By Chuck Hasek, CTO of BNS
The streaming revolution has reshaped how we consume content, but beneath the sleek interfaces and binge-worthy shows lie critical lessons that many streaming providers have not been paying attention to.
As the battle for eyeballs intensifies, OTT streaming providers – especially D2C services – can learn from the proven technology decisions made by the generation before them. The stalwarts in the industry, which include cable, satellite and even IPTV at this point, have gone through their own “trough of disillusionment” after building some platform capabilities in-house that failed to deliver.
In parallel, the pay TV technology ecosystem was starting to evolve and mature, offering advanced APIs and creating best-of-breed partnerships that gave service providers plenty of solid choices. The products from these vendors were getting better all the time. One reason is that they specialize in addressing specific problems, like content management, encoding/decoding, content protection, media players, UX frameworks, etc.
The Buy vs. Build Dilemma
Companies of all types need to make critical technology decisions that can significantly impact the success of their products or services over the long term. And the fundamental dilemma is always whether to build their technology stack from scratch or buy existing solutions. We have seen some of the largest content owners go down the in-house technology route, where they are developing nearly everything required to offer a service via an app.
Finding talent and dedicating resources to building a streaming platform is often not a great investment, especially if you need those same resources to maintain, operate and upgrade the platform since they are the only ones that possess the required institutional knowledge. There are some cases where building and owning the entire in-house streaming stack just does not make sense.
Another aspect that the prior generation has taught is that building stable video delivery services – at scale – is complex.
The good news is that the streaming industry can learn from the lessons the pay TV industry has taught us. Based on our collective experience, we help guide our customers through these buy vs. build decisions by weighing the variables and estimating the total cost of ownership. We help companies transform their vision into a reality of success—one pixel at a time.