6 ms·

From my understanding, the current challenge with ultra-low-latency is scale. Will it scale to 100, 1000, 100,000, concurrent users? At the moment, everyone in

From my understanding, the current challenge with ultra-low-latency is scale. Will it scale to 100, 1000, 100,000, concurrent users? At the moment, everyone in the industry is working to figure out how to provide a viewer experience that is similar, or better than the current expectations of live streaming. Live streaming is hard. Ultra-low-latency is just as hard. However, I'm still not sure why we need ultra-low-latency. Will it improve the live experience? Maybe. Aside from live-action sports or significant events, do we as content consumers really need ultra-low-latency?

Jhsto 8y ago
> However, I'm still not sure why we need ultra-low-latency. Simply for passive viewing probably not. For live streaming in which the viewer is also using actuators, e.g., gamepads, wheel, etc., for controlling the stream capture device, then yes.
- alias_neo 8y ago
  You've just done a stellar job of making "gaming" sound like a tedious day job. I'm impressed.
  - Jhsto 8y ago
    Yeah I tried too fancy words. What I meant to say that there might be applications beyond gaming, like driving a remote car, vacuum cleaner, or who knows what.
    - alias_neo 8y ago
      Your choice of words were perfect, I just found it humorous, as a gamer, it was the first thing that came to mind!
donalhunt 8y ago
industries serving the sports industry / creating products related to sports will be very interested... not your average consumer though...
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I'm interested in low latency WebRTC datachannel. Does this apply to that as well?
pedrocr 8y ago
How low is ultra-low-latency that it's relevant for sports? Does anyone really care if their broadcast is 30 seconds delayed from live? I subscribe to both Formula 1 and MotoGP online streaming services and couldn't care less if the broadcasts were even multiple minutes delayed. They may very well be already and I wouldn't know. As far as I can tell they both just use standard CDNs delivering DASH or similar (basically just short video files played in sequence). That seems more than enough for sports. Multiple minutes may result in getting real time information from elsewhere (e.g., Twitter, local radio) but anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds seems fine.
- toast0 8y ago
  If your friends are watching the same events in other places; you basically need your video to be less delayed than your friends' viewing plus the latency of them texting you (friend observes something, types something, sends, then whatever network and push delay on the way to you). If you're not watching with someone else, it doesn't make that much difference; but 30 seconds is plenty for someone to cheer for a goal and the notification to distract you from seeing it.
  - pedrocr 8y ago
    That's already an issue with radio vs TV which is where I'm getting the ~10 to 30 second value. Normal cable TV already has a bunch of delay and someone listening on the radio is often 15+ seconds ahead of you. This can be disruptive. If that person is at a bar or other gathering they will disrupt the viewing because they will cheer (or not cheer) well ahead of the event so the suspense is gone. I've seen this happen. So given that what you are competing against (cable TV) already has a significant delay I doubt a normal web stream can't reach the same or better latency with just standard HTTP download of video files.
- daniel-cussen 8y ago
  Yes. 30 seconds is too much. In Santiago, during national soccer matches everyone would watch, goals would reach us through the sound of neighbors rejoicing sooner than they would from actual television coverage because the satellite dish had a latency of say 3 seconds over cable.
harlanji 8y ago
I did coding livestreams and spoke with the audience. The lower latency the better. Others have mentioned control of things, similar idea. HLS over Cloudflare surprisingly beat YouTube and matched Twitch in my side-by-side tests—I built an Open Source self-hosted live streaming system. Currently live sports have about 40-85 seconds of latency and BBC is shooting for 1.5 for the next olympics with ip multicast techniques [1]. 1. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/england-vs-croatia-live-stream-bbc-iplayer-itv http://www.wired.co.uk/article/england-vs-croatia-live-strea...
Waterluvian 8y ago
Ultra low latency absolutely improves the streaming experience for community streams like on Twitch. When everyone is +-20 seconds of each other the chat doesn't line up well.
- AceJohnny2 8y ago
  Implying there's value to Twitch chat?
  - thrax 8y ago
    Yeah. Like millions if not billions of dollars.
    - physcab 8y ago
      As a former Twitch employee, I lol’d at this.
      - gdsdfe 8y ago
        Why? I am genuinely curious
        zaroth 8y ago
        Might be hard for physcab to reply from their yacht, I guess we'll find out eventually though.
        cavisne 8y ago
        Probably because twitch chat is the absolute darkest place on the internet, at least of you are a mod.
        tinus_hn 8y ago
        There’s always YouTube comments.
      - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
harshitaneja 8y ago
Google Stadia(and other online game streaming) and other systems where actuators would be used remotely like drone control systems and others would greatly benefit from ultra low latency.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
fabioyy 8y ago
hqtrivia

Jhsto 8y ago

> However, I'm still not sure why we need ultra-low-latency. Simply for passive viewing probably not. For live streaming in which the viewer is also using actuators, e.g., gamepads, wheel, etc., for controlling the stream capture device, then yes.

alias_neo 8y ago
You've just done a stellar job of making "gaming" sound like a tedious day job. I'm impressed.
- Jhsto 8y ago
  Yeah I tried too fancy words. What I meant to say that there might be applications beyond gaming, like driving a remote car, vacuum cleaner, or who knows what.
  - alias_neo 8y ago
    Your choice of words were perfect, I just found it humorous, as a gamer, it was the first thing that came to mind!

donalhunt 8y ago

industries serving the sports industry / creating products related to sports will be very interested... not your average consumer though...

stcredzero 8y ago
I'm interested in low latency WebRTC datachannel. Does this apply to that as well?

pedrocr 8y ago

How low is ultra-low-latency that it's relevant for sports? Does anyone really care if their broadcast is 30 seconds delayed from live? I subscribe to both Formula 1 and MotoGP online streaming services and couldn't care less if the broadcasts were even multiple minutes delayed. They may very well be already and I wouldn't know. As far as I can tell they both just use standard CDNs delivering DASH or similar (basically just short video files played in sequence). That seems more than enough for sports. Multiple minutes may result in getting real time information from elsewhere (e.g., Twitter, local radio) but anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds seems fine.

toast0 8y ago
If your friends are watching the same events in other places; you basically need your video to be less delayed than your friends' viewing plus the latency of them texting you (friend observes something, types something, sends, then whatever network and push delay on the way to you). If you're not watching with someone else, it doesn't make that much difference; but 30 seconds is plenty for someone to cheer for a goal and the notification to distract you from seeing it.
- pedrocr 8y ago
  That's already an issue with radio vs TV which is where I'm getting the ~10 to 30 second value. Normal cable TV already has a bunch of delay and someone listening on the radio is often 15+ seconds ahead of you. This can be disruptive. If that person is at a bar or other gathering they will disrupt the viewing because they will cheer (or not cheer) well ahead of the event so the suspense is gone. I've seen this happen. So given that what you are competing against (cable TV) already has a significant delay I doubt a normal web stream can't reach the same or better latency with just standard HTTP download of video files.
daniel-cussen 8y ago
Yes. 30 seconds is too much. In Santiago, during national soccer matches everyone would watch, goals would reach us through the sound of neighbors rejoicing sooner than they would from actual television coverage because the satellite dish had a latency of say 3 seconds over cable.

harlanji 8y ago

I did coding livestreams and spoke with the audience. The lower latency the better. Others have mentioned control of things, similar idea. HLS over Cloudflare surprisingly beat YouTube and matched Twitch in my side-by-side tests—I built an Open Source self-hosted live streaming system. Currently live sports have about 40-85 seconds of latency and BBC is shooting for 1.5 for the next olympics with ip multicast techniques [1]. 1. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/england-vs-croatia-live-stream-bbc-iplayer-itv http://www.wired.co.uk/article/england-vs-croatia-live-strea...

Waterluvian 8y ago

Ultra low latency absolutely improves the streaming experience for community streams like on Twitch. When everyone is +-20 seconds of each other the chat doesn't line up well.

AceJohnny2 8y ago
Implying there's value to Twitch chat?
- thrax 8y ago
  Yeah. Like millions if not billions of dollars.
  - physcab 8y ago
    As a former Twitch employee, I lol’d at this.
    - gdsdfe 8y ago
      Why? I am genuinely curious
      - zaroth 8y ago
        Might be hard for physcab to reply from their yacht, I guess we'll find out eventually though.
      - cavisne 8y ago
        Probably because twitch chat is the absolute darkest place on the internet, at least of you are a mod.
        tinus_hn 8y ago
        There’s always YouTube comments.
    - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

harshitaneja 8y ago

Google Stadia(and other online game streaming) and other systems where actuators would be used remotely like drone control systems and others would greatly benefit from ultra low latency.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

fabioyy 8y ago

hqtrivia