.8 million unique users consumed 1.6 billion minutes across all digital platforms. The Total Audience Measurement Index (TAMi) measured how people consumed the Olympic content of NBCUniversal's Winter Olympics multi-platform programming, which featured an unprecedented 1,000+ hours of digital coverage. In the keynote, Rick Cordella will analyze the findings around how consumers are using technology, how digital engagement drives television viewership, and how media consumption changes from the previous Winter Games.

The Internet has disrupted nearly every facet of the TV industry, from programming to distribution to audience. And while the networks still rule the living room, many of them are struggling to find their footing online. In this session, we'll explore some of the distribution options for those that want to bring their content to online audiences. The panelists will delve into the pros and cons of sharing content with YouTube, subscription-based services and syndication networks. They'll also explore what kind of content-short form vs. long form-makes sense for each outlet.

Traditional video ad buys were broad, untargeted and inefficient. However these days with the move to programmatic buying, and the expansion of the video market, a whole new wave of efficient buying has emerged. Based on a campaign's key performance indicators, be it clicks, or completes, far greater performance can be achieved at a much lower cost. This session will look at the leading ways to slice and dice audiences by demographics, psychographic, behavioral and contextual data. It will also explore the most important metrics for engagement and performance as viewed by brands, agencies, and networks.

This panel of leading content owners, syndicators, and distributors will discuss how they solve some of the challenges in delivering the creator’s intended entertainment experience across new devices and consumer use cases. The panel will also share their vision on where the future of digital entertainment is heading and key industry drivers that could enable the next-generation entertainment experience on mobile and tablet devices.

With so many broadband-enabled devices in the market, trying to determine what each one offers in the way of streaming quality and content inventory can be quite confusing. In this special session, Dan Rayburn will present hands-on demos showcasing the leading $99 streaming devices, including those from Apple, Roku, Sony, Western Digital, Vizio and others. Attendees will see these devices in action, learn which content platforms they run, and take part in a Q&A session.

With the emergence of TV Everywhere, consumers can enjoy the benefits of authenticated channels like FOX Now, TWC TV, ESPN, Xfinity, and others across a multitude of devices. Is TV Everywhere a success today? Are providers seeing increased retention? Are new revenue models emerging that might exist as extensions for the TV Everywhere experience? What will TV Everywhere look like in the next five years? Join us for a lively discussion with the experts behind the TV Everywhere movement.

Delivering premium content to mobile devices has moved from sideshow to the main event. Publishers and broadcasters are now tasked with making streaming profitable on all screens, which involves a lot of complexity. From the expense of creating a high-quality experience for multiple devices and platforms, to the complexities of transcoding, ad insertion and measurement, monetizing mobile video remains challenging. This session will discuss which approaches are working in the market, what type of content consumers are viewing, how big of an opportunity mobile is to premium content owners and how they can build an effective mobile video strategy.

This panel will take an in-depth look at how premium content owners measure, analyze, and monetize their video assets. Whether the business model is subscription or ad-based, the lack of measurement standards across the industry makes determining value a very dynamic and challenging practice. The discussion will include insight into which metrics are worth capturing and analyzing, as well as best practice methodologies for analysis and thoughts on what the industry should use as a standard. Hear about the challenges content owners are facing and what changes need to take place in the industry to better measure the success of online video consumption.

This session explores the current status of HEVC, identifying existing and announced options for encoding live and on-demand HEVC, and discussing player options in the streaming and OTT markets. Topics explored will include the comparative quality and usability of HEVC encoders, how HEVC quality compares to H.264 at a range of resolutions and data rates, how HEVC compares to VP9 (if encoders are available), and known trials and deployments of HEVC.

Players in the Pay TV industry have the advantage of already being in the living room with access to consumers’ unprecedented appetite for content. Initially, their challenge had been to meet that demand by taking the first step towards a multiscreen deployment. But as consumer appetite for cross-screen access to content continues to grow, it’s time to move beyond the status quo and ramp things up to Multiscreen 2.0 - to provide viewers with complete, cross-platform content offerings. This session will discuss the biggest hurdles content owners and service providers face when scaling a multiscreen strategy. Learn how in the ever-evolving, fragmented Pay TV world, content owners can upgrade their multiscreen offerings to Version 2.0.

This year’s TV Upfront marks one of the first years that a common set of measurement metrics is available in the advertising world for both television and digital video. Agencies and brands alike are now faced with the challenge to create a holistic spending strategy that brings the most value from both online and television ad dollars. In this session, speakers will explain how technology is now enabling businesses to strategically map cross-screen advertising spend in order to maximize campaign ROI. The panel will discuss how these strategies are effectively optimizing campaign reach and influence, as well as combating struggles of fragmenting reach and inventory restraints that have historically come with television-only campaigns.

With the legacy 30-second TV spot dominating streaming video advertising in the pre-roll position, users have little choice than to endure commercials to get to the content they really want to watch. Forbearance, however, is not the emotion brands are generally trying to elicit from ad-viewers. This session will tap leading media and marketing executives to discuss how to create advertising experiences that engage consumers by optimizing message length, style and interaction. We’ll also examine the ways in which video ad messaging can be delivered dynamically to pair content and brand messages that will create optimal viewer experiences.

The case for H.265, like most new video technologies, is compelling: better compression and faster/cheaper delivery over lower bit rates. For any content distributor seeking to distribute content to mobile devices over congested 3G/4G/LTE networks, these traits are highly desirable. However, the reality of real-world options can quickly deflate any optimistic plans. In this session, you learn how H.264 compression and deployment options can be utilized in typical online streaming workflows, and more importantly, if your target audiences can benefit.

This session will explain the unique challenges enterprises face with mobile video, including wireless networks, bring your own device initiatives, and will provide some technical recommendations and best practices. Hear about the major considerations for deploying mobile video in the enterprise, from content creation to delivery. The session will cover the pros and cons of multiples approaches, and how they can drastically impact the cost and quality of your mobile video deployment.

Is 7 seconds of video enough to tell a story? Is 15 seconds too long? The social video app battle between Facebook's Instagram and Twitter's Vine is more than just a distraction for early adopters. Major brands and companies are using these tools to launch products, market services, and tell their stories in an increasingly distracted world. Learn more about how these tools work as we look at real world examples, create our own videos, and share them online in this hands-on, interactive presentation.

Everyone talks about the threats to traditional motion picture and television business models as a result of digital/technological disruption. But despite the current discomfort and pain being felt by myriad traditional players, new opportunities exist to generate revenue from premium content services. This panel of experts representing different stakeholders in the premium video ecosystem will explore not only the peril, but also the promise, of digital distribution and new opportunities to monetize video. Panelists will also discuss their views of who the long-term winners and losers will be in the premium video world.