Author Description

Online TV has become the mainstream media platform for the distribution of video entertainment. The Internet has opened up new ways for discovering, sharing, and consuming TV content anywhere, anytime, and on any device. State-of-the-art video coders and decoders can be deployed quickly, allowing online providers to stay ahead of the pack when rolling out ultra high-definition services and premium content. However, TV streaming platforms perform differently in terms of the quality of the video and the smoothness of the playback. This compact book describes the online TV revolution and the key principles of the underlying adaptive streaming technology. It provides invaluable insights to actual streaming measurements, effective tips in system optimization, and important considerations in advanced design. Backhand calculations are always useful for practical implementation and understanding core technology mechanisms. To this end, the book offers many numerical examples to illustrate the impact of the system parameters. As you will discover, the online TV business model is constantly evolving and becoming very competitive. At the same time, online TV viewing is becoming more pervasive than before. With Oscar-winning content now available exclusively to subscribers, online TV¿s popularity will continue to grow and spread in future.