Akamai Unveils Akamai HD Network

Akamai Technologies on Tuesday announced the Akamai HD Network, which it is billing as "the first platform to deliver HD video online to viewers using Adobe Flash technology, Microsoft Silverlight, and to the iPhone, at broadcast-level audience scale." It says that the new video delivery offering is the only solution to support live and on-demand HD streaming "with a highly personalized and interactive online experience that matches and complements HD television."

According to Akamai, the Akamai HD Network is designed to serve as a comprehensive HD network reaching multiple playback environments and devices. It leverages the "breadth and scale" of Akamai's globally deployed EdgePlatform of over 50,000 servers, the company says, enabling content providers to deliver more HD content than previously possible, due to its distribution in 70 countries and increased throughputs in more than 900 networks.

Features of the Akamai HD Network, according to the company, include:

• Adaptive bitrate streaming, a network and player streaming process that is designed to enable uninterrupted playback at HD bitrates, and that adjusts to fluctuations in available bandwidth in order to provide the best possible quality for each user.
• Immediate response to viewer interactions with the video player, including sub-second timeshifting (such as pause, rewind, seek and play commands) video start-up times, and "seamless" stream switching.
• An open standards-based HD video player for faster time-to-market.
• HD player authentication (authenticates player for all three environments ensuring only authorized players access content).

"With the Akamai HD Network, we are revolutionizing the way content traverses the Internet with a new approach to bringing an HDTV-like experience online," Akamai president and CEO, Paul Sagan, said in a prepared statement. "We're entering a different online world, where many content owners and publishers need to deliver HD-quality video to a much wider online audience, with a higher level of interactivity for consumers. Delivering 'Web-quality' content to 'Web-sized' audiences is one thing, but delivering HD-quality content to broadcast-scale audiences is another."

According to Akamai, two current trends have made it necessary to change the way in which streaming media is delivered on the Internet: online audiences have grown to broadcast scale, and those audiences are demanding higher-quality content. Supporting the level of traffic that these trends entail requires a global network that can manage millions of simultaneous users streaming very high bitrate content, the company says. The company bills the Akamai HD Network as being designed for large-scale broadcasters and film distributors looking to increase audience engagement and to expand revenues by complementing traditional mediums such as TV and DVD, with the Internet.

The company says that the Akamai HD Network offers adaptive bitrate streaming capabilities across playback formats that are specifically optimized to work with its HD EdgePlatform for fast and consistent bitrate switching, enabling an instant and uninterrupted viewing experience even at the highest bitrates. Leveraging Akamai's entire HTTP footprint, the company says, video over the Akamai HD Network is delivered from servers closer to audiences around the world. As a result, the company claims, it can more tightly control the amount of time the player needs to buffer before switching streams. The shorter the buffer, the faster the stream can adapt and respond to changing end-user conditions, the company says. The result, according to Akamai, is a "seamless HD-quality video experience with little or no buffering." "We are excited to see Akamai's commitment to HTTP adaptive streaming as the future of online video delivery, as we have worked closely over the past year to build a robust end-to-end media delivery platform with IIS Smooth Streaming and Silverlight," Steve Sklepowich, director for Silverlight at Microsoft, said in a prepared statement. "Together, we've proven that these true HD experiences can dramatically increase online viewing times for broadcasters. In addition, Microsoft's ability to deliver live and on-demand protected streams with Smooth Streaming and Silverlight, along with enhanced interactive experiences, such as multiple camera angles, alternate language tracks and in-stream data feeds, have raised the bar for online delivery using HTTP." Added Jim Guerard, VP and general manager of dynamic media at Adobe: "Adobe works closely with Akamai to optimize Flash Media delivery on Akamai's network for the benefit of our mutual customers. We're pleased that customers who already leverage the Flash Platform as the number one video format online will now enjoy increased scalability and quality gains as a result of utilizing Akamai's vast edge infrastructure via HTTP video streaming."

Video of Akamai's press event announced the Akamai HD Network, as well as a demo videos of the offering, are available here.