Q&A: Pablo Hesse, Teltoo

Pablo Hesse, CEO of Teltoo, talks about the rise of live-streaming and the challenges of delivering mass-audience events over the internet.

What major changes in consumption of TV do you believe will have the biggest impact on the business in the next couple of years?

We will see the biggest impact in live TV. Right now, it is the fastest growing market segment, and it’s full of opportunities. Online TV started as a VOD format because it helped to break an old paradigm: TV schedules. The same way MP3 and playlists changed the way we listen to music, VOD and streaming changed the way we watched TV. It created a revolutionary way of consuming content. Today we see how people watch VOD content on the go as if it was normal, when five years ago that sounded crazy. Now that VOD is mature, the entire industry is moving to an online TV experience that includes live content.

Live content represents a bigger challenge than VOD, but also new opportunities. We can now enjoy live events that were hard to watch before, and that allows us to satisfy an increasing consumer base all over the world. Sporting events, music festivals, industry events, education…we can reproduce all those experiences live, everywhere – and that is why live TV will be the biggest revolution in the next few years.

To what extent do you see live TV switching from broadcast to streaming?

TV will become a complete streaming experience. We have already changed the way we consume content. The internet redefined the rules, and now we want content immediately, everywhere and on all devices. Live content is one of the most demanded video formats, and it will be integrated into this new TV experience.

So, rather than thinking if that will happen or not, as industry leaders, we need to think how we are going to complete the move quickly while giving consumers a wonderful experience. Technology and infrastructure are always running behind demand and trying to meet it. It’s time to get ahead and control this demand through innovative and scalable ways to give people the content they deserve in the way they demand it.

What are the key challenges in delivering live-streamed coverage of mass-audience sports events?

If you look at the live video streaming process chain there are several factors to take care of: capturing, encoding/transcoding, encryption, breaking down the files, caching, delivery – all in real-time. It’s very challenging. But, preparing to meet mass audience levels is even more complex. Live streaming is relatively new, and there is still little data, so most companies over-provision their network, through multi-CDN strategies, to create enough capacity in case something unexpected happens. That strategy is not wrong, but shouldn’t we be able to stream with the certainty that everything is going to work and scale when needed?

What needs to be done to overcome these challenges?

We must think differently. Go backwards and modify what has been used in the past. The internet was never designed to distribute video, so why not stop, take a moment to think, and try different ways of doing things? We have been using standard technologies for a long time, but isn’t it time to move forward and embrace new ideas? It is challenging to innovate in an industry where millions of viewers expect the highest quality, but precisely because of that, we need to be ahead of the demand, instead of always trying to meet it.

Most of the companies we have the pleasure to talk with now have innovation teams tasked with creating a new way of thinking and doing things. A new way of defining what should be done. This is what we need in our industry to overcome these challenges.

What do you see as Teltoo’s role in this environment and what are the key elements of your technology?

Teltoo is a new way of distributing content. It challenges the current way of thinking, and uses technologies that are completely reliable and, even better, completely scalable. Teltoo maximizes the current infrastructure that is in place, which means a benefit for all the stakeholders involved: consumers – better content; content owners – efficient delivery; and operators – network optimization.

The key element of Teltoo is how it complements the other technologies used in the video streaming chain, and how it enhances the whole viewer experience by reorganizing the way video is distributed. Teltoo provides full control, enormous flexibility, and will soon become an essential element in the video streaming toolbox.

Visit with Teltoo at IBC by emailing [email protected]

This Q&A is sponsored content.