MSL4 to MSL5: Key Benefits and Rationale
Live streaming requires purpose-built capabilities for delivering unmatched reliability, scale, and video quality at scale. As new video formats and monetization solutions are introduced, businesses that can quickly take advantage of these solutions have a higher chance of success. MSL5 accelerates your ability to optimize the viewing experience for your customers, maximize advertising revenue, and grow your business. Akamai selected Harmonic as the technology provider best able to provide these capabilities for MSL5.
Please note that some of features listed in the table below will not be available until MSL5 reaches General Availability.
| MSL4 | MSL5 | |
|---|---|---|
| First-Mile Reports | ✓ | ✓ |
| Live Playlist Duration (no Archive option) | Max. 30 minutes | Max. 12 hours |
| Self-Healing Network | ✓ | ✓ |
| End-to-end Transport Layer Security (TLS) support | ✓ | ✓ |
| DVR and Advanced Archive | ✓ | ✓ |
| Max. Advanced Archive duration | 31 days | 62 days |
| HSL/DASH/CMAF/LL-DASH Support | ✓ | ✓ |
| Advanced Event creation & management (Live clipping) | Alpha | ✓ |
| Stream Provisioning time | ~ 3 hours | ~ 5 seconds |
| Configurable Playlist Duration | ✓ | |
| LL-HLS support | ||
| Sub-segment accuracy clipping (HLS) | ✓ | |
| Fix ingest region selection | ✓ | |
| Export ingest logs | ||
| Event Monitoring | ✓ | |
| Origin capacity reservation | ||
| Frame-accurate clipping (with/ file transcoding engine) | ||
| Manifest filtering | ||
| nPVR/cDVR | ||
| Dynamic Ad Insertion: full screen & in-stream formats | ✓ |
How does MSL5 improve on MSL4?
MSL5 provides the following improvements to MSL4:
- Performance
- Faster subscriber onboarding, greater scalability
- Near real-time stream provisioning (5 seconds)
- Sliding Playlist Duration support
- End-to-end 5-6 seconds low latency DASH and HLS
- User Experience
- More intuitive user interfaces with powerful metrics displays and system status overview
- Event Monitoring Support
- Logs management: Access to ingest logs and ability to export logs to third-party observability providers
- Administration
- Simple event creation and management.
MSL5 is equipped for seamless integration with Harmonic's cutting-edge VOS360 solutions, catering to features related to Transcoding and Content Monetization. This includes features such as Over-The-Top (OTT) transcoding and Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI), ensuring a high-quality streaming experience and optimized monetization opportunities.
Please contact your Akamai account representative for more information.
Your feedback is highly valued and significantly influences our product roadmap. Stay tuned for official announcements and release notes with detailed information on new features and enhancements.
Updated 3 days ago