Google has launched a a modern, extensible platform for delivering virtual reality called, Media CDN. The company made the announcement at the 2022 NAB Show Streaming Summit, noting that, “Media CDN will enable media and entertainment customers to efficiently and intelligently deliver streaming experiences to viewers anywhere in the world”.
As the lockdown forced people to stay at home and companies closed, the demand for video content went high. A report by Global Inetrnet Phenomenal found that streaming video consumed 53.7% of internet bandwidth, up 4.8% year-on-year. Profits soared for companies offering access to content delivery networks (CDNs), a collection of computers meant to speed up web content delivery. To $4.45 billion in 2020, CDN revenue is expected to increase by 7%.
Adding Google’s Media CDN to its CDN portfolio for web and API acceleration is not the first of its sort by any stretch of the imagination. Many CDNs are specifically designed to serve media. It’s important to keep in mind, though, that Google is proud of its “industry-leading” offload rates, as well as other apparently exclusive features.
As the company notes in its announcement, “With multiple tiers of caching, we minimize calls to origin — even for infrequently accessed content. This alleviates performance or capacity stress in the content origin and saves costs. These features are built into the product and seamlessly support customer content hosted on Google Cloud, on-premises, or on a third-party cloud.”
With the Media CDN, customers can now dynamically insert video material with advertisements. “AI/ML” powered interactive experiences, such as real-time analytics during sporting events and purchase buttons integrated in virtual billboards, Google adds.
