October 29, 2021
By Alex Peterson Head of Streaming Platform, G-Core Labs
Spotlights

How business makes streaming faster and cheaper with CDN and HESP support

Alex Peterson explores how HESP integration helps G-Core Labs ensure a high video streaming transmission rate for e-sports and gaming, efficient scalability for e-learning and telemedicine and high quality and minimum latencies for online streams, media and TV broadcasters.

HESP (High Efficiency Stream Protocol) is a brand new adaptive video streaming protocol. It allows delivery of content with latencies of up to 2 seconds without compromising video quality and broadcasting stability. Unlike comparable solutions, this protocol requires less bandwidth for streaming, which allows businesses to save a lot of money on delivery of content to a large audience.

Since HESP is based on HTTP, it is suitable for video transmission over CDNs. G-Core Labs was among the world’s first companies to have embedded this protocol in its CDN. With 120 points of presence across 5 continents and over 6,000 peer-to-peer partners, this allows a service provider to deliver videos to millions of viewers, to any devices, anywhere in the world without compromising even 8K video quality. And all this comes at a minimum streaming cost.

Let us explain how the new protocol will change the power balance in digital markets where the key success factor is media content delivery: in e-sports and gaming, OTT and TV broadcasting, e-learning and telemedicine and online casinos.

4 key differences between HESP and other protocols

The basic protocols, which are currently used in streaming, are HLS, MPEG-DASH, RTMP, and WebRTC. Unlike HESP, they have some serious flaws:

WebRTC and RTMP provide low latency but come at a high cost for businesses in streaming to a wide audience due to weak scalability.
HLS and MPEG-DASH allow you to cost efficiently stream content to a large number of users, but involve latencies of up 4 to 30 and more seconds, which is critical for interactive events and real-time communications.

HESP combines all the strengths of these protocols and ditches any weaknesses:

It allows delivering videos with latencies of 0.4 to 2 seconds;
It requires less bandwidth for streaming;
It can be delivered over CDN to millions of viewers, to any devices, anywhere in the world without compromising even 8K video quality;
It guarantees the minimum streaming cost compared to the alternative WebRTC.

Thus, CDN with HESP minimizes streaming latencies and optimizes streaming costs. This is particularly important for certain types of online businesses.

1. E-sports and gaming: speed and scalability

In late May this year, Free Fire World Series 2021 set a new world record as the number of viewers on one stream totaled 5.4 million people. A positive user experience is essential to keep that many viewers because no matter how exciting the game is, users will migrate to a different content provider if they encounter latency issues. This is why HESP stands out, as compared to HLS and MPEG-DASH it ensures faster delivery of videos to end users.

The content delivery network with integrated HESP provided by G-Core Labs allows easy streaming to thousands and millions of viewers all over the world with latencies of 2 seconds, which is faster than other protocols can offer. The CDN high performance comes with Intel technologies, as in April 2021, the provider was one of the first companies in the world to begin integration of the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable (Ice Lake) into the server infrastructure of its services.

2. E-learning and telemedicine: cost effectiveness

MedTech and e-learning projects often employ expensive third-party solutions to organize streams with students and patients. HESP makes it easier to do so: with CDN and the cross-platform HTML5 player by G-Core Labs, organizations can easily build their own solutions to host online lessons and video consultations with minimum latencies. Thanks to the CDN integration with HESP, the streaming quality remains high, while streaming costs are cut 2 to 5 times compared to other protocols.

3. Sports and media: low bandwidth requirements

Do you know the story of the composer who gave a concert in London and after crossing the English Channel on a high-speed jet managed to land and enjoy his live performance? Now that’s a tale to tell for sure!

With HESP, streaming sports events will become as close to real time as possible. That said, videos will be delivered over the Internet faster than over TV. For all of its other special aspects, this protocol requires 10% to 20% less bandwidth than alternative solutions, such as LL-HLS, Chunked CMAF, and WebRTC.

4. Auction and online casinos: adaptive bitrate

HESP not only allows videos to be delivered fast and cost effectively, but also transmits them in high quality for a viewer to take a closer look at all things on screen. This is particularly important for online casinos and betting businesses, where such features can become a competitive strength.

Thanks to the compatibility of the new protocol with adaptive bitrate technology, streams are available without buffering on any devices and regardless of the users’ Internet connection quality.

5. OTT and TV broadcasting: minimum latencies and streaming cost cuts

Overly long zapping time is annoying for viewers who want to switch between channels. With HESP, this figure is on average 20 times faster than industry-standard low-latency streaming approaches. With a zapping time of less than 100 ms, channels can be switched instantly.

HESP combines IPTV and OTT solutions to create fully-featured high-quality streaming. With this protocol, publishers can cost efficiently stream content to audiences in the millions with minimum latencies.

How to migrate to HESP

G-Core Labs CDN with HESP allows you to use a new, fast, scalable and cost-efficient method to transmit 8K videos over all distances. It has excellent coverage and connectivity, as it includes 120 points of presence across 5 continents and over 6,000 peer-to-peer partners.

In order to stream with HESP, you will have to set up CDN and implement two more elements into the standard process of creating, processing and delivering content:

Special HESP Packager for coding video before its transmission. It is available from HESP Alliance partners.
Player that supports HESP.

If you already use solutions by G-Core Labs and want to stream with HESP, please contact the company’s support. That way, you will have the best streaming quality for your users no matter where they are in the world.

www.gcorelabs.com