流媒体 East '15: What Can Replace Flash Video?

Love it or hate it, Adobe Flash is still a force to be reckoned with for much of the web’s content. There are a number of factors explaining it’s continued use: DRM, 市场渗透, 以及易于实施. 近年来, many have questioned its continued usefulness, but the bigger question is what will replace it. 昨天, 在纽约的流媒体东部, four industry experts tried to answer this question.

Moderator Jan Ozer started the session with “Raise your hand if you hate Flash.” Five to ten people enthusiastically raised their hands.

Bitmovin的 CEO Stefan Lederer talked about his company's custom player, which has been implemented by Flimmit (an Austrian subscription video-on-demand service) and Austrian Public Broadcaster ORF. Supported platforms include browsers, mobile devices, and connected TVs. Bitmovin also offers cloud-based transcoding. Its browser falls back to Flash or HLS, if needed. Several DRM providers and services are available for licensing.

托比亚斯·帕特拉，技术顾问 CastLabs, said his company offers similar services. Its player relies on a Flash/Silverlight fallback, and it offers multiple DRM options (including Widevine Modular, PlayReady, 和访问). Patella gave a case study about client HBO Europe: Its library streams to 15 countries, and its CastLabs implementation took only 2 months. CastLabs uses Widevine Modular DRM in Chrome and PlayReady in other browsers.

最后, OpenTelly的 Pieter-Jan Speelmans talked about playing HLS video in HTML5. His company's key differentiator is that its product doesn't require plugins and doesn't fall back to Flash or Silverlight. Speelmans's case study highlighted European site VRT. 以前, VRT’s video strategy was a four-pronged approach that included plugins, 自定义应用程序, MP4视频, and multiple streaming formats (including HLS, HDS, RTMP和RTSP). VRT needed to solve problems of high cost, high complexity, and a poor viewing experience. OpenTelly的 Theoplayer, an HTML5 player that works in all platforms and browsers, made that possible.

Each speaker fielded questions from the audience, with the first questions centering around what platforms were supported by each service.

Bitmovin's Lederer said, "On Android, we use Android Exoplayer which is really nice....在iOS上，我们使用HLS.” Speelmans of OpenTelly said, “With Theoplayer you can really use one player everywhere.”

莱德尔提供了一个不同的视角. “Some Samsung devices use the Android stock browser, not Chrome. The Android Exoplayer is most universal,” he said. 但帕特拉补充道, “Browser-based playback on Android isn’t that good, and the Exoplayer only works for Android 4.4及以上版本. We offer our own custom Android SDK that gives more support for other versions.”

When asked about live streaming, Lederer replied, “We prefer DASH for live streaming. 它减少了端到端延迟.” All three agreed that live streaming protocols are almost the same, and there is no single catch-all solution.

Ozer posed this final question to the panel, “What have your customers said about switching from Flash?”

“Our customers are almost universally positive. They are happy that their customers won’t have to deal with plugins anymore," Patella said.

While all three presented proprietary solutions for replacing Flash, they shared common elements. Each has several large broadcast customers that see the need for a universal streaming solution that does away with plugins. All include DRM options to protect premium content. 最后, all make it easy for customers to switch by not requiring new transcodes or transmuxes.

观看下面的视频下载Ozer的演讲.