Over the past decade, video content has been on the rise and it never showed any sign of slowing. During the last 5 years especially, the statistical analysis of the video content market has been going crazy. Here are some facts:
- Mobile video consumption rises every year by 100%.
- 55% of people watch online videos everyday.
- 80% of users can recall a video they have seen 30 days ago.
- Over 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube everyday
And these figures keep rising.
Starting from 2016, live streaming, a growing trend in the video content industry, has been on everyone’s radar. Again, figures show that live streaming is here to stay:
- Live video consumption is increasing by over 80% annually.
- 45% of live video viewers are ready to pay for live, exclusive and/or on-demand video from a favorite team, speaker, player, gamer, or performer.
- Live video is outpacing the growth of other types of online video, with a 113% annual increase.
- Users spent 10 billion hours/month watching Netflix for a total of 42.5 billion streaming hours in 2015.
With the popularity of the trend rising, the variety of live stream videos rises accordingly, making high quality, low latency streaming services a must. In fact, over 75% viewers consider video quality the prime factor when watching a live stream broadcast.
RTMP streaming
Enter RTMP streaming. Originally developed by Macromedia, a leading U.S.-based graphics, multimedia and web development company currently owned by Adobe, real time messaging protocol (RTMP) is a TCP-based protocol that enables high quality and lightning fast transmission of audio and video data over the Internet between a Flash player and a server.
The secret behind delivering a smooth, enjoyable streaming experience and transferring as much information as possible as quickly as possible, lies with RTMP’s ability to break the stream into fragments, which are dynamically moved between the viewer and the server. Default fragment sizes are 64 bytes for audio and 128 bytes for video and most other types of content.
Another essential aspect is that fragments from different streams may be interleaved – mixing digital signals by altering them to save bandwidth – and multiplexed – mixing analog or digital signals to create a single signal over a shared medium – over a single connection. This allows streamers to use RTMP in various situations depending on their needs while enabling users to automatically adjust based on their bandwidth, adding flexibility and maximizing the viewing experience:
High quality live streaming, without latency
As live streaming is becoming more and more popular, the demand for better quality becomes paramount. In fact, it has come to a point when anything below HD quality will not even be considered by viewers, since it’s simply esthetically displeasing.
However, while video quality is an important factor, it’s not enough to ensure high quality streaming experience, especially if it keeps slowing/pausing every few minutes, or allows delays. High latency is a pressing issue for many industries nowadays, especially gaming. For the record, in 2017, over 660 million people tuned into game video content and this number is expected to rise to 740 million by 2019.
High latency is also a problem for live betting and online auctions, where a few seconds can make all the difference between winning and losing millions of dollars. RTMP allows to bypass all of these issues easily.
Adaptive bitrate streaming (ABS)
RTMP helps solve the issue of bandwidth fluctuation, which sometimes depends on factors we can’t control (like weather conditions, for instance). Thanks to the fragmenting technology, the client’s computer is able to adapt to the current bandwidth and change the quality of the stream on the fly, without any actual pauses or latency occurrences. This helps viewers to stay in control of the situation, especially if they are gambling, placing bets or bids, until the bandwidth stabilizes.
In the same way, RTMP can potentially help you reach bigger audiences due to providing acceptable streaming experiences to people with slow internet connection in distinct regions of the globe. Yes, the quality of the stream will be low, but at least it will be smooth, without any pauses.
Seeking to any given moment of the stream without lag
As with any other technology, once you’ve got the essentials covered, the demand shifts towards consumer convenience to establish the domination of the solution in the market. One such factor of RTMP is the ability to tune in to any given moment of a live stream, without lag.
Saving mobile data
Finally, RTMP proves to be highly cost-efficient for viewers who, for instance, are using their mobile data to watch a live stream. Since the flow of information is broken down into fragments of 128 bytes, a viewer can enjoy the stream for a short amount of time by consuming a correspondingly low amount of data, instead of downloading more than needed.
RTMP and CDN
Content delivery networks that support RTMP streaming are very important, simply due to the fact that it is impossible to provide high quality streaming experience to viewers in different parts of the globe while preserving the same quality and low latency everywhere. For instance, if your website is located on a server in the U.S. the quality of your stream will be much lower for viewers in Asia or Australia.
CDN networks distribute your data to over 70 data centers – also known as point of presence (PoP) – around the globe, and significantly reduce the distance between you and your audience, improving both the customer experience and your Google rankings. In case you didn’t know, Google pays close attention to latency when people search for your content online.
CDNsun edge servers are connected to the world’s largest and fastest networks and are also equipped with SSD drives, further improving your stream’s performance. We also offer some of the lowest prices on the market, without any setup or quitting fees. Users all welcome to give CDNsun a try for 30 days, free of charge. Finally, our service includes custom SSL, 20 GB of storage and 24/7 premium customer support for both new and existing streamers.