The Rising Tide of Content

Submitted by Whitney on November 4, 2009 - 14:17

Matt Smith (from my old haunts at Inlet Technologies) recently wrote up an excellent overview on the rise of adaptive streaming as a disruptive technology and I couldn't agree with it more. Adaptive bit rate architecture embodies innovation because it leverages existing infrastructure while exponentially improving the user experience.

With the adoption of Adaptive (be it HTTP adaptive for the iPhone, Smooth Streaming for Silverlight, or Dynamic Streaming for Flash), we're seeing some classic problems that have plagued online viewers—like the guesswork around plug-ins, data rates, etc...—go away. We're also seeing improved features make an appearance, such as real-time chats and social media connections, which allow the user both a unique and collective experience. 

But all this new technology AND the growing popularity is having a tsunami effect on the amount of work content creators now have to deliver.

The disruptive technology tidal wave

Can content creators keep their heads above this rising demand? Not with the familiar options that are handy today - the CPU-only workflows will only get you so far. Adding more computers just gives the operators more things to keep track of and eventually efficiency just flatlines as you add more systems. Traditional acceleration avenues exist, but have long been a pariah for being so costly and proprietary. Click through for more.

Ah, but there is a stand out from the standard options: GPU-accelerated video. Now, we're talking about a disruptive innovation that leverages existing infrastructure, while exponentially improving the user experience. Taking advantage of off-the-shelf technology, Elemental has written software that outperforms any CPU-only system on the market today. Our solution, which utilizes both CPUs and GPUs efficiently, also gains the acceleration of massively parallel processing at a fraction of the cost of other hardware acceleration. This is one innovation well suited to handle the demands we're seeing in the market today and for the foreseeable future.