Streaming Services Research Articles

Shared cinematic experience and emerging technologies: Integrating mixed-reality components for the future of cinema

The enduring appeal of traditional cinema viewing in the face of alternative experiences, including streaming services and emerging technologies, such as extended reality, is rooted in its esthetic, cultural, and social significance. While the psychological appeal of shared cinematic experiences has gained attention in scholarship, there is a need to further explore the potential enhancement of these experiences through the integration of immersive technologies. The communal nature of cinema fosters social connection, especially in a post-pandemic context marked by widespread social isolation. This study highlights the psychological benefits of shared cinematic experiences and emphasizes the next phase of cinematic evolution, which integrates mixed-reality components while retaining the traditional communal and focused viewing experience. By merging physical and virtual elements, mixed reality offers a unique avenue for exploring the intersection of technology and psychology in the context of cinema. In addition, this article addresses practical applications for filmmakers and industry professionals by outlining technical considerations for integrating mixed-reality elements throughout the filmmaking process, from production to distribution and viewing. The integration of mixed-reality components represents a significant step in the evolution of cinema, providing valuable insights into its potential implications for the research community and the film industry.

Lifestyle Analysis And Factors Affecting Consumer Interest In Post Pandemi Video On Demand Netflix Subscriptions

The impact that has occurred since the presence of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to changes in people's lifestyles in carrying out their activities including carrying out their hobbies. On of the most popular activities for the public during the pandemic is watching online videos through streaming services using Video on Demand such as Netflix, which is known that Netflix is the online streaming application that is most in demand by the public as their choice of watching videos . Given this phenomenon, this study aims to analyze lifestyle and the factors that influence consumer interest in subscribing to Netflix after the pandemic. The type of research used in this study is a qualitative method by using literature/library research to obtain data and information used by researchers to analyze. The results of the study indicate that there are factors that influence consumer interest in subscribing to Netflix, namely, work, hobbies, age, gender, and individual attitude. The results of the analysis show that changes in lifestyle during the pandemic will greatly affect consumer interest in subscribing to Netflix.

Beyond Netflix: Ownership and content strategies among non-US-based video streaming services

Major multi-territory streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ dominate this new sector of video distribution, but the economic features of internet-distributed video enable a diverse sector. This article examines 16 non-US-based multi-territory services and 10 national/regional markets to investigate the other types of transnational streaming businesses emerging. The analysis assesses the ownership of the 16 services, as all but one emerge from existing corporations with activities in the audiovisual or distribution sector, to identify the implications of different ownership priorities. It then pairs the ownership analysis with data on the size and country of origin of the services’ content libraries. The findings identify subcategories of multi-territory streamers and, by considering an array of national markets, reveal the counter-strategies available to non-US-based services.

Video Streaming and Cloud Gaming Services Over 4G and 5G: A Complete Network and Service Metrics Dataset

The development of telecommunications, particularly mobile communications, has led to the emergence of numerous multimedia services. As these services become increasingly reliant on connectivity, the network has a huge impact on the user experience. However, it is difficult to assess the End-to- End (E2E) performance of the service because of the limited access to the application data and encryption used to secure and integrate the network information exchanged. In this context, this work presents a dataset based on several metrics, namely Key Quality Indicators (KQIs), representing different services' E2E conditions. In particular, video streaming and Cloud Gaming (CG) services are considered in the dataset. Furthermore, a detailed description of the testbed where the dataset has been generated is given, discussing the rationale behind the choices made for its development.

On-demand online video streaming services: a bibliometric analysis and future research agenda

ABSTRACT An exponential increase in online video streaming literature on OTT platforms during and post-COVID indicates the growing popularity of streaming services. The present bibliometric review analyses 324 publications from Web-of-Science indexed journals to explore current trends in the on-demand online video streaming service’s literature. The review also displays the thematic map of keywords to identify gaps. The trend analysis confirmed an exponential growth in publications with a 91.58% explanation. The findings suggest (1) common terminologies for online streaming video terms, (2) more inter and intra-country author collaborations, and (3) An IPO (Inputs – Process – Outcomes) framework.

Application of UAVs and Image Processing for Riverbank Inspection

Many rivers are polluted by trash and garbage that can affect the environment. Riverbank inspection usually relies on workers of the environmental protection office, but sometimes the places are unreachable. This study applies unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to perform the inspection task, which can significantly relieve labor work. Two UAVs are used to cover a wide area of riverside and capture riverbank images. The images from different UAVs are stitched using the scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm. Static and dynamic image stitching are tested. Different you only look once (YOLO) algorithms are applied to identify riverbank garbage. Modified YOLO algorithms improve the accuracy of riverine waste identification, while the SIFT algorithm stitches the images obtained from the UAV cameras. Then, the stitching results and garbage data are sent to a video streaming server, allowing government officials to check waste information from the real-time multi-camera stitching images. The UAVs utilize 4G communication to transmit the video stream to the server. The transmission distance is long enough for this study, and the reliability is excellent in the test fields that are covered by the 4G communication network. In the automatic reconnection mechanism, we set the timeout to 1.8 s. The UAVs will automatically reconnect to the video streaming server if the disconnection time exceeds the timeout. Based on the energy provided by the onboard battery, the UAV can be operated for 20 min in a mission. The UAV inspection distance along a preplanned path is about 1 km at a speed of 1 m/s. The proposed UAV system can replace inspection labor, successfully identify riverside garbage, and transmit the related information and location on the map to the ground control center in real time.

CD-LwTE: Cost- and Delay-Aware Light-Weight Transcoding at the Edge

The edge computing paradigm brings cloud capabilities close to the clients. Leveraging the edge’s capabilities can improve video streaming services by employing the storage capacity and processing power at the edge for caching and transcoding tasks, respectively, resulting in video streaming services with higher quality and lower latency. In this paper, we propose, a Cost-and Delay-aware Light-weight Transcoding approach at the Edge, in the context of HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS). The encoding of a video segment requires computationally intensive search processes. The main idea of is to store the optimal search results as metadata for each bitrate of video segments and reuse it at the edge servers to reduce the required time and computational resources for transcoding. Aiming at minimizing the cost and delay of Video-on-Demand (VoD) services, we formulate the problem of selecting an optimal policy for serving segment requests at the edge server, including (i) storing at the edge server, (ii) transcoding from a higher bitrate at the edge server, and (iii) fetching from the origin or a CDN server, as a Binary Linear Programming (BLP) model. As a result, stores the popular video segments at the edge and serves the unpopular ones by transcoding using metadata or fetching from the origin/CDN server. In this way, in addition to the significant reduction in bandwidth and storage costs, the transcoding time of a requested segment is remarkably decreased by utilizing its corresponding metadata. Moreover, we prove the proposed BLP model is an NP-hard problem and propose two heuristic algorithms to mitigate the time complexity of . We investigate the performance of in comprehensive scenarios with various video contents, encoding software, encoding settings, and available resources at the edge. The experimental results show that our approach (i) reduces the transcoding time by up to 97%, (ii) decreases the streaming cost, including storage, computation, and bandwidth costs, by up to 75%, and (iii) reduces delay by up to 48% compared to approaches.

A Greener Experience: Trade-Offs between QoE and CO2 Emissions in Today's and 6G Networks

While users of Internet multimedia services demand high Quality of Experience (QoE), meeting these demands results in energy consumption along the service delivery path, from the end user's device, through the network to the service infrastructure (e.g., in a cloud). This energy consumption typically implies carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which are a primary driver of climate change. One contribution of this article is to quantify and illustrate the trade-off between the QoE of video streaming services and CO2 emissions. Kleinrock's power metric from queuing theory is applied to find operational points and recommended video bitrates of the QoE-sustainability tradeoff. Furthermore, considering that networks and service delivery infrastructures are still in the process of transitioning towards "green energy" consumption, we investigate the impact of "green users" accepting certain quality degradations so as to reduce CO2 emissions. Our discussions focus on two aspects: Is it more relevant to focus on green user behavior or green networking technology today and in the future in year 2030? What are the implications of solution approaches on the networking and communications technology?

A cultural levy or a digital streaming service tax: New film industry levies conflicting with the EU member states’s bilateral tax treaty obligations and OECD digital tax agreements?

This note highlights the obstacles that the film levy, as a form of financial contributions on video on demand (VoD) service providers under Article 13(2) of the 2018 EU Audiovisual Media Service Directive, may face in a cross-border context from an international tax perspective. In particular, the first obstacle is that the double tax treaties of member states exclude the possibility to levy income taxes on a foreign VoD service provider if it has no fixed and permanent presence, for example, an office, in the country. Second, the new global tax agreement on addressing the tax challenges of digitalization demands its parties (137 countries) to remove all unilateral domestic taxes on all digital services and all companies.

Improvement of Presence in Live Music Videos and Alleviation of Discomfort of Viewers by Zooming Operation

People can enjoy watching live performances without visiting live venues thanks to the development of live music streaming services on the Internet. However, such live music videos, especially those recorded by amateur band members, lack a sense of presence. Therefore, in the previous study, the authors proposed a method to improve the sense of presence in live music videos by performing zooming on the video frames. It achieved enhancing the sense of presence. However, it also increased the discomfort of the viewers. This is because the zooming was performed not on a music performer but in the center of the screen, resulting in an unnatural experience for the viewer. Therefore, in this paper, a new zooming method, which effectively emphasizes the music performer with intense movement, is proposed, introducing the concept of the “Main Spot”. The evaluation results through an experiment verified that the proposed method improved the sense of presence in live music videos and alleviated the discomfort of the viewers.

“Transformation or not?” the effect of broadcasters' role orientation transformation on their direct income

PurposeIn the actual livestreaming background, to obtain more income, some broadcasters will transform their original single role orientation into mixed one. This research study aims to conduct an empirical study on the influence of the broadcasters' role orientation transformation on the viewers' tipping behavior.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collect data from Kuai, a leading online live streaming service provider in China. The dataset includes 175,701 live streaming data from 971 broadcasters in 7 months. To avoid unobservable factors, the authors adopt two difference-in-differences (DID) models to estimate the effect of two kinds of broadcaster's role orientation transformation on the broadcaster’s direct income separately. And the authors use the Heckman-type correction to solve broadcasters’ self-selected problem.FindingsThe authors evaluated that there is a U-shape relationship between the broadcasters' role orientation transformation and their direct income. The broadcasters' direct income experienced a sharp decline for a short period of time after transformation and followed by a rise after a period of adaptation. And for broadcasters with different genders and amounts of fans, the influence degree of role orientation transformation is various.Originality/valueThis paper provides a fresh usage of the regulatory engagement theory in the brand new information communication technology. And it also explores the boundary effect of the participating object's self-factors in the regulatory engagement theory. Besides, this paper expands the research of livestreaming into natural background. Such results also provide operable suggestions for the livestream platform, the broadcaster himself and the enterprises who want to employ some broadcasters to recommend their products.

Disrupting Brazilian television: Streaming and the decline of Globo's hegemony in video cultures

The Brazilian audiovisual landscape has been monopolized by the Grupo Globo conglomerate and its commercial broadcast network, TV Globo, which established a common video experience centered on the telenovela. Although cable and the internet sowed seeds of discontent in the 2000s, it was only with the advent of video streaming services in the 2010s that Brazil's video landscape was transformed. This led to the multiplication of video cultures and greater access to transnational audiovisual flows. This article frames streaming as a competitive force that has compelled Grupo Globo to diversify its storytelling and representation, highlighting its potential to disrupt Brazil's video cultures and exposing the limits of cultural proximity. It examines how streaming services affect Brazilian video cultures and how preexisting conditions in Brazil provide opportunities and limitations to underline streaming's disruptive potential for Brazil's video cultures and Globo's declining hegemony and ability to adapt to the digital era.

Not just Netflix: Interventions of Korea's domestic streamers

Korean video culture has changed from a broadcast-focused culture into a diversified experience that includes a variety of videos from both domestic and global streaming services. Contrary to the mainstream view that Netflix is at the centre of all changes, this study positions the domestic streamers’ original content as not necessarily a direct response to Netflix but indicative of the many changes that were already occurring in the local media landscape. Their content has adapted to fit viewers’ changing lifestyles and desire for stories not seen on television. Efficient everyday storytelling fits into viewers’ busy commuter lifestyles and features mundane topics that they can easily identify with. Also, the domestic streamers cater to small, underserved audiences with regard to specific topics avoided by traditional media. Thus, the original content of domestic streamers indicates that they offer different value propositions than formulaic romance stories by broadcasters and the high-end, large-scale original dramas of subscription video on demand (SVOD).

Everybody swears on Only Murders in the Building: The interpersonal functions of scripted television swearing

Swearing fulfils a range of interpersonal pragmatic functions and also acts as a distinguishing feature of speakers and contexts. In broadcast media, swearing has traditionally been censored or at least limited in its deployment; although when used, it serves characterization, interactional, and narrative functions. In this article, we consider the Disney+ television series Only Murders in the Building (OMITB, 2021--), in which swearing is not subject to standard media constraints, due to its provision on a streaming service. Freed from such constraints, OMITB is distinctive in its unusually high frequency and dispersion of swearing across characters and contexts. Compared with both real-life and media-based analyses of language use, the swearing in OMITB reflects neither real-life nor standard broadcast patterns. In this paper, we investigate how swearing is used by the characters, and what it is ‘doing’ in the series. In particular, we highlight the role of swearing in affiliation and relationship-building, both between characters in the story world, and between the series and its viewers. Our analysis contributes to understanding the pragmatic functions of media swearing.

Smoking in Popular Streaming Shows and Youth Protection in Germany.

Aim was to investigate the amount of smoking in popular streaming series in Germany with a focus on the comparison between series recommended for adults versus youth.The sample was drawn from the 35 highest user-rated streaming series, that released 1794 new episodes between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2020. One-third of the episodes (N = 598) were randomly selected and analyzed for smoking content. The age ratings of these episodes ranged from 6 to 18 years, with categories of "6", "12", "16" and "18" years.Ten of the 35 shows (28.6%) were completely smoke-free, 25 shows (71.4%) had at least one episode with smoking. Of all analyzed episodes, 25.1% contained smoking (range = 1 to 36 smoking scenes; median = 4). There was a statistically significant association between episode age rating and the presence of smoking (χ2[3] = 9.1; p = 0.028; Spearman's rho = 0.11): The proportion of episodes with smoking was 0% for episodes with age ratings below 12 years, 20.4% for age ratings "12", 28.3% for age ratings "16", and 32.4% for age ratings "18". This association differed between streaming services, but all services had smoking in episodes rated for youth.Smoking is common in popular streaming series. None of the streaming services meet the recommendations of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to reliably restrict young people's access to media content that depicts smoking.

The Effect of Brand Image and Price Perception on Netflix Video on Demand Subscription Decision

Along with technological advances, it has led to a shift in lifestyle, one of which is in the way of watching movies, which in the past could only be enjoyed through theaters, TV, and DVDs / VCDs, now it can also be enjoyed through streaming video service platforms, one of which is the Netflix application. This study’s goal was to ascertain how brand impression and pricing perception affected consumers’ decisions to subscribe to Netflix video on demand.. This research is quantitative in nature with primary data obtained from distributing questionnaires. The research sample used a convenience sampling technique of 100 respondents who are Netflix customers and live in Surabaya. Data analysis for this research is supported by SmartPLS 4.0. The findings of this study show that price perceptions and brand perceptions both significantly affect subscription decisions for Netflix video on demand in Surabaya.

Attention, ambivalence and algorithms: Publishers in the era of ubiquitous connectivity and expanding platforms

This article scrutinizes how digitalization influences fiction and non-fiction literature publishers in the era of ubiquitous digital connection. The analysis states how a lack of attention is triggering a sense of urgency for the future of literary reading. Further, the digital transition entails an overarching ambivalence. Key stakeholders in literary publishing are experiencing how media on platform-based streaming services is competing with traditional reading. They perceive a battle for time and question the future of reading. From the perspectives of Bourdieu’s theory, the article reveals how penetrating connectivity is leading to a change in the professional habitus. Continuous busyness and increased professional presence are triggering ambivalence between work-related duties and personal well-being. Moreover, the publishing stakeholders reveal an ambivalence in voicing future expectations. While worried about the future of reading, the professional habitus leans on a promising future for the industry.

Feature Selection based Music Selection using Artificial Intelligence

Music recommendation systems have become increasingly popular in recent years thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). Streaming services have become increasingly popular in recent years thanks to affordable internet and media streaming services. Because the user base of music streaming services is ever-growing and the market in streaming services is also competitive, it is critical to provide listeners with recommendations to increase user base retention. Music recommendation systems have come a long way in the last decade, but there are still several issues to be addressed. Pure sound-based recommendations may have been a good option to examine. It would have been advantageous to explore pure sound-based recommendations since they would have been more accurate. The current systems available to consumers also have significant advantages, such as collaborative filtering of listeners, based on location, artists' preferred genres, etc., and recommending songs based on the results. Collaborative filtering does produce great results. This sound-based approach might achieve greater results when combined with these current methods.

Adaptive Video Streaming With Automatic Quality-of-Experience Optimization

Video streaming has grown tremendously in recent years and it is now one of the main applications on the Internet. Due to the networks' inherent bandwidth fluctuations, various rate-adaptive streaming algorithms have been developed to compensate for such fluctuations to improve Quality-of-Experience (QoE). However, in practice, the preference for QoE typically differs significantly across different viewers and there is no systematic way so far to comprehensively incorporate different sets of conflicting QoE objectives into the algorithm design. Thus, it is not surprising that the QoE performance achieved by the existing algorithms is in fact far from optimal. This work aims at attacking the heart of the problem by developing a novel framework called Post Streaming Quality Analysis (PSQA) that can maximize the QoE under any preference through automatically tuning the adaptation logic of the streaming algorithms. Evaluation results show that the QoE achieved by PSQA is substantially better than the existing approaches and in some scenarios even close to optimal. Moreover, PSQA can be readily implemented into real streaming platforms, offering a practical and reliable solution for high-performance streaming services.

Sweet little lies: Deceptive statistics in the album charts

Abstract Think Spotify’s album charts are a straightforward reflection of listening habits? Think again. Chris Dalla Riva explains how music streaming services rank albums – and how record companies can game the system