5G Media - Standards and Technologies

Tutorial

This tutorial is a comprehensive deep dive into the exciting world of 5G Media technologies and standards. As 5G continues to shape the media industry, it's critical for professionals to understand the key concepts and design principles that make it such a powerful enabler.

The first part of the tutorial explores the basics of 5G Media and its evolution, with a focus on the 5G core network and its key functions like Network Slicing, MEC, eMBB, and MBMS. We'll also cover Network Function Virtualization and Service Oriented Architecture, which are essential for understanding the underlying infrastructure.

In the second part, we'll delve into the media applications enabled by 5G, including Network-Assisted Media Processing and Remote Media Production. We'll also discuss real-world 5G media applications and trials that have successfully demonstrated the capabilities of 5G in the media industry.

The third and final part of the tutorial focuses on the 5G media standards being developed by leading standardization bodies such as 3GPP, 5G-MAG, ETSI, DVB and MFS. We'll also explore 5G-related media streaming protocols and their potential impact on the industry.

After this tutorial, you'll have a comprehensive understanding of 5G Media and the key technologies and applications that make it such a game-changer in the media industry.

Topics covered:

  • 5G Media Foundation - Evolution of 5G
    • 5G Core Network and concept of Network Function Virtualization
    • Network Slicing and QoS Control
    • 5G Standalone (SA) vs 5G Non-Standalone (NSA)
    • Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC)
    • 5G mmWave
    • enhanced mobile broadband services (eMBB)
    • Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS)
    • ultra reliable low latency communications (URLLC)

  • 5G Media Use Cases and Application Areas
    • Metaverse over 5G
    • Network-Assisted Media Processing
    • Network-Based Remote Media Production
    • Hybrid Broadcast/Unicast Delivery
    • Ultra Low Latency Streaming for Interactive Services
    • VR/AR/XR and holographic transmission

  • 5G Media-related Standards and Technologies
    • Evolution of Media Related Specifications in 3GPP releases
    • 5G Media Action Group (5G-MAG)
    • ETSI 5G Media Streaming (5GMS)
    • DVB Adaptive media streaming over IP multicast, DVB-I over 5G
    • MPEG Network Based Media Processing (NBMP)
    • ATSC3.0 and 5G convergence
    • 5G related Media Streaming Protocols and Formats: MPEG-DASH, CMAF, ROUTE, FLUTE, WebRTC (WHIP, WHPP), SRT
Trainer: Louay Bassbouss, Fraunhofer FOKUS

Advertisement in Broadcast and Broadband Environments

Tutorial

Ad supported video streaming services growing rapidly across the globe. Empowered by the ease of manifest manipulation techniques, flexible and scalable cloud infrastructures and widely adopted industry standard streaming formats like MPEG DASH and HLS, so called FAST (free ad supported streaming TV) services are becoming highly efficient approach to monetize content libraries. Creation of pop-up streaming channels, AVOD services and personalized content offerings wasn’t as easy as it is today. Server-Side Ad-Insertion techniques are the technical backbone for those services by providing the required functions to create and scale ad supported streaming services.

Sounds like a no brainer – but it isn’t. SSAI (Server-Side Ad-Insertion) workflows and architectures are complex and require seamless interaction of components including content sources, ad marker signaling, content and ad conditioning, stitching, playback as well as beaconing.

Within this tutorial, we will give an overview on Dynamic Ad-Insertion (DAI) infrastructures including SSAI OTT Streaming as well as Dynamic Ad Substitution (DAS). Focusing on technical guidelines we will analyze and discuss best practices along the value chain of ad supported streaming services including:

  • Content and signaling lifecycle for ad-enabled OTT Streaming
  • Ad Tech fundamentals
  • Cue point signaling in TS, HLS and MPEG DASH following SCTE104 and SCTE35 specifications
  • Content conditioning, encoding and packaging (IDR-frame decoration, A/V alignment)
  • Dynamic Ad Substitution in HbbTV 1.5 / 2.0
  • An outlook to SCTE224, ADB2 and HbbTV-TA

Topics covered:

  • Ad tech fundamentals - What is DAI, SSAI, CSAI, DAS, TA, FAST?
  • Ad Formats, standards and abbreviations VAST, VPAID, SIMID, OMID
  • SSAI reference architecture - From content source to beacons
  • Cue point signaling - frame accurate ad marker signaling with SCTE35
  • Content Conditioning and manifest decoration
  • FAST channel assembly with SCTE224
  • Dynamic Ad Substitution in HbbTV and improvements through HbbTV-TA and ADB2

Trainer: Robert Seeliger, Fraunhofer FOKUS

dash.js - Latest features and best practices

Tutorial

In this tutorial, we will take a deep dive into media player related topics focusing on dash.js - the official reference client of the DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF). The dash.js player uses the Media Source Extensions (MSE) and the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) for playback of DRM protected DASH content in browser-based environments. dash.js is a production-grade player used by the industry in commercial streaming projects. It also serves as an easy to extend client for the research community and is widely used in other open-source projects and by other organizations such as DVB, CTA-WAVE, HbbTV and 5G-MAG.

Since November 2019 Fraunhofer FOKUS acts as the official lead developer of the dash.js project. As part of this tutorial we share our experience and take a deep dive into the latest features and optimizations of the dash.js client. For that purpose, we cover topics such as multi-period playback, a key-enabler for server-side ad-insertion and gap handling to ensure robust player operation. Moreover, we focus on techniques such as MPD patching to improve the performance of the player while reducing the traffic on the server-side. In addition, we show how to optimize the CDN and player behavior using Common Media Client Data (CMCD) and Common Media Server Data (CMSD). Furthermore, we demonstrate content steering as a mechanism to switch the content source (CDN) that a player uses either at startup or midstream. Next, we illustrate how to use segment preloading for seamless broadcast-broadband ad-insertion on HbbTV terminals. Finally we demonstrate how to automatically test your media player using unit and functional tests and which tools can be helpful to debug your streams.

This tutorial has the aim to be very practice oriented. Most of the topics are introduced with a theoretical part and demonstrated in practice afterwards. Participants are invited to ask questions and share their experiences at any time.

Topics covered:

  • MPEG-DASH
    • Timelines
    • Segment Addressing
  • Web based players - Web APIs
    • MSE
    • EME
  • dash.js - The latest Features and Optimizations
    • ABR algorithms
    • CMAF low-latency streaming
    • Digital Rights Management
    • Common Media Client Data (CMCD)
    • Common Media Server Data (CMSD)
    • MPD patching
    • Multiperiod playback and gap handling
    • Why and how to align your media segments
    • Content Steering
    • Segment preloading for seamless broadcast-broadband ad-insertion on HbbTV terminals
    • Unit and Functional Testing
    • How to debug your streams

Trainer: Daniel Silhavy, Fraunhofer FOKUS

Internet Delivered Media - Streaming Tech Update

Tutorial

As part of this tutorial, we will give an overview as well as best practices for playback and creation of adaptive bitrate (ABR) content. The established streaming formats MPEG-DASH and HLS have enabled content providers to reach many devices (mobile, desktop, TV, etc.) over-the-top (OTT). The CMAF standard enables interoperability between both streaming formats by leveraging the same media file format and CENC has enabled interoperability for multi-DRM support.

Latest advancements in streaming tech focus on improving QoE. In order to improve, it is important to measure first by leveraging streaming analytics and understanding what is happening in front of customers. Moreover these collected metrics provide data to server components, which can steer clients between multiple CDNs to improve the overall quality. In general, there is a trend towards more logic on the server side whether it is CMSD, allowing CDNs to control certain player behaviour or new transport protocols such as HTTP/3 (QUIC) that enable bi-direction communication.

We will demonstrate the key technologies in various live demos and identify challenges and best practices when applying the technologies in production.

Topics covered:

  • Adaptive Streaming Tech Update
    • Streaming format updates: DASH, CENC, HLS, CMAF
    • Streaming optimizations: CMCD/CMSD, Content Steering, HTTP/3, QUIC
    • Standards update: DASH-IF, WAVE, DVB etc.
  • Cross-platform streaming
    • Best practices for Android & iOS
    • Cross-platform deployment to SmartTVs, HbbTV, FireTV, Chromecast, AppleTV, iOS, Android, Desktop etc.
    • Streaming analytics & troubleshooting
Trainer: Stefan Pham, Görkem Güclü, Truong-Sinh An, Fraunhofer FOKUS