8 Best Streaming Innovations & Technologies

The video streaming industry has gone through massive growth, and as its popularity continues to surge, we can expect more interventions in the future. Consequently, viewers now look forward to enjoying an immersive video streaming experience.

Big streaming names like Netflix, Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video are locked in intense competition and trying to improve their platforms in a bid to attract more subscribers while retaining the loyalty of existing ones.

Despite all the technological innovations, there are some limitations that binge-watchers have to experience. One of these limitations is the geo-blocking of content owing to content licensing and copyright laws. 

Thankfully, technology is yet again our savior in the shape of virtual private networks (VPNs) that let users access geo-restricted content. For instance, you can use a premium VPN like ExpressVPN to watch the CBC channel in USA or BBC Player in the USA. 

Let’s discuss the eight prominent streaming innovations and technologies in this blog

8 Best Streaming Advances & Technologies

Let’s start our list of the most fascinating and the best advancements that have made our streaming experiences way better and aim to offer more high-quality experiences.

1. Simultaneous Streaming

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 prompted “Synchronized Viewing;” the most remarkable shared watching mechanism in which viewers interact with each other while simultaneously watching the same content.

Synchronized viewing initially got popular through social media networking platforms. However, soon its popularity skyrocketed when people were forced to stay within their houses and missed interacting with one another in person.

Disney+ and Twitch are the sole platforms that offer synchronized viewing as a built-in feature. However, several third-party smart apps provide the same feature for streaming platforms.

While using synchronized watching requires signing into the smart app of your streaming service, in which the number of simultaneous users may be limited, it provides an interactive communal watching experience for subscribers. Moreover, the plus point for streaming services is that there’s lesser copyright infringement.

2. Emergence of 5G Technology

The trailblazing 5G technology is fast spreading globally, and the burden of delivering a rich entertainment experience is alleviated by streaming and OTT platforms, which are ardently looking for fast and low-latency online streaming experience users. Consequently, viewers will not experience the frustrating buffering sign thanks to faster internet, innovative programming technologies, and enhanced algorithms.

3. 4k-supported Headgear Viewing

The growing appetite of viewers for 4K and HD devices have leapfrogged content creators and distributors. Consequently, big consumer equipment manufacturers started selling 4K-supported headgear at much more affordable prices. While it is a bit early to say whether the 8K-supported headgear will become more viable, the likelihood of more HD gadgets is definitely enticing for content developers and viewers.

4. Video Quality Upscaling

In the last decade alone, HD and 4K quality content has become more accessible; earlier, it was just the SD quality that wasn’t as crisp. With the emergence of superior-quality devices, most streaming platforms nowadays still provide an outdated range.

These platforms are utilizing technology like Super Resolution, and paywalled services like Netflix and Hulu regularly synthesize media to abridge the quality gap and enhance user experience through decreasing “ambient noise” for viewers.

This mechanism shows the most popular technique of data augmentation, in which a standard definition content is upscaled employing a functional design that looks for a high-definition (HD) image by matching similar standard definition (SD) images. 

5. Veristic Experience Using Dolby Vision and Atmos

Owing to the advancements in audio system products and technologies and products, Dolby has always stood as a forerunner in producing immersive and interactive experiences. Through boosting sound depth and adding spatial intelligence, Dolby Atmos enhances audio quality to an improved level and extends an ultimate listening experience. Moreover, Dolby Vision allows your video to show a wider spectrum of dimensions, colors, sharpness, and saturation, improving the feeling that you are actually living in the video you are watching.

6. Technology interventions in Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI)

Advertisement inclusions became prominent almost a decade ago when Google-owned YouTube started functioning as an AVoD platform. Though DAI isn’t a new concept in technology and the video streaming market. Nonetheless, the interventions in Dynamic Ad Insertion are in exceptionally low latency and modification, notably affected by AI-enabled devices through each aspect of the DAI procedure.

The latest DAI incorporations leverage user data far more smartly to serve advertisements related to a particular user and consumed content. Regarding latency, DAIs that utilize realistic coding algorithms perform more efficiently since they don’t hamper the watching experience through stuttering or lower resolutions.

7. Imparting Context Adaptive Content Delivery (CAD)

The main purpose of Context Adaptive Content Delivery (CAD) is to provide the ultimate end-user experience. The most prominent mechanism includes using an ABR ramp, in which media is condensed and encrypted and transferred at the highest accuracy at a predefined bandwidth expense. Different technologies incorporating ABR in their processes offer streaming developments in this particular domain.

Emerging video codecs like VVC and  AV1 or the cloud-based per-title/per-scene/per-shoot encoding that can customize noise reduction mechanisms to deliver media types, images, or placement within one type of media content are attributes of this technology.

8. Using SMPTE 2110 To Make Content Airing Online

The input and circulation of broadcast media content have a rich history. Nevertheless, the broadcasting business currently lags behind greatly compared to the leading streaming services. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) promotes futuristic back-end technology to allow video dispensation through IP to follow the speed and quality of modern OTT distribution mechanisms.

SMPTE 2110, the latest set of standards, offers greater options as compared to SDI interconnection by defining where and how to deliver condensed (encrypted) and uncompressed video and audio data.

Conclusion

To make ends meet according to the demand of consumers and be as creative as their rivals, media technology is expanding and evolving regularly. The rapid advancements in content distribution workflows and the arrival of platforms transmitting attractiveness to any devices with unlimited bandwidth are the major trends to keep up with.