How to Build OTT Streaming Platform with the Right Hardware & Software Requirements?

This article covers in detail about the end to end implementation process right from Satellite TV to OTT Service. Also, I’ll be explaining briefly about the hardware and software that are used to capture, encode, transcode, and stream to deliver SD / HD / FULL HD content to a massive audience.

What is Satellite TV?

Satellite TV is nothing but a broadcast delivery based on the space satellites that are used to deliver signals. The TV stations transmit the program signals through an uplink satellite dish to the DVB satellite and then the signals are re-transmitted back to the earth. The signals are received by the hyperbolic shaped reflector antenna i.e C, Ku, Ka band and delivered to the TV sets.

What is OTT (Over the Top):

Over the Top (OTT) is the delivery of media and TV content directly delivered to the users through the internet even without the subscription to a traditional cable TV or satellite pay-TV service. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms that traditionally act as a controller or distributor of such content.

According to the BARC-Nielsen study on Covid-19 and its impact on TV and smartphone landscape, the time spent on it during week 1 of the pandemic has increased by 1.5 hours, a gain of 6 percent.

What is OTT Platform?

OTT platform is a media streaming platform that delivers media content over the Internet where people can watch from any device based on the subscription plans provided by each OTT player.

Experts predict that the viewership hours of OTT content will exceed the broadcast TV viewership.

Since the market is open and trending, everyone wants to explore more into it. OTT content distribution is becoming a larger part of consumers’ media necessities, consumers are moving away from traditional satellite TV channels.

Due to this COVID-19 Pandemic, people are forced to stay indoors and eventually they tend to spend more time online. A recent study says that there is twice the growth in the OTT subscription and this has resulted in an increase in the OTT viewers when compared to the Linear TV viewers.

Here are some of the top OTT streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, ZEE5, etc that are leading in the market.

OTT Architecture:

OTT live TV involves the delivery of video content from the video content providers to the end-users over the internet. Anybody can access the OTT services with a suitable high-speed connection to the internet.

Satellite Television signal will be tuned and received on any standard DVBS2 transponders and output IP transport stream (TS over UDP). This stream (RTMP, RTSP, HLS) is sent to the Media server to process video into Adaptive Bitrate Streaming. After producing video content, a scalable CDN is used to distribute media streaming to everyone, everywhere, on any device globally.

Building your own enterprise OTT platform:

If you’re planning to expand your existing satellite TV channels into OTT service or planning to start a new OTT video subscription model, you need to choose the right hardware, server capacity, and distribution channels that are needed.

Depending on the live channel requirements, I have listed down the SDI, HDMI and multipurpose inputs for IP live streaming video encoder H.264, H.264 HLS, RTMP, RTSP, RTMPS, RTP, UDP multicast, UDP unicast, FLV protocol support.

1. SDI Live Streaming H.264 and H.265 Encoder:

While choosing the SDI streaming encoder model, we have to consider the below features that support OTT or IPTV platforms.

• Maximum supported SDI signal inputs
• Embedded hardware coding support
• Supports OTT / IPTV applications
• Definition 1920x1080p, 1920x1080i, 1280x720p, 720x576i, 720x576p, 640x480i etc (can be customized)
• Support HTTP,RTSP,RTMP,RTMPS,RTP,UDP multicast, UDP unicast, FLV,HLS protocol (RTMP support user name, password function)
• Output video stream format: TS/VES/AES stream, etc
• Standard H.265 / H.264 double coding method
• Support FFmpeg
• Dual power redundancy design
• Support ONVIF protocol and NVR recording
• Audio coding supports MP3/AAC/G711 with left and right channels and volume adjustment
• 100m full Duplex Mode for Network Interface.
• Local IPTV on LAN applications, Corporate IPTV, Hotel IPTV, Campus IPTV, Education IPTV

2. HDMI Live Streaming H.265 and H.264 IPTV Encoder:

While choosing the HDMI streaming encoder model, we have to consider the below features which will support.

• Maximum supported HDMI signal inputs
• Support HEVC / H.265 or MPEG-4 / H.264 AVC video encoding
• Support AAC, AAC+, AAC++, MP3, MP2, AC3, G.711 audio encoding
• Support HTTP, UDP, RTP, RTSP, RTMP, RTMPS, HLS(M3U8), FLV, ONVIF, Unicast, Multicast, etc.
• Streaming protocol Output video format: TS / VES / AES stream etc
• Support insert image, logo, text, roll text on the output video stream
• Support output displayed video resolution and frame rate setting (max 1920x1080P@60fps)
• Support different protocol transmission for the 4 output video streams for each channel
• Network interface full-duplex mode with 1000M speed
• Firmware should be upgradeable

3. Multiple Card Assemblies SDI, HDMI, VGA, FIBER optic supported H.265 H.264 IPTV Encoder:

Earlier we have seen about SDI and HDMI inputs. When it comes to enterprise-level OTT streaming solutions, we might need multiple input support like SDI, HDMI, VGA, FIBER optics, etc.

HDMI signals run up to 50 feet without needing an amplifier and SDI signals can run up to 300 feet, whereas fiber optics can support longer-range when compared to HDMI and SDI.

OTT live streaming is used for various streaming purposes in different sectors like Satellite Live television, Education, Healthcare, Media and Entertainment, etc.