Type Private Headquarters New York, USA | Founded 2013 | |
 | ||
Industry Video, Streaming, Media, Internet Genre Video on demand, Live Streaming, Peer-to-peer Founders Pierre-Louis Théron (CEO)
Nikolay Rodionov (COO)
Axel Delmas (CTO) | ||
Streamroot is a French startup with its core products and services based around hybrid P2P/HTTP CDN video streaming solutions for VOD and live Streaming. The proprietary technology used by Streamroot helps broadcasters reduce commonly faced issues such as buffering, server outages, and extremely high CDN costs due to high traffic or viewers streaming at high bitrates. This is done by creating a hybrid ‘mesh’ network, wherein different segments of a video can be intelligently sourced from either the CDN network or from other viewers watching the same video, creating an optimized balance of load distribution. This increases quality of service and lowers costs for the video provider.
Contents
- History
- Product offerings
- Peer Accelerated Delivery
- Hybrid CDN
- HTML5 Expertise
- Use cases
- Technology
- Compatibility
- On Desktop
- On Mobile
- Players
- Partners and ecosystem
- Awards
- References
Streamroot’s technology is based on a JavaScript library integrated with various online video players. It is totally transparent for the end-user since no-plugin installation is required. It complies with and/or uses HTML5, JavaScript, Media Source Extensions, and WebRTC as its technological base.
The company was founded in 2013 in France, and today has its headquarters in New York, USA and an office in Paris, France. It has till date raised $2.5M in a seed round in December 2015. Eurosport and Dailymotion are notable names among Streamroot’ clients.
History
Streamroot was founded in France in 2013 by three engineers from École Centrale Paris, and was formally launched in early 2014. Now headquartered in New York, USA, Streamroot has had an office in Paris since its inception.
On December 2, 2015, Streamroot raised $2.5 million in its seed funding round. Investors included the venture capital firm Partech Ventures, the Cherrystone Angel Group, the French public investment bank BPI, and famous investors such as French entrepreneur Jean David Blanc, founder of AlloCiné, and Jean-Baptiste Kempf, founder of VLC.
In January 2016, Streamroot announced the acquisition of BemTV, an open-source project of a peer-to-peer video streaming solution.
StreamRoot won 1st place at the 3rd annual Cisco Innovation Grand Challenge at Web Summit 2016.
Product offerings
Streamroot markets several products around its core technology, which address media and entertainment companies broadcasting over the public internet, enterprise streaming within the corporate network, and solutions for internet service providers. It recently advertised a flat-fee pricing model that, according to the company, presents a shift from traditional pricing of online video delivery services.
Peer-Accelerated Delivery
Peer-to-peer, or “peer-accelerated” delivery, is Streamroot’s core technology and main product. This delivery solution comes as a complement to traditional content delivery network (CDN) solutions.
To date, online video streaming works on a unicast architecture, wherein a single source (a CDN providing a network of servers) supplies content for a single unique stream. A peer-to-peer (P2P) approach eliminates this single source and allows simultaneous users watching the same content to share the load. So instead of each viewer pulling the content off of the CDN, users are able to provide video segments to others and vice-versa. According to Streamroot, this immensely reduces the load from the CDN (up to 90%), thereby reducing cost and increasing quality of service.
Hybrid CDN
Streamroot also offers a bundled solution combining its own peer-to-peer delivery technology with full-service CDN delivery through a network of partner CDNs.
HTML5 Expertise
In addition to its core product offering, Streamroot advises companies seeking to make the transition from a Flash to an HTML5 video workflow. This service is offered as on-site consulting missions which include workshops and training for engineering teams.
Use cases
Streamroot markets its solution as adapted to both video-on demand and live streaming events broadcast over the public internet. It also caters to enterprise streaming with a solution specific to private corporate networks.
Technology
The technology relies on open industry standards such as WebRTC, Media Source Extensions, and HTML5. These standards are widely prevalent and are used by major browsers, video players, and a large majority of stakeholders in the online video ecosystem, making Streamroot’s integration into existing video workflows straightforward.
WebRTC: The WebRTC API allows for secure, real-time communications directly between browsers without the use of a plugin or extension. It is being standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Media Source Extensions: Media Source Extensions is an extension of the HTML5 standard that allows JavaScript to generate media streams for playback. Enabling adaptive bitrate streaming and a number of use cases, MSE has been a catalyst in propelling HTML5 to the forefront of video streaming technologies in the past few years.
Compatibility
Streamroot is DRM, packaging, and CDN agnostic. It is available on desktop and mobile and is compatible with HTTP adaptive streaming formats HLS, MPEG-DASH and Smooth Streaming. The company does not yet offer support for RTMP or progressive download.
On Desktop
In April 2016, Apple announced that support for WebRTC is on its roadmap. And in the case that Streamroot is not compatible with a browser or device, a full CDN fallback is provided.
On Mobile
Streamroot can be integrated into app via SDK. Streamroot iOS and Android SDKs are currently in beta. Streamroot also works on Chrome on Android.
Players
Streamroot provides plug-and-play integrations into a variety of open-source and commercial video players. It also offers an API for integration into custom video players.
Partners and ecosystem
In order to make integration of its technology easy and effective, Streamroot has partnered with major players in the video streaming ecosystem. Its solution is compatible with the most popular encoding, packaging, CDN, HTML5 player, analytics and monetization solutions. Among Streamroot's strategic partners, notable names include:
Awards
Streamroot has received significant recognition, including coverage in media and awards such as: