The Challenges Of Video Streaming: What You Should Be Ready For

Suppose you are going to start an IPTV/OTT video streaming service. You want to limit potential risks that you may face during operation. To do that, you should be aware of challenges that can occur in your business. Let’s observe what you should consider when launching a video streaming service.

What are the challenges of video streaming services?

From our point of view, they are the following:

#1 In-cloud vs. on-premise

It is essential to decide on the way you will deploy the service. Cloud computing is growing in popularity as it offers flexibility for businesses. A company saves time and money by using the in-cloud infrastructure. A service can also be easily scaled and improved. 

The possible obstacles that you can encounter here are control and security. When you go cloud, you have to rely on your provider and the security measures they take. But you should also consider that cloud breaches happen from time to time. It is what an IT department should be concerned about. 

The provider usually uses encryption to protect data. But the encryption and decryption keys also belong to them. So, if something happens, you will be unable to access data.

What does on-prem mean? If you don’t want to use cloud infrastructure, you buy everything and keep it in-house. In this case, you will have full control over the infrastructure and are responsible for maintaining it and keeping data safe. 

#2 Latency issues

Huge amounts of data are being transferred via the Internet. This volume increases with higher resolutions and bitrates. As a result, viewers experience latencies and interruptions. As a provider, you should know how difficult it is to deliver high-quality videos.

You should be prepared for these situations. The solution that can help you reduce the number of such occurrences is CDN software or multi-CDN. Content Delivery Network will allow switching servers if one goes down and is inaccessible.    

CDNs are usually used to reduce latencies and improve user experience. They also can help in mitigating hacker attacks, such as a DDoS (denial-of-service) attack. A DDoS attack is when a malicious actor makes a huge number of requests to a server in a short period of time. The machine doesn’t manage to process all of them and fails.

#3 Content Security   

There will always be people who don’t want to pay for viewing videos. They want to access them for free. That’s why some of them will try to steal your content and publish it on pirate websites. You should be ready for that and look for ways to protect your work.

One of the ways is the DRM (Digital Rights Management) solution. It is usually provided by companies who develop software for video streaming businesses like Setplex.

What does DRM do? DRM ensures that only authorized viewers access your content. It protects your copyright holder’s rights so that unauthorized users don’t access your videos. It checks if they are played only on devices so player firestick that are authorized in the system and control the transmission of videos. 

Final Thoughts

These are only some of the issues that you can face when launching or operating a video streaming service. It is better to be prepared for them because wrong decisions can come at a high cost. You can lose a lot of money and reputation, especially when it comes to security. Don’t neglect it.