Streaming Video Alliance Convenes at Ericsson to Continue Creation of Best Practices for Online Video

Alliance Welcomes CenturyLink, Edgeware, Harmonic, NCTA and Western Digital Corp. as New Members


FREMONT, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 9, 2017) - The Streaming Video Alliance (the Alliance), an industry forum comprised of leading companies from the online video ecosystem, today convenes at Ericsson in Santa Clara for its first quarterly member meeting of 2017. Highlights from today's event include a keynote address from Ericsson executives and the welcoming of new Principal Members, NCTA, Harmonic and Western Digital Corp., and new Supporting Members, CenturyLink and Edgeware.

Today's meeting will feature keynotes by Ericsson TV & Media Strategy organization executives including Vice President, David Price; Vice President of Technology, Raj Nair; and Senior Advisor of Consumer Insights ConsumerLab, Anders Erlandsson. The meeting will also include a general member session and a networking reception.

"It's a critical time in the online video industry for technology companies to work together and collaborate on best practices, guidelines, requirements and specifications," said Jason Thibeault, Executive Director of the Streaming Video Alliance. "The Alliance is more focused than ever to develop processes and interoperability that will enable anyone to put together a high-quality, consistent streaming experience -- we're thrilled with our continued growth and progress."

As part of the meeting, members will break out into multiple Alliance Working Group sessions to progress on a broad range of important streaming topics. These Working Group sessions include:

  • Open Caching
  • Quality of Experience
  • Ad Insertion and Audience Measurement
  • Geo
  • Privacy and Content Protection
  • Scaling
  • Virtual Reality / 360-Degree Video (Study Group)

The Working and Study Groups are at the heart of the Alliance, where a focus on important streaming video issues allows a diverse group of streaming experts to reach agreement on best practices, requirements, specifications and proposed standards. The cross-industry collaboration that these Working Groups foster will also help define an open streaming architecture that will promote the continued growth of online video.

Earlier this month, the Alliance announced that trials based on recently approved Open Caching Request Routing and HTTPS Delegation Technical Specification have started. The trials are the first implementation by Alliance member companies of open caching systems that incorporate the specification for request routing in ISP networks to optimize delivery and ensure superior Quality of Experience for live and on-demand video streaming. Participants in the Open Caching Trials include Charter Communications, Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Qwilt, Verizon, Viacom, ViaSat and Yahoo. The companies, mostly members of the Alliance's Open Caching Working Group, will conduct a range of use cases during the trials, including live and on-demand streaming video traffic over HTTP and HTTPS. The participating companies will report trial results to the Open Caching Working Group.

The Alliance will continue to assess new topics and, as warranted, activate new working groups to further advance the organization's agenda.

Members of the Alliance include companies from across the streaming video ecosystem: network operators, technology providers, service providers and content owners. Current members are: Adobe, Arris, Cedexis, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Ciena, Cisco Systems, Comcast, Concurrent, Conviva, Edgeware, Encompass TV, Ericsson, FOX Networks, Harmonic, Hughes Satellite Systems, IBM, IneoQuest, Intel, Irdeto, Level 3 Communications, Liberty Global, Limelight Networks, MediaMelon, MLBAM, Mobolize, NBCUniversal, NCTA, NeuLion, Nice People at Work, Nokia, OWNZONES, Qwilt, Sky, System73, Telecom Italia, Telstra, ViaPlay, ViaSat Inc., Verimatrix, Verizon, Vubiquity, Western Digital Corp., Wowza Media Systems and Yahoo.

For more information on today's Alliance meeting, the Working Groups or to inquire about becoming a member, visit www.streamingvideoalliance.org.

About the Streaming Video Alliance
Founded in 2014, the Streaming Video Alliance's charter is to encourage deeper collaboration across the entire online video ecosystem, which will include the development of standards and best practices for an open architecture that will operate across the entire online video value chain. The Alliance is currently focused on identifying issues and solutions related to open architecture, quality of experience, and interoperability. For more information, please visit www.streamingvideoalliance.org.

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