Latency and Device Playback Are Today's Biggest Pain Points
Live video latency is the currently the biggest problem for video publishers. That news comes from video infrastructure provider Bitmovin, which unveiled its Video Developer Report for 2018 today. Latency is especially a concern for live sports providers. While expos like NAB and IBC are full of vendors promising 3-second latency for global delivery, this was still rated as a major problem by 55 percent of respondents.
Following that, the next biggest problem is supporting playback on all devices, cited by 50 percent of respondents. The fractured video delivery landscape showed up in other ways, as well, with considerable fragmentation in codecs and formats. While 92 percent use H.264/AVC, use of H.265/HEVC has grown to 42 percent from 28 percent the year before. Also, 29 percent plan to use AV1 in the coming year. For formats, 82 percent use HLS and 61 percent use MPEG-DASH, but the report sees heavy fragmentation in the use of RTMP, Smooth Streaming, and Progressive Streaming.
Among devices, Apple iOS is supported by 62 percent of respondents and Android by 60 percent. However, HTML5 on the browser is used most for audio and video streaming, supported by 87 percent.
Bitmovin surveyed 456 video developers in 67 countries, including broadcasters, publishers, OTT services, OVPs, and social platforms. For more survey results, including digital rights management (DRM) use, download the full report for free (registration required).
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