Adobe Experience Manager Assets Dynamic Media launches MPEG-DASH support for video delivery

Video is becoming a key tool for marketers for communication

The usage of video as a tool to create engagement is growing. Adobe Experience Manager Assets Dynamic Media delivered 2.4 billion video plays in a month during the peak of the 2022 holiday season, and video playbacks delivered increased by around 70% in 2022 from 2021. However, delivering a high-quality video experience to users can be challenging. There are several quality of service (QoS) indicators that need to be measured, such as time to first byte, buffer count, buffer time, and so on. These indicators measure the quality of the end-user experience while watching videos on the web.

Adaptive streaming is the way to play

A buffer-free video that loads quickly leads to better engagement for watchers and ensures that the message in the video is communicated to the audience clearly. This would also lead to a better lighthouse score for a website, improving the overall SEO ranking.

This can be achieved by adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming of videos. With ABR streaming, videos are delivered with different bitrate encodes, allowing the video player to switch between them depending on the viewer’s available internet bandwidth. This would lead to performant video delivery for a smooth viewing experience. Compared to delivering videos with progressive streaming where a single quality encode is served for viewing — and which often leads to a trade-off between quality of video delivered or viewing experience of the end user — ABR streaming optimizes for both.

Dynamic Media simplifies the process of encode creation and delivery for our customers. Customers can apply default adaptive streaming profiles in Experience Manager, which optimizes for delivery on the web. Additionally, custom profiles can be made for customers to define encoding parameters.

Tests with some sample videos showed that for a 60-second video, on a constrained bandwidth of <5 Mbps, progressive streaming of a 720p encode buffered 50–60 times and progressive streaming of a 540p encode buffered 30–40 times, whereas ABR streaming of the same video buffered <5 times. With customers delivering 1080p videos for their websites today, adaptive streaming becomes an essential tool to deliver better experiences.

Dynamic Media launches DASH support for adaptive streaming

Dynamic Media has enabled support for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) technique for video streaming (additional to HLS). DASH technique is an open-source standard for streaming videos, which allows for higher flexibility in streaming and playback options. DASH also is codec agnostic. With this, Dynamic Media URLs will support streaming via both HLS and DASH in a storage-optimized way. Dynamic Media Video Player URLs will smartly stream through DASH/HLS based on the browser of the end user.

You can enable DASH on your Experience Manager Cloud Service and 6.5 environments today by creating a support ticket for Dynamic Media.

Learn more about video in Dynamic Media.

What’s coming next

After enabling DASH support, you will soon be able to attach different audio and captions in Experience Manager. This support will allow videos to be delivered with high accessibility and fit for a global audience.

If you are a video customer with Experience Manager and Dynamic Media, we are looking to power your video management and delivery journey further. Please take our simple survey to let us know your feedback.

Riya Midha is a product manager with the Adobe Experience Manager Assets and Dynamic Media team.