MainStreaming’s CEO, Tassilo Raesig, gave a speech at the Innovation Stage at IBC about MainStreaming’s day-to-day business, which is delivering scalable live events through the Private Edge Video Delivery Network.
Managing peaks and live streaming is our day-to-day game
He began by mentioning some of our major customers—premium sports brands that rely on hyper-scaling events like football games. MainStreaming helps stream one and a half million concurrent streams for 90 minutes, and then nothing for the next two hours. Managing peaks and live streaming is our core expertise, but it comes with many challenges, particularly the complexity of delivering such services. The broadcasting and streaming industries are facing challenges in every part of delivering content, especially when transitioning from a broadcast world to IP while maintaining the same quality and achieving better cost metrics. One of the key challenges we face with our customers is ensuring they have the capacity for growth.
Transitioning broadcast to IP means working with a network that was never built for video
A key part of his speech focused on the transition of broadcast to IP, which involves using a network that wasn’t originally built for video. It is a classic ISP web-based environment that broadcasters and OTT service providers try to use for broadcast delivery.
How do we achieve the same level of security, resilience, and control?
In the online streaming world, we must maintain the same levels of security, resilience, and control as in traditional broadcast, but with better cost efficiency, as cost pressures are high for companies. Consumers expect subscription prices to drop, while content licensors want to maintain the same pricing. This makes cost management during content delivery especially challenging if you don’t act strategically.
Ultra-low latency must be completely in sync between the game and additional services
There are also additional services involved, particularly in premium sports. For example, live betting services need ultra-low latency to ensure synchronization between the game and these secondary services. Looking ahead, in environments like Apple Vision Pro, where audiences expect a different viewing experience, maintaining high quality becomes even more critical.
Why we suggest that major services build out their own Private Edge Networks
With observability analytics, everyone needs the same level of insight and quality that they had before, but at a lower cost. That’s why we recommend that large services build their own Private Edge Networks—to be in full control, ensuring they meet their delivery metrics while managing costs effectively. This approach gives them access to the capacity they need for their services while maintaining control.
The solution we offer to optimize video content delivery
At MainStreaming, we help build these Edge Networks to improve video delivery, particularly in environments like classic ISP networks and CDNs that were not originally designed for this purpose. Our solution ensures low latency and high quality at the best cost metrics. Given the complexity, not every service can build this infrastructure independently. That’s why we offer to manage this transition from broadcast to streaming, delivering additional service levels, distribution efficiency, and cost optimization. Essentially, we help you build your own infrastructure, and that’s what we offer as a service. As an example, he mentioned DAZN, the leading sports streaming service provider. MainStreaming built, manages, and operates their infrastructure, helping them deliver broadcast-grade content at scale. They don’t have to worry about it because we handle the entire end-to-end process.
