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THE CUTTING EDGE OF CLOUD VIDEO VOL. 2, NO. 1 • STREAMING MEDIA • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020
DVEO’s Evolution
to the Cloud
BY LASZLO (LES) ZOLTAN, FOUNDER, DVEO
O DVEO has built all our apps not on top
ver the last 10 years, DVEO has built a reputation as a
reliable vendor of software-based encoders, decoders,
and transcoders. It has done well by diversifying its
product line and offering reliable solutions based largely on
open source libraries. In the early days, it took a chance on
open source libraries that permeated the code libraries of
the very largest companies in the field; today, open source
is accepted by virtually all companies, large or small. Due
to some luck, two of its largest competitors were absorbed:
Elemental Technologies was purchased by Amazon
and Envivio was purchased by Ericsson in 2015. These
unexpected events allowed DVEO to move up from Tier III
vendor status to Tier II, and the company recently moved to
Tier I vendor status as the largest U.S. telcos start working
with DVEO.
A FOUNDATION IN
ENCODING AND TRANSCODING
In the early years, DVEO established a solid market
providing encode and transcode platforms to companies
that were looking for economical solutions that cost 1/2 to
1/3 the price of the larger, more established vendors such
as Elemental and Harmonic. Over time, DVEO expanded
its product line to include “classical” video servers that
could serve 10,000 users or more simultaneously after a
cross-licensing arrangement with RealNetworks failed.
Additionally, DVEO introduced its 1st- and 2 nd-generation
Ad Inserters. The ad insertion market was then dominated
by SeaChange and Imagine Communications.
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of existing Linux operating systems but
as an integrated whole. This means that
each of our apps and cloud distributions
include an optimized, customizable
Linux operating system.
VIDEO SERVERS AND MIDDLEWARE
When all the pieces were in place, DVEO was pulled into
the online video platform market. The video server was a
key at that time, since CDN delivery was cost prohibitive
to smaller telcos; moreover, CDN delivery was not needed
since these telcos were essentially deploying multicast
infrastructures since they owned the infrastructure. But
middleware was one missing piece of the platform puzzle.
Middleware is the software layer that resides on the user’s
device. It has multiple functions, including decoding the
content; presenting the content in a pleasant, easy-to-use
manner; and securing the content so it can’t be used without
permission. Of course, advertising support in middleware
is essential, since most traditional TV programming is ad
supported. Premium middleware includes a user-friendly
electronic program guide (EPG), since viewers need to know
when their favorite scheduled programs, sports, and other
live events are going to be played, and VOD content obviously
needs a content guide with icons and descriptions.
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MOVING TO THE CLOUD
Once we had a complete platform, moving to the cloud
was possible. Our customers started to pull us there,
since they were looking for reliable but more economical
solutions than provided by the typical venture-funded
cloud platforms. Migrating to the cloud was not an easy
task, and the 80/20 rule applied—the first 80% of the task
was easy; the next 20% of the task took just as long as the
first 80%. Originally, we thought it was going to be a simple
rewrite, but it didn’t turn out that way. The unexpected
challenge was the license manager, which took longer than
the cloud implementation. You can imagine that we have to
accommodate clients who are turning up new clones of our
software on totally new hardware. How do we protect our
code when there are no anchor points like MAC addresses?
It was not easy. Today, we have solved it all and are one of
many vendors with end-to-end cloud solutions. But how is
DVEO different?
THE DVEO DIFFERENCE
DVEO not only provides encoding, transcoding,
decoding, and server apps, but we offer our own Linux
with each cloud APK. We are unique in this way, since we
always customize not just the higher application layers
but the Linux shell as well. This means we can alter it
or harden it as much as you need. By offering hardened
Linux versions, we have beat out other cloud providers that
must rely on Amazon or a vendor-supplied Linux. Those
generic implementations leave some customers insecure
about security. Second, we offer both our own flavor of
ARQ, known as DOZER and RIST ARQ. Both have obvious
advantages. Our own brand of ARQ comes with corporate
support, and RIST comes with community support. Third,
we offer ad insertion, which of course is essential to content
delivery. Subscription models work for key companies
like Disney, but not for the run-of-the-mill OTT offering.
Interestingly, DVEO supports anyone’s video player, since
we created a video control panel as a standalone unit
that easily interfaces with third-party players. This is yet
another competitive advantage, since video players often
dominate the cloud platform choices.
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We’ve mentioned one huge competitive advantage only
once, and it bears repeating. We claim that DVEO, like
others, offers reliable, economical encoders, transcoders,
decoders, and serving applications. But unlike others,
we have built all our apps not on top of existing Linux
operating systems but as an integrated whole. This means
that each of our apps and cloud distributions include an
optimized, customizable Linux operating system (OS).
This customization can include features such as unique OS
layer capabilities supporting faster context switching. This
tweak was done by moving some data switching tasks to the
OS from the application layer. Furthermore, DVEO can add
security features galore to the OS. We already have military
customers that continuously push us to provide better
security at the OS layer. Whenever new vulnerabilities are
discovered, DVEO stands ready and able to provide an ever-
more highly secure OS to our cloud customers. This makes
us unique. This makes us more valuable.
Additionally, we offer DOZER, our own flavor of ARQ
packet loss correction in the cloud. This allows devices at
the edge to deliver content to cloud devices with a known
degree of packet loss correction. Additionally, we can
upgrade DOZER to RIST at anytime should our customers
wish to use an interoperable data protocol. As part of the
DOZER protocol, we have included AES 128 and other
encryptions for customers who need data scrambling.
All this came together in the last 12 to 18 months. Now
we are ready to take on the big boys!
ABOUT DVEO
DVEO ® is a strong and well established supplier to leading
Telco, TV/OTT, and WISP operators around the world. We
provide telcoquality encoders, decoders, transcoders, ad
insertion solutions, live media servers, and packet recovery
technology … all with support for HLS/fMP4 plus optional
H.265/HEVC.
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