Former industry forum is now under the SVTA
umbrella as the DASH-IF Working Group
The Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA), a global
technical association developing solutions to address critical
technical challenges in delivering a high-quality video experience
at scale, announces that the DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF) is now
part of the SVTA. The newly formed DASH-IF Working Group will
continue the on-going work that was carried out by the DASH-IF
association.
DASH-IF: An Association with Historical Significance
The DASH-IF association has been in operation for 12 years,
developing technical specifications, tools, and the dash.js player
to support and enable the implementation of the MPEG-DASH format.
Initiated by Qualcomm, Netflix, Microsoft, Akamai, Ericsson and
Samsung in 2011, around 100 companies have participated in the
organization’s work since, including streaming video platforms,
CDNs, network operators, mobile ecosystem giants, technology
providers, as well as research and academic institutions. Through
their efforts, DASH-IF accomplished much over the past decade to
help the industry use the DASH format in production environments.
For a complete list, visit https://dashif.org/members/.
“Over the past 12 years, DASH-IF has emerged as a highly
influential organization in the media streaming industry,” says
Iraj Sodagar, former DASH-IF President. “By bringing together major
industry players, DASH-IF has developed specifications, guidelines,
conformance tools, test vectors, and open-source software—all
provided free of charge to the entire industry. Additionally,
DASH-IF collaborated with standards development organizations
(SDOs) and consortia for advancing the MPEG DASH standard as well
as promoting its harmonized adoption across various industry
sectors. The DASH-IF story serves as a compelling case study,
demonstrating how an industry forum can revolutionize the entire
ecosystem, benefiting both the industry and the end consumers.”
A Combined Approach To Improve Interoperability
While DASH-IF has been singularly focused on the MPEG DASH,
adjacent standards for ingest and key exchange, and dash.js player
as its reference implementation, the SVTA addresses a wide variety
of technical challenges across the streaming workflow. With DASH-IF
and their efforts now part of the SVTA, there can be a much tighter
integration between their laser focus on MPEG DASH and adjacent
technologies and the more generalized efforts of the SVTA. This can
help reduce fragmentation in streaming workflows. Consider content
steering for example. The SVTA is working on broad, industry-wide
solutions, but DASH-IF has its own in-depth approach. Bringing
DASH-IF within the SVTA family allows its task forces to work more
closely with SVTA working groups to ensure alignment. This, in
turn, reduces the complexity for streaming providers who utilize
DASH along with other formats, or technologies, that may already be
aligned with SVTA guidance.
“Having DASH-IF operating within the SVTA will only benefit the
industry,” says Jason Thibeault, CEO of SVTA. “By bringing more of
the significant work underneath a single banner, in this case the
SVTA, we can create an even larger environment of collaboration and
move the industry closer towards a less complicated, more
interoperable future.”
“I strongly believe that at this stage, the industry is better
served by a smaller number of consortia with wide industry
participation,” says Alex Giladi, President of DASH-IF. “DASH-IF is
going to continue its excellent technical work under the wider
umbrella of SVTA. I am looking forward to working closely with SVTA
experts and expect the new DASH-IF working group to benefit from a
wider variety of perspectives the SVTA brings to the table.”
Ensuring A Productive Future for DASH
Bringing DASH-IF under the SVTA umbrella is not intended to
diminish the work they were doing or the DASH format itself.
Rather, by joining forces with the SVTA, DASH-IF gains access to
resources it did not have before, enabling expansion of the group’s
work. For the remainder of 2024, DASH-IF will operate as it had
before, just as a working group within the SVTA while having access
to the other SVTA groups and resources. All existing DASH-IF task
forces will operate as SVTA sub-groups, and all group leaders will
continue in their respective roles.
“The work of DASH-IF and SVTA has been critical in providing the
tools, resources, specs and standards to help ensure a seamless,
reliable and consistent video streaming experience for consumers
across the globe,” said Elad Nafshi, Chief Network Officer,
Comcast. “Aligning together under the same umbrella will unify and
strengthen the work of both consortiums, and the industry, and
create the framework for greater innovation and opportunity as
entertainment consumption continues to evolve and more video is
delivered in IP in the future.”
Thomas Stockhammer and Iraj Sodagar to Receive DASH Industry
Forum Leadership Award
DASH-IF is awarding both Thomas and Iraj for their work and
efforts over the past 12 years of DASH-IF
- Thomas will receive his award for his ongoing contributions and
leadership. As the designated lead from founding member Qualcomm,
Thomas worked with the DASH-IF Interoperability working group since
its establishment. He will continue to act as a co-chair in the new
SVTA DASH-IF Working Group. He has been an editor or a major
contributor to virtually all DASH-IF documents.
- Iraj was the president of the DASH Industry Forum for most of
the time the forum existed. He was the leader and an evangelist of
the organization.
The SVTA includes member companies from around the world and
throughout the streaming video ecosystem. For a current list of
member companies, visit https://www.svta.org/svta-members/.
About the Streaming Video Technology Alliance
The Streaming Video Technology Alliance is the global technical
association addressing challenges of delivering high-quality video
at scale. By providing a forum for collaboration across the
streaming video ecosystem, the SVTA member companies can develop
technical specifications, educational whitepapers, best practices,
and software code which address those challenges. Over 100
companies including network operators, content rights holders, OTT
platforms, service providers, and technology vendors participate in
bi-weekly working group activities and quarterly face-to-face
meetings. For more information on the SVTA, the Technical Groups,
or to inquire about becoming a member, visit
https://www.svta.org.
About the DASH Industry Forum
Formally launched in 2012, DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF) has
been advocating the use of the MPEG DASH standard for media
streaming applications. Throughout the years, DASH-IF has provided
the implementation guidelines and industry specifications for the
aligned interoperable adoption of the DASH standard, as well as
providing conformance and test tools and test vectors, content
generation and authoring tools, dash.js reference players, and many
related specification, guidelines, and specifications. The DASH-IF
also works with various consortia in the harmonized adoption of
DASH in their specification, avoiding market segmentation and
incompatibilities between different consortia specs. The industry
has widely used DASH-IF’s dash.js open-source player as a reference
and production player. DASH-IF continues to develop guidelines and
specifications, software tools, and test vector databases and
collaborate with consortia and standardization bodies, to further
foster DASH adoption for new applications and services. For more
information, please visit www.dashif.org.
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Jason Thibeault Streaming Video Technology Alliance
pr@svta.org