OTT (over-the-top) is a means of providing television and film content over the internet at the request and to suit the requirements of the individual consumer. The term itself stands for “over-the-top”, which implies that a content provider is going over the top of existing internet services.
With OTT video delivery technology, people now have a multitude of options at their fingertips. They have the ability to view content on a variety of platforms such as: Smart TVs, Roku, computers, tablets, mobile phones, or gaming consoles. They also have the option to access multiple distributors for specialized programs and view channels by “app switching”, giving them more control over the content they choose to purchase and watch.
In fact, while they both use IP technology, IPTV is delivered over private cable network compared to OTT delivered over internet services. OTT systems overcome the limitations of the single operator set top box (STB) technology required by IPTV. With OTT, content is only delivered upon request. Each connected device has a unique connection to the source of the content via the internet, making it “unicast”- delivering one stream to one device.
One of the inherent problems with serving TV content over the internet is being able to contend with the wide range of network performance. Performance depends on what speed the connection will support (e.g. Fiber, Wi-Fi, LTE, DSL), the display device (e.g. phone, streaming device like Roku, Apple TV, or Firestick, or laptop), and then how many network hops there are between the provider and the end user. At a high-level, OTT systems and technologies are designed to minimize the impact these parameters have, by providing a “best effort” approach to serving up the content. That is, OTT technology will adjust to the network performance of the entire chain in real-time so that the video and audio are delivered without pauses caused by buffering. These pauses are extremely frustrating for the viewer and may cause them to abandon the content.
For slower networks it will scale down to lower bit rates. For faster networks it will scale up to provide the best quality. Ideally, when on a very fast network, the player will buffer additional content to “get ahead” and smooth out periods of network slow-down. It does this with a technique called ABR which stands for Adaptive Bit Rate streaming.