IMAX showcases StreamSmart On-Air to reduce streaming distribution costs at IBC

At IBC 2024, on booth 5.F19, IMAX Corporation will showcase its StreamSmart On-Air live streaming optimization software to Amsterdam attendees for the first time. Designed to significantly reduce the cost of live streaming distribution, StreamSmart On-Air delivers a 15%-25% bandwidth savings, translating into millions of euros in reduced distribution costs and a better end-user experience.

“IMAX’s approach to reducing live streaming distribution costs is completely unique thanks to our award-winning VisionScience technology,” said Vikram Arumilli, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Streaming and Consumer Technology at IMAX. “Ours is the only cloud optimization tool that runs at the speed of live, leveraging the patented IMAX ViewerScore (XVS) in real-time to ensure optimal quality and drastically reduce bitrate.”

The software employs IMAX ViewerScore (XVS), a patented perceptual quality metric based on IMAX VisionScience that measures video quality in real-time based on human vision, to ensure bitrate reductions only occur when they are visually imperceptible to viewers. StreamSmart On-Air, an API-based optimization software, leverages existing encoding and packaging workflows, and uses an AI-driven approach to dynamically select optimal segments from ABR/HLS/standard streams and optimize bitrates in real-time.

IBC attendees will see real-time optimization of a live AWS stream on the show floor, showing savings while comparing the quality of IMAX-optimized and non-optimized streams. Attendees will also be able to see StreamAware On-Air, a real-time monitoring software for live streams that also leverages XVS to provide video service providers complete visibility of their video quality throughout the delivery chain.

StreamSmart On-Air was recently used to optimize the NBA Finals, which streamed live in high-quality using low-bandwidth public internet to IMAX theaters in Hong Kong and Taiwan.