Introducing Eluvio - Video on Blockchain

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Eluvio (https://eluv.io, https://github.com/eluv-io) is the creator and developer of the Content Fabric (Eluvio: The Content Blockchain), a full-featured decentralized media platform. It provides all the functions necessary to build consumer-scale video and media-rich applications in one software stack, replacing conventional media transcoding pipelines and storage (read AWS …), CDNs, DRM services and content management systems.

The Content Fabric is made of content nodes, which are all the same, and each content node provides the full content API and functionality. Like IPFS and other distributed-hash storage systems, the content fabric is content-addressed, and storage is spread across nodes. The underlying ‘content networking’ is designed specifically for real-time content retrieval in a decentralized system where nodes may come in and out.

To use the Content Fabric you create a ‘tenant’ on-chain, and then create content objects which contain playable media (video, audio, 3D models, etc.) as well as all the media and metadata associated with the primary content (posters, thumbnails, image galleries, title, synopsis, cast, etc). Content objects are versioned and all version hashes are committed on chain. Tenants are charged on-chain via transaction fees for the basic content operations (such as creating a new content object or a new content version) and periodically on a billing cycle for all content utility (consumer playout and use of the media APIs). Nodes are paid based on the utility they provide.

Once the source media is ingested into content objects, it can be played globally using standard protocols (DASH, HLS) and standard DRM (Widevine, Fairplay, etc.). Media outputs are created just-in-time which allows for personalized output (including localized content, personalized ads, etc).

The first implementation of the content fabric protocol was done on top of an EVM-compatible blockchain. We started working on a Substrate implementation a few years ago and we are planning to release the first Substrate-based testnet in the Fall of 2023 and then a Kusama parachain early 2024.

Many prestigious web3 media projects are hosted on the content fabric, including Warner Brother’s Lord of the Rings, Superman and The Flash (https://web3.wb.com), WWE (https://www.wwemoonsault.com/), Dolly Parton’s “Dollyverse” (https://welcometodollyverse.com/) as well as regular video applications, consumer or business, from independent creators to major studios (MGM, Sony, …).

Our main office is in Berkeley, CA and our day to day life involves lots of engineering, with the occasional glamorous project when we get to cross paths with artists and creators.

Some links:
White paper: https://eluv.io/EluvioContentFabricProtocolWhitepaper.pdf
Content Fabric docs: https://hub.doc.eluv.io
Tech overview: https://eluv.io/content-fabric/technology

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Reading your white paper, I understand you currently operate using a federation of node with a fork of Ethereum that you plan to move to substrate base chain.

  1. What fork of Ethereum do you node run ?
  2. What decentralized storage do you use ?
  3. Why the choice of blockchain ? Why needing a decentralized system for this? You could achieve a lot of what the white paper present using cheaper technology ?
  4. The token economics seems very confusing to me.

Each Content Owner as a Tenant on the Fabric has the option to offer content services in ELVs or a tenant specific token to assign value to User interaction with their Content via these utility services. This Tenant specific token type is implemented as an ERC-20 token and can be tied to the ELV (or not).

so each tenant can mint their own ECR20 token ? How the ELV token emission managed ?

A Node that is primarily serving streaming content to end user audiences may for example perform 0.01 units of transcoding, 0.1 units of egress bandwidth, and 0.005 units of storage, scaled to reflect the actual cost of providing these services. Current values are grounded in real world costs based on production use over the past three years. The rate of exchange of utility units to ELV tokens is currently set by the permissioned network’s governance (largely Eluvio, Inc.) but as the public network opens with the public ELV, the rate will be independently set by the open market ELV price.

=> What is the token emission ? What are those units ?

If I understand well the overall idea is to “encapsulate” content metadata into a smart contract and token gated access to content. I am still very unclear about how you store all those data I can’t imagine the incredible volume of data required to store the media and the chain associated.

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could you pls explain your approach with the Warner Brother’s ‘Web3 movie’ partnership?

Is there an exclusive windowing of the film via the blockchain elements?

Or is this just a licensing deal as part of the marketing for the film?

Did you guys fund some of this or is this all via the distributor?

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Have these guys been on this forum recently? Would love to know more.