DLVR: Optimizing Video Content Delivery

Users love internet videos for the choice and freedom they get with regard to accessing unlimited visual content anywhere, anytime on a wide range of devices—mobile, desktop, and set-top devices. However, they are not particularly thrilled when internet videos start slowly, stream at low fidelity, or worst of all, when they see the hated buffering wheel and the video grinds to a halt in the middle of the stream—lowering the Quality of Experience (QoE), which may result in viewers never returning to the same publisher site again. Working with a delivery optimization service such as DLVR, can help publishers solve these quality issues. Based in Phoenix, AZ, DLVR was founded by Mike Gordon who is an early pioneer in internet video delivery. With over 50 patents in internet technology and digital media, the company enables publishers to leverage a multi Content Delivery Network (CDN) strategy and deliver the best QoE for viewers.

DLVR provides a 100 percent cloud-based video delivery optimization service that ensures streaming video achieves peak performance and avoids catastrophes large and small, from buffering to service interruptions. By measuring and optimizing individual streams, DLVR detects and mitigates network slowdowns, and provides proactive CDN switching based on stream data and customizable business and performance rules.

In addition to improved QoE, DLVR also helps publishers contain delivery costs by taking the most cost-effective route based on publishers’ contracts and commitments. DLVR’s zero-footprint service doesn’t require any SDKs, plugins, or other client development, cutting out weeks of testing and deployment and eliminating continuous maintenance. Individual stream measurements provide customer-specific, granular QoE and CDN performance data that powers DLVR’s predictive analytics and proactive streaming switching, providing superior results compared to test-based systems, or the manual processes and guesswork that many publishers rely on today.

The myriad advantages offered by DLVR have won the company numerous customers. A recent customer study provides a great example of the value of DLVR’s video delivery optimization service. In side by side testing, the customer found that using DLVR’s proactive stream switching provided a 77 percent decrease in traffic load times vs the CDN-only solution. In addition, when one CDN initiated throttling during peak viewing hours—the 9am hour and 7pm hour in local time zones—DLVR instantly detected the traffic slowdown and proactively switched the affected traffic to another CDN, preventing abandoned streams and delivering a higher average bit rate and a higher quality viewing experience.

“Without DLVR, in a single day an estimated 670,000 users would have abandoned their streams due to slow load times. This really illustrates the quantifiable impact of DLVR’s proactive mitigation to counter changing CDN conditions,” remarks Gordon.

DLVR’s capability to ensure optimized delivery of content has scripted success stories for the company across the U.S. and Europe. Forging ahead, the company is working towards integrating its solutions with the workflows of media companies across the globe.

“A couple of areas we are investing in are improving ad delivery and finding ways to reduce latency for live event streaming,” states Gordon. Although DLVR is a new company, the experience of its founders, its early customer successes, and the increasing importance of multi-CDN strategies place them in a strong position in the video delivery ecosystem.