Streaming video alliance forms to help guide future of online video

A consortium of content providers, network operators, content delivery networks and technology providers have joined together to form the Streaming Video Alliance.

The alliance is designed to encourage deeper collaboration and the development of open architecture and interoperability for streaming video.

It aims to help create standards and best practices that will scale the infrastructure for online video and improve efficiency for all the providers involved.

Some 17 partners have been announced so far including Fox Networks Group, Yahoo, Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco. However, YouTube and Netflix were notable by their absence.

The other alliance members are Charter Communications, Comcast, EPIX, Korea Telecom, Level 3 Communications, Liberty Global, Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Qwilt, Telecom Italia, Telstra, Ustream, Wowza Media Systems.

“This landmark Alliance will deepen collaboration, accelerate innovation and redefine the way online video is streamed across mobile and fixed networks to consumers worldwide. It will address key industry and online video ecosystem challenges,” said the Alliance in a statement.

The initial areas of focus are on open architecture for network and cloud-based streaming architecture, quality of experience and standards for interoperability

“The magnitude of the online video challenge calls for a new open architecture that can address the scaling of streaming video, operational requirements of content providers, network operators and content delivery networks while preserving the quality of experience expected by consumers,” said the alliance.