As live streaming video (mainly sports) has continued to grow, with seemingly every league from top-tier sports down to regional interests selling rights or streaming directly, the industry continues to grapple with the relationship between delay and the viewer experience. It would seem that there is little-to-no consensus about not only what latency is, but how important it is to address, and what the target should be.
Early this year, the SVTA Low Latency Streaming Working Group decided to design and field an industry survey to try and gain some clarity, and consensus, around low latency streaming. With over 100 respondents from a cross-section of the industry, the results were very interesting.
As the graph above illustrates, at least 80% of respondents felt that latency was important. So that answers the basic question. But, on a deeper level, another question remains unanswered: “how much latency should we strive for?”
Finding #2: 5 Seconds Seems To Be The Consensus
In the battle to reduce latency, there is an understood connection between effort (money) expended and the result. For example, going from 30 seconds of latency to 10 seconds of latency has demonstrable benefits to QoE. But what about going from 10 to 7? Or from 7 to 5? When does the amount of effort to reduce latency exceed the benefits gained? It would seem, then, that there must be a sweet spot, a latency number which is acceptable from the perspective of effort expended to benefit gained.
As the graph above shows, the majority of respondents felt that an ideal latency was five (5) seconds or under even while 44% of respondents indicated that their current latency was between ten (10) seconds and 40 seconds. But even within that agreed threshold, there is still discrepancy about targeted latency. While 30% were targeting two (2) seconds to five (5) seconds, 32% believed their ideal latency was between 500 milliseconds and two (2) seconds and 24% were shooting for under 500 milliseconds.
Finding #3: The Challenges Getting to That Ideal Latency
If five (5) seconds or under is an ideal latency for live streaming, the next obvious question is, “how do we, as an industry, get there?” To answer that question, it’s critical to understand the perceived challenges.
As the survey results illustrate in the graph above, the top three challenges are:
- Network reliability
- Playback support
- Scaling
It would seem obvious that network reliability would be the top concern and we think it’s safe to say that’s a result of 1) network diversity in delivering content to end users and 2) not having control of the network. Most content providers, for example, utilize multiple CDNs which are peered with multiple access networks. Even when the open internet can be avoided while delivering live streaming content, the content provider is at the behest of the access network operator (ISP). This would seem to speak to a need for content providers to work closely with their network providers to proactively identify and resolve issues.
With regards to playback support, device fragmentation results in an ongoing challenge that probably doesn’t have an immediate or foreseeable solution. When trying to achieve ultra-low latency streaming, to support specific use cases like betting for example, the player has a major role to play, oftentimes requiring specific features or technologies (such as a third-party SDK). But if the player is on an older device that simply doesn’t support those features, it can be impossible to deliver the latency required.
Finally, when it comes to scaling, that has been a thorn in the side of ultra-low latency for quite some time. It probably goes without saying that the importance of this challenge is related to respondents who are trying to utilize alternative streaming protocols such as WebRTC, which historically does not scale well.
Consensus is Good. Now Is The Time For A Solution.
This survey is a point in time for our industry—a moment of consensus around such a critical aspect of live streaming as low latency. But rather than provide answers, this survey peels back the layers so that we can formulate a path forward. Identifying the challenges is great but using the moment of discovery to set a path forward is better.
The full results of the survey will be revealed before IBC 2025 but don’t wait until then! If you are an existing SVTA member, come join the Low Latency Streaming Working Group as they start to formulate projects to address the insights revealed by the industry. If you aren’t a member, you can join today and start participating as the SVTA develops solutions to tackle the challenges of low latency streaming at scale.
Check Out The Full Report
The full report is now available for download from the SVTA website: https://www.svta.org/document/svta7111-low-latency-survey-report-directional-insights/
Jason Thibeault
Jason is the CEO of the Streaming Video Technology Alliance, the international technical association for streaming video which brings companies from across the streaming ecosystem together to collaborate on technical solutions to delivering high-quality video at scale. In this role, he runs day-to-day operations, finances, member recruitment, strategy, and evangelizes the organization at events around the world. He is also the co-founder of a big data startup, datazoom.io. Jason is a contributing editor at Streaming Media Magazine and has written several books.