How Autostart with Dynamic Buffering Improves Viewer Experiences and Reduces CDN Costs

Boosting your video business with monetized video content can be a reliable revenue stream, but only if you can keep delivery costs in control. A seamless streaming experience with adaptive buffering is essential to retaining viewership. Content providers need solutions that provide:

• Faster Time-to-Play: Eliminate viewer frustration from delayed or long load times
• Smoother Experience: Optimize playback with adaptive video quality and dynamic buffer size
• Reduced Costs: Streamline data and bandwidth usage without sacrificing quality
• The Best Experience for the Most Engaged Viewers: Differentiate between a non-intentional autoplay (just scrolling by) and a real/valid autoplay (the viewer is actively watching)

Why Adaptive Buffering & Autostart Are Important for High-Quality Video Delivery

In a world of short attention spans and content overload, the first few seconds of a video are critical. Buffering, delays, and poor video quality can lead to immediate viewer frustration and lost engagement. Enhanced autoplay and Adaptive Buffer strategy capabilities create a smoother, more cost-effective way to deliver video.

By storing less video in the player’s buffer, you save money by minimizing wasted CDN delivery costs for delivering video to those not actively watching. With a smaller buffer size, you also can reduce the video start-up time and provide a more seamless experience for viewers.

If a viewer watches less than, say, 10 seconds of a video, they likely are passively scrolling. Conversely, if they watch more than 10 seconds, they are more likely to be engaged and actively viewing the content. This 10-second threshold is an example, and may vary based on your audience and content. It may be difficult for you to determine this threshold, including factors like:

• Where is your player located?
  If your player is located near the top of the page, the Autoplay will likely trigger earlier, resulting in a longer overall view duration.
• How quickly are audiences scrolling through your page?
  If page visitors are scrolling quickly, they may reach your video embed more quickly and trigger the Autoplay.

If you are unsure, start with the 10-second threshold and see how the page and content perform. A video session with a shorter duration than your threshold should be considered “passive” and should be deprioritized. Video sessions longer than your threshold duration are likely “engaged” and more valuable. Once they reach the threshold you set, you can provide higher-quality video delivery with confidence that those viewers are more engaged with your content.

Optimizing Video Delivery Costs & Viewer Experiences with Wowza’s Adaptive Buffering and Autoplay

We’ve integrated our leading media server, modern player, and comprehensive analytics to provide seamless delivery to all audiences. These enhancements in Wowza:

• Automatically adjust video quality based on a viewer’s device or network conditions.
• Allow configurable values for what is considered a “valuable autoplay session” duration, so you can filter out passive viewers and devote resources to engaged audiences.
• Leverage dynamic segment size for smooth playback without buffering. Short segments in the beginning for a more granular buffer size in the player, longer segments after threshold is reached for cost efficiency by reducing the overhead cost of fetching segments etc.
• Provide instant, unfailing video delivery even in spotty, high-traffic, or secure network conditions

With this newfound confidence, any VOD customer can deliver the best possible viewing experience to their audiences.

Why Publishers and Social Media Should Use Autoplay & Adaptive Buffering

The enhanced Autoplay feature gets video in front of your viewers immediately.By limiting the buffer size when the player is loaded, you can ensure all viewers get served the content. This captures audiences’ attention and increase the likelihood they will continue watching. Then, by expanding the buffer size when someone has been watching for a period of time, you can deliver a higher-quality stream to the most engaged viewers. This ensures a positive experience, encourages retention, and optimizes resource usage and costs for video content providers.

In Sports Streaming, these cost-effective autoplay and adaptive Buffer strategy features are critical.

How Sports Streaming Providers Use Autoplay & Adaptive Buffer strategy

Imagine millions of fans catching up on highlights from a championship game, or rewatching key moments from their favorite match. All viewers want a flawless experience. Without a smart autoplay feature, viewers on inconsistent networks would face buffering, long load times, and a degraded experience. A 1% increase in buffering time or start-up delay can decrease viewer engagement by over three minutes. This is a critical loss of viewership and potential ad revenue.

Many fans also keep highlight reels or replays running in the background while multitasking. Without adaptive buffering, the stream would load at the highest quality for even these passive viewers. This uses unnecessary bandwidth and drives up delivery costs significantly. Adaptive buffering optimizes bandwidth usage and resource allocation to ensure a flawless, cost-effective viewing experience.

Delivering only the video data a specific viewer’s device can support prevents unnecessary data consumption. For engaged viewers, this means a smoother experience with reduced bandwidth consumption. For passive viewers, this means a reliable stream of content without unnecessary costs or resource usage. High-quality content is delivered flawlessly, especially for those on limited data plans.

How To Add Adaptive Buffering & Autoplay to Your Video Workflow

In today’s competitive landscape, a flawless viewer experience is your greatest asset. Wowza’s enhanced adaptive Buffer strategy and autoplay capabilities provide a powerful solution to common streaming challenges, ensuring that every stream, every time, is delivered with unparalleled quality and reliability.

By intelligently managing video delivery, we help you:

• Deliver Immersive Experiences That Boost Engagement
  • Eliminate buffering and delays from the very first frame
  • Ensure a captivating experience for your audience.
• Reduce Costs
  • Optimize bandwidth and deliver only the data a specific viewer’s device can supportDevote resources to only the most engaged viewers, reducing spend on “passive” viewers who don’t need higher-quality video
  • Cut delivery costs overall and ensure streaming operations remain efficient
• Ensure Unfailing Reliability
  • Ensure every second of video is captured and delivered
  • Never miss a critical moment

For events and entertainment, this means a better stream for live sports and concerts that keeps viewers engaged. This is especially true for those on limited data plans or in high-traffic conditions. For mission-critical applications like monitoring and surveillance, our solution provides unfailing video delivery in constrained, secure, or inconsistent networks.

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