DASH 2016: Where are we and What's Next

MPEG-DASH (Motion Picture Experts Group-Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)) has promise as a multi bit rate format supporting a wide range of features including live, on demand, Digital Rights Management (DRM), captions and more that would supersede existing standards such as Smooth Streaming, HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). It now has wide ranging support from major software and device manufacturers with the notable exception being Apple. While it is now possible to have DASH play on just about any device the implementation to date has not been consistent. This is partially due to MPEG-DASH the standard having been developed by many parties with specific existing requirements. One of the issues is that as a specification that has many variations, every player developer is free to support the parts of the specification that they require and as a result what works for one player doesn't work on another. One of the particularly large issues that is emerging in this area is the adoption of DRM in the browser and what is looking to be a very fragmented adoption of Media Source Extensions, Encrypted Media Extensions and Content Decryption Modules. This paper covers an overview on where we are at in regard to existing variations on the DASH standard, what is available in the content generation tool chain, what players we have supporting what elements of the standard and what is developing in the coming year in regard to DRM.