The media files can be transmitted over the internet mainly in the following two ways:
Download mode. The whole content file is downloaded and saved on your device which can be played then. This mode requires a substantial amount of time for downloading and takes up a lot of your disk space.
Streaming mode. The content file is not downloaded rather is played over the internet while your device is connected to the same. The file is transferred from the server to the client or say, the user. The back-end flow involves a few processes which include breaking into packets, encoding transfer decoding.
Let’s talk about Online streaming.
Online streaming has emerged as a big sector of entertainment in recent years, with services like Xcine increasing in popularity. With the latest developing technologies, online streaming is also getting smarter day by day. Enhancements are made in these services with the help of technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and a few more. These improvements are not only engaging existing customers but also attracting new users.
When we talk about AI, often there is confusion with ML and then comes Deep Learning. Let’s know more about these three widely used technologies and methodologies and how it plays a role in the case of online streaming services.
AI is a technology that is concerned with building smart devices, capable of performing tasks that generally require human intelligence.
ML is a subset of AI, in which machines are fed with data which they learn and further make independent decisions. The more information available to the machine to learn and analyze, the better are the results predicted.
Deep Learning is again a subset of ML, which uses a neural network that has been designed to enact like a human brain. So, now we know that all DL is AI, but not all AI is DL.
The blend of the Trio
It is evident enough that because of these technologies, the streaming experience is improving and getting smarter with the days.
Artificial Intelligence has proved to be a blessing to the online streaming industry as it helps in optimizing costs. AI can do this by calculating the bitrate to make the bandwidth usage effective while maintaining the quality of the ongoing stream.
The online streaming industry focuses on “content-aware encoding” where the AI can understand what type of content is being streamed, and optimize bitrate, latency, and protocols, accordingly, whether it’s a cricket match broadcast or a more static boring interview. The identification of the stream content type is done with the help of Deep Learning. Then the Machine Learning comes into the picture for refining the rules, which further are applied by AI. It does so by shrinking the calculations it needs to perform as it has already understood the degree of bitrates required in both fast-moving stream and slow-moving stream.
Now that many of us are using online streaming platforms, we might be flabbergasted to see the recommendation feature that is being integrated with it. But have you thought of the process behind this? Who’s the magician? Let me simplify, you are the first magician, then comes the smarter magician-Machine Learning and the Algorithms. The online streaming services use these technologies to learn about your insights and deliver some predictions based on them. So, if you are watching Friends then according to your stream-period, duration and genre the algorithms run along with which the machine studies the data and finally predicts the recommendation list for you. Studies say that the predicted results are 80% accurate.
With the evolution and contribution of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning, one can expect a promising future in the online streaming industry.
