TripleStream Product Description Version 4.6 Tripleplay Services Ltd. Rapier House 40-46 Lamb's Conduit Street London WC1N 3LJ www.tripleplay-services.com 2014 Tripleplay Services Ltd. All rights reserved. October 21 2014 Commercial-In- Confidence Page 1 of 10
Table of Contents 1 Introduction...4 2.1 Supported Mobile Devices...5 2 Portals and Clients...5 3.1 Codec details...7 4 Network requirements...8 5 Scalability and Dimensioning...8 5.1 Live Streaming Server Dimensioning...8 5.2 Transcode Servers...8 5.3 Client Dimensioning...8 6 Licensable Features...10 7 FAQ...11 References [1.] Using HTTP Live Streaming. https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/networkinginternet/conceptual/streami ngmediaguide/streamingmediaguide.pdf [2.] Hypertext Live Streaming: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pantos-http-live-streaming-07 [3.] TripleCode product description. Disclaimer While the information in this document is believed to be accurate, Tripleplay Services Limited makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Tripleplay Services Limited shall not be liable for errors contained herein nor for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance or use of this material. Information in this publication is subject to change without notice. Customer shall be exclusively responsible for the use of the Software and Equipment supplied by Tripleplay Services Limited, and for any use of, and any modifications to, copyrighted digital media used on the system supplied and accordingly Customer shall indemnify Tripleplay Services Limited in respect of all costs damages and expenses incurred as a result of any claims by third parties in tort or otherwise against Tripleplay Services Limited arising in any way out of the use of the Software and Equipment supplied by Tripleplay Services Limited, or any use of, and any modifications to, copyrighted digital media used on the system by Customer or Customer's end users. Copyright Subject to applicable law, Tripleplay Services Limited, unless otherwise stated, owns or controls all relevant rights in the text and other content and you may not copy, publish, distribute, extract, re-utilise, transmit, or reproduce any part of such content in any form, except with prior written permission from Tripleplay Services Limited. Compliance with copyright law is the responsibility of the user. Provision to the user of this content gives the user no rights in the underlying intellectual property including without limitation patents, copyright and trademark rights. October 21 2014 Commercial-In- Confidence Page 2 of 10
1 Introduction The TripleStream feature allows content to be streamed to mobile devices. The Tripleplay server provides mobile optimised video streams suitable for carriage across a number of different wireless carriers. This feature uses HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) to provide the streaming capability. HTTP Live Streaming provides a state-of-the-art standards-based solution for streaming video over wireless networks (Ref [2.]). A key benefit of HTTP Live Streaming is the ability to dynamically adjust to varying network bandwidth conditions. It can store multiple video clips of different quality on a server, and then deliver the one that matches what the customer is capable of viewing on the network they are currently accessing. The client device (smartphone or tablet) connects to the service using either Wi-Fi or over a cellular network such as GSM. The actual cellular technology used is dependent on the country of operation and the operator. The user is provided with access to the service using a portal, allowing them to browse the available content and to select items to play. The content can be either live content from a TV service, or content that has already been provided using the standard Tripleplay CMS product. Recorded content can also be played. The general architecture is shown below. Illustration 1: General system architecture of TripleStream October 21 2014 Commercial-In-Confidence Page 3 of 10
2 Portals and Clients The Tripelplay system offers a number of portals which allow a user to browse the available content and playback live or stored content. Portal Type Apple Android PC/Mac Smart TV STB Custom te iphone ipad Phone Tablet Media Portal Y Y Y Y Y Y HTML based portal. Customisable using triplechoice. Triplestream App V1 Triplesport V1 Hospitality Portal Y Y Apple app. Apple app for sports. Y Y Portal designed for TVs and STBs. The dedicated application for the Apple devices is available from the Apple App Store and will need to be downloaded by each device as needed. 2.1 Supported Mobile Devices In the first release the devices that are supported will be Apple ipad devices (both versions1 & 2) running ios 4.0 or later and the Apple iphone. (3GS and later) running ios 4.0 or later. The requirements are summarised in Table 3 Device tes Cellular Wi-Fi LAN IPhone 3GS ios 4.0 or better Yes 802.11 IPhone 4 ios 4.0 or better Yes 802.11 IPhone 4S ios 4.0 or better Yes 802.11 IPad (original) ios 4.0 or better Yes (3G only) 802.11 IPad 2 ios 4.0 or better Yes (3G only) 802.11 Android 4.1 or better Yes 802.11 Smart TVs N/A N/A Yes STBs Amino A140 & A150 3.3 or later N/A N/A Yes October 21 2014 Commercial-In-Confidence Page 4 of 10
3 Stream Profiles Because of the limitations of the wireless and mobile networks, the mobile streaming feature limits the available content profiles to allow the optimum use of the available bandwidth. Since there are also differences in what a mobile network can provide and what a Wi-Fi network can provide, there are some guidelines published by Apple to ensure that the end user s experience is as good as it can be within the constraints of the available carrier. See Ref [1.] The system can be configured to provide a range of streams for any given asset, and the choice of the streams will be tailored to a given deployment, available network bandwidth, access type, concurrent users etc. There are separate profiles for LAN, WiFi and Cellular networks in order to make the best use of system resources and to ensure that the picture quality is optimised for each stream. The profiles are summarised below and the details are described in later sections. Profile 1 Comments Input 2 Video Tran scod SD HD Res Rate 4 5 e 3 Unit s LAN SD LAN HD This profile is designed for environments where the HLS streams are carried over wired LANs. It has a single bitrate plus an audio only stream. This profile is designed for environments where the HLS streams are carried over wired LANs. It has a single bitrate. Y 640x360 1000 1.1 Y Y 1280x720 2500 1.2 WiFi SD This profile is designed for WiFi networks. Y 640x360 640x360 WiFi HD This profile is designed for WiFi networks. Y Y 640x360 1280x720 Cellular SD This profile is designed for use with Cellular networks. Y Y 416x234 416x234 416x234 600 1200 600 2500 110 200 400 1.1 1.2 1.2 1 By default the HLS streams include an audio only stream which can be used by clients when the network is poor quality. Tripleplay also provide profiles that omit the audio only stream for application where this is not needed. The names for these extra profiles include the '_Audio' in the title. 2 Each of the profiles can accept SD or HD input streams and generate the correct output profile, though it only makes sense to use HD profiles for HD inputs. 3 Transcode units are used to dimension a conversion server. See section 5.2. 4 This is the target bit-rate which may vary. 5 Video bit-rates are expressed in Kbps October 21 2014 Commercial-In-Confidence Page 5 of 10
3.1 Codec details Item Value tes Video Codec H.264 Baseline 3.0 for all SD profiles. H.264 Baseline 3.1 for all HD profiles. Allows compatibility with older iphone versions for lower bitrate streams. Frame Rate less than 200 kbps 10 fps 200 300 kbps 15 fps October 21 2014 Commercial-In-Confidence Page 6 of 10
4 Network requirements When operating over Wi-Fi, the devices can operate with a range of Wi-Fi technologies. For specifics, see Table 3. The design of the Wi-Fi network is a specialist area and should be undertaken with the appropriate expertise. 5 Scalability and Dimensioning Scalability refers to both the streaming server and the number of concurrent streaming clients. Since each deployment has different requirements with regard to network technology, client devices, access paths and availability, each solution will be different. In this section we can give some guidance about the type and number of servers for typical scenarios. 5.1 Live Streaming Server Dimensioning Each live stream is transcoded in real time to one or more lower bitrate H.264 streams which are suitable for streaming over a wireless or a mobile network. Where adaptive bitrate support is needed, multiple transcoders per live input stream are supported; typically this is required where the client devices are served by the public internet or by mobile network technologies such as GSM. A dedicated transcode server is needed for this feature. Because different content types and input streams require different levels of processing dependent on their data rates, original codecs and video sizes a unit of work called a transcode unit is used for dimensioning purposes. The number of transcode units per input stream/profile is given in Table 1 5.2 Transcode Servers Transcode servers are built using standard enterprise grade servers with dual high performance CPUs. A general guide is shown here, though exact part numbers are subject to availability. Server CPU RAM Transcode Units HP ML3050 G6 Two E5649 2.53GHz processors (6 core Xeon) HP DL380 G7 Two E5649 2.53GHz processors (6 core Xeon) HP ML350 Gen8 Two E5649 2.53GHz processors (6 core Xeon) 12GB 20 8GB 20 8GB 20 5.3 Client Dimensioning To support different types of deployment, Tripleplay provide different system architectures and levels of scaling. 5.3.1 Closed Networks For solutions deployed over closed networks, for example a bank, sporting organisation, sports stadium or an educational establishment. October 21 2014 Commercial-In-Confidence Page 7 of 10
At the low end, a standard Tripleplay application server can support a reasonable number of concurrent users. Currently this is up to 500 concurrent users. At this level no special networking provision is required at the server end. TripleStream Product Description 1.0 Specification Issue A dedicated client server can support up to 2000 concurrent clients, depending on the average bitrate of the streams. The 2000 figure is assuming an average of less than 1000 kbps per client and bonded network interfaces are used between the streaming server and the network core. Once the number of concurrent clients rises above 2000 then a cluster of servers can deliver up to 10,000 concurrent clients, as well as providing a higher level of availability than single servers. Higher capacity deployments will require individual system designs to take into account particular customer requirements. 5.3.2 Distributed Networks For deployments where the clients are likely to be geographically dispersed, for example a community where content is shared over the Internet, then there are two options. Firstly one of the above deployments can be used, but Internet connectivity must be planned and provided by the customer. Secondly, a cloud-based solution can be designed which will push the content distribution to the cloud and which can use the standard cloud offerings, for example those from Amazon. These will need to be designed individually in consultation with Tripleplay Services. October 21 2014 Commercial-In-Confidence Page 8 of 10
6 Licensable Features The number of clients that can connect to a Triplecare server is licensed. If the number of client connections exceeds the license value then the client will be taken to a warning page. mobile_clients_allowed maxhlsconversions TripleStream Features Comments Controls the number of clients that can connect. The number of clients can be increased in increments of 50. This limits the number of concurrent HLS transcoders that a server can deliver. Each transcode license can provide one profile even if it contains multiple bitrates. October 21 2014 Commercial-In-Confidence Page 9 of 10
7 FAQ This section answers some commonly asked questions about TripleStream. What technology is being employed to enable the TripleStream feature? TripleStream uses a streaming technology called Hypertext Live Streaming (HLS) which is a protocol implemented by Apple Inc. It works by breaking the overall stream into a sequence of small HTTP-based file downloads, each download loading one short chunk of an overall potentially unbounded transport stream. As the stream is played, the client may select from a number of different alternate streams containing the same material encoded at a variety of data rates, allowing the streaming session to adapt to the available data rate. At the start of the streaming session, it downloads a Playlist file containing the metadata for the various substreams which are available. Is there a player plugin being installed on the device? Who makes it? There are two ways this feature can be deployed. Firstly, using a standard web server to serve up a standard PC portal. However, to get the best experience, an Apple approved application has been developed to make the best use of the features found on mobile devices. This can be downloaded from the Apple store. What are the anticipated bandwidth requirements? Depending on the profiles selected, this can vary between 150kbps to 1.45mbps per connected client. The selection of profiles is heavily dependent on the target devices, the available network technologies, and the customer s network requirements. Is there a spec written on the wireless infrastructure required to drive the system? The general Wi-Fi infrastructure should provide Apple compatible Wi-Fi access points, so 802.11 based devices will be needed. In general specific details cannot be provided here as this is dependent on customer requirements and it is recommended that specialist wireless network providers are consulted on the best infrastructure for any given installation. What is the identified functionality? This depends on the chosen portal. For the standard Tripleplay Video Portal, this means access to live TV streams, stored content streams, and access to the information links. User authentication/authorisation is provided via LDAP. For the Tripleplay designed mobile application, the user can view live and recorded streams and browse content by category. Are the multicast streams resized to reduce bandwidth requirements? Yes, all live streams are transcoded to Apple recommended bitrates. Will I be able to custom design a portal? For the first releases, if the standard Video Portal is selected, then the customer can customise this using the standard tools available in TripleChoice. If the App based portal is needed, then this will not be customisable in the initial release How many clients can be supported? This is heavily dependent on the network infrastructure. The system is designed to scale from a few dozen clients to tens of thousands using appropriate network and server configurations. Can I use this with Android tablets or other mobile devices? The first release has been designed to operate with devices that currently have the widest adoption across the market segments that this feature is targeted at. Future releases will add support for other devices including Android tablets, Android smart phones. END OF DOCUMENT October 21 2014 Commercial-In-Confidence Page 10 of 10