Take Streaming Media's Interactive Ultra-Low-Latency & Live Streaming Trends Survey
AMD and StreamingMedia.com have partnered with the Help Me Stream Research Foundation team to launch a survey that gauges the impact of (and planning for) hardware acceleration on real-time, ultra-low-latency and interactive live video streaming.
Known as the Interactive & Ultra-Low-Latency Streaming Trends 2024 survey, this new survey builds on recent surveys around live-streaming technology trends. Yet the new survey is laser-focused on real-time, interactive streaming scenarios key to industry growth and dives deep into the perceived cost savings and lowered environmental impact of hardware-based acceleration—from FPGAs to GPUs to custom ASIC—on very low-latency live-streaming workflows.
“Whether it’s encoding, transcoding, or scaled-up delivery of low-latency live streams—and especially below the 200ms threshold that separates regular live streaming from ultra-low-latency or real-time streaming—hardware acceleration provides key benefits,” said survey author Timothy Fore-Siglin, founding executive director of Help Me Stream Research Foundation.
Regarding environmental stewardship and lowered power consumption, Fore-Siglin notes that custom silicon implementations have been a bit of an industry secret for over a decade, as major streamers raced to create their own bespoke solutions that scaled without breaking the bank—or the local power plant.
“The benefit of an FPGA—which stands for field-programmable gate array but is often mentioned as being the first G in greening streaming—approach has been known in both the audio-visual (AV) and streaming industries for well over a decade,” said Fore-Siglin. “But with FPGAs growing more powerful, the cost-environmental benefit appears to have tilted even more towards specialized hardware acceleration.”
The Interactive & Ultra-Low-Latency Streaming Trends 2024 survey also explores whether standard ultra-low-latency solutions based on software can compete with purpose-built ASICs or purpose-programmed FPGAs.
“As content owners race towards a live-streaming-first delivery goal, in an attempt to reach latencies lower than broadcast television,” said Fore-Siglin, “one of the few surefire ways to make this happen is to deploy a variety of hardware-based solutions.”
What exactly are those solutions? That’s what we’re asking StreamingMedia.com readers to enlighten us on.
The 21-question survey is almost half the length of our standard surveys, but has the same prize packages. For those willing to spend the 15 minutes necessary to complete the survey, we’re offering one of two prizes. If you would like to be entered into the random drawing for one of three total prizes—a pair of Apple AirPod Pro 2 wireless earbuds or 1 of 2 $100 Amazon gift cards—please provide your email address at the end of the otherwise-anonymous survey.
Survey results and analysis will be presented in the opening keynote at Streaming Media Connect 2024 on November 12. Register for Streaming Media Connect for free today!
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On Tuesday, November 12, Brian Ring, Principal Analyst, Ring Digital, will moderate the panel "Engage and Grow: How to Succeed With Interactive Live Streaming." The growth of highly interactive streaming genres such as gaming, auctions, and sports betting has put pressure on networks while increasing the need to integrate interactivity and heightened engagement into more traditional methods of content delivery. With the challenges organizations face to ensure that their users have the smoothest and most dynamic interactive streaming experiences, and the additional investment in delivery infrastructure required as those experiences scale, how can streamers deliver ROI from interactive streaming every time? Confirmed panelists include industry experts from Bulldog DM, Parks Associates, Play Anywhere, and Fox.
29 Oct 2024