4 ms·

As someone unfamiliar with video broadcasting latencies, how does this compare to alternatives? Also, what are the hardware specs used to achieve the 120ms mea

As someone unfamiliar with video broadcasting latencies, how does this compare to alternatives? Also, what are the hardware specs used to achieve the 120ms measurement?

Sean-Der 2y ago
The alternative today is ~few seconds. This is from my T420 Thinkpad on Linux. The only significant input I can think is my RTT to the server. ``` Reply from 165.227.221.230: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=49 Reply from 165.227.221.230: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=49 ```
- jjbinx007 2y ago
  Vdo.ninja is also webrtc and low latency but I'm not sure of exact numbers.
  - Sean-Der 2y ago
    vdo.ninja is a fantastic project, can’t recommend it enough. It made the dream of ‘co-streaming’ available to home users and not just those with hardware/pro setups.
- Terretta 2y ago
  Some firms were broadcasting live feeds with sub-second (~200ms) latencies to broad audiences not long after the dot com bust. There've always been (a majority of) broadcasters that had seconds to half minute (!) delays. Very few understood, or even today understand, how to tune every single touchpoint (including what's safe to do, and what one must not do.) Having an ultra low latency “video toaster” / broadcast mixer is a critical piece for sure. For us the motivations to work on this started with "backstage feeds" synced with live TV that needed to look simultaneous to the home cable viewer (think World Wrestling Entertainment) as well as Wall Street calls that needed to be (perceptually) in sync with dial-ins. And of course, Times Square NYE ball drops! In reality, almost nothing matters that way. For vast majority of content, the viewer is consuming only your stream, without some more real time channel at the same time. In most cases, the viewer cares far more about visual quality than the delay.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Cable has a large latency too in the seconds range compared to OTA broadcasts. Even live news has large a large latency with remote interviews. Some of them are so bad it's uncomfortable watching the anchor have the patience to wait for a response before stepping on the remote feed.
  - mannyv 2y ago
    The advent of live betting means that they have to ensure that live viewers don't have too much of an edge vs stream viewers.
  - kierank 2y ago
    Backstage feeds go in uncompressed via HD-SDI and have a latency of lines (microseconds to single digit milliseconds). Totally different ballgame.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    If I'm watching the world cup final penalty shootout and I hear my neighbours cheering before I'm watching the player running up that basically breaks the entire game. Some streaming services are 30 seconds plus behind OTA, at that level twitter and half a dozen news apps have pushed the fact the goal went in while the ball is still in the other half.
  - Sean-Der 2y ago
    It drives me crazy that we have had the technical ability to do these things, but just not the demand. I believe it is a chicken/egg problem. It is one of those things that you don't get until you try it yourself. I hope if more broadcasters (technical and non-technical) realize what is possible they will ask for it more! > For vast majority of content, the viewer is consuming only your stream Agree! I think it is that way because you can't have intimate/interactive streams yet. When it becomes possible I hope to see more streaming to smaller/more connected audiences.
    - throwup238 2y ago
      I don't think it's a chicken and egg problem, it's an ease of use problem on the side of the provider. An HLS stream is so simple to set up with passable performance that few other protocols can compete.

As someone unfamiliar with video broadcasting latencies, how does this compare to alternatives? Also, what are the hardware specs used to achieve the 120ms measurement?

Sean-Der 2y ago

The alternative today is ~few seconds. This is from my T420 Thinkpad on Linux. The only significant input I can think is my RTT to the server. ``` Reply from 165.227.221.230: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=49 Reply from 165.227.221.230: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=49 ```

jjbinx007 2y ago
Vdo.ninja is also webrtc and low latency but I'm not sure of exact numbers.
- Sean-Der 2y ago
  vdo.ninja is a fantastic project, can’t recommend it enough. It made the dream of ‘co-streaming’ available to home users and not just those with hardware/pro setups.
Terretta 2y ago
Some firms were broadcasting live feeds with sub-second (~200ms) latencies to broad audiences not long after the dot com bust. There've always been (a majority of) broadcasters that had seconds to half minute (!) delays. Very few understood, or even today understand, how to tune every single touchpoint (including what's safe to do, and what one must not do.) Having an ultra low latency “video toaster” / broadcast mixer is a critical piece for sure. For us the motivations to work on this started with "backstage feeds" synced with live TV that needed to look simultaneous to the home cable viewer (think World Wrestling Entertainment) as well as Wall Street calls that needed to be (perceptually) in sync with dial-ins. And of course, Times Square NYE ball drops! In reality, almost nothing matters that way. For vast majority of content, the viewer is consuming only your stream, without some more real time channel at the same time. In most cases, the viewer cares far more about visual quality than the delay.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Cable has a large latency too in the seconds range compared to OTA broadcasts. Even live news has large a large latency with remote interviews. Some of them are so bad it's uncomfortable watching the anchor have the patience to wait for a response before stepping on the remote feed.
- mannyv 2y ago
  The advent of live betting means that they have to ensure that live viewers don't have too much of an edge vs stream viewers.
- kierank 2y ago
  Backstage feeds go in uncompressed via HD-SDI and have a latency of lines (microseconds to single digit milliseconds). Totally different ballgame.
- ta1243 2y ago
  If I'm watching the world cup final penalty shootout and I hear my neighbours cheering before I'm watching the player running up that basically breaks the entire game. Some streaming services are 30 seconds plus behind OTA, at that level twitter and half a dozen news apps have pushed the fact the goal went in while the ball is still in the other half.
- Sean-Der 2y ago
  It drives me crazy that we have had the technical ability to do these things, but just not the demand. I believe it is a chicken/egg problem. It is one of those things that you don't get until you try it yourself. I hope if more broadcasters (technical and non-technical) realize what is possible they will ask for it more! > For vast majority of content, the viewer is consuming only your stream Agree! I think it is that way because you can't have intimate/interactive streams yet. When it becomes possible I hope to see more streaming to smaller/more connected audiences.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    I don't think it's a chicken and egg problem, it's an ease of use problem on the side of the provider. An HLS stream is so simple to set up with passable performance that few other protocols can compete.