Ultra-low Latency Video Delivery using WebRTC Data Channels
Metadata
- Publisher
- SMPTE — White Plains, NY, USA
- Doc Type
- Conference Paper
- Content Type
- Original Research
- Volume
- 2023, No. 10, pp. 6–8
- Abstract
- Delivery of video with camera-to-screen latencies of less than two seconds, so called ultra-low latency, is the latest battleground for live streaming providers and vendors. Historically, broadcast latencies have been between five and ten seconds, significantly lower than those which can be achieved using the standardised streaming protocols based on HTTP. The frustration of hearing about a change in score, through social media for example, before seeing it on a streaming service prompted the development of the low latency variants of HTTP based protocols. These can bring the camera-to-screen latency down to between six and eight seconds, easily competing with, if not surpassing, standard broadcast. — Providers’ need for new monetization strategies and increased consumer engagement drives the need to reduce this further. Existing technologies’ inherent limitations in this respect demand a new delivery mechanism. The development of WebRTC Media Streams focuses on video conferencing where round-trip latencies in the 100s of milliseconds are key. However, video conferencing has little need for the high picture quality, content protection, alternative audio, and delivery to millions of users necessary for premium streaming service providers. — This paper discusses the limitations and advantages of using HTTP and WebRTC for media delivery and presents a novel approach to delivering media to clients using WebRTC Data Channels. By using a UDP-based protocol, WebRTC overcomes the congestion and head-of-line blocking issues associated with TCP, allowing the delivery of media with latencies below two seconds. The use of Data Channels has three main advantages over Media Channels. Firstly, it enables video content to be encrypted using standard Digital Rights Management methods. Secondly, it allows the use of broadcast quality encoders which make use of all codec tools rather than the restricted toolset dictated by WebRTC encoders. Thirdly, the use of Data Channels removes the need for a per-client encode of the content. Instead, the pre-encoded and encrypted content is simply replicated to all clients at the edge of the network. This, in turn, means that the solution scales efficiently to the ever-increasing streaming audience.
- Publication Date
- 2023-10-16
- DOI
10.5594/M002032- ISBN
- Print:
978-1-61482-964-5 - Link
- https://doi.org/10.5594/M002032
- Author(s)
- Olie BaumannMediaKind.
- Keyword(s)
- Streaming, WebRTC, Ultra-Low Latency
- Copyright
- © 2023 Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Inc.
Bibliographic Reference(s)
- ISO.23009-1.2022 — International Organization for Standardization/International Electrical/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC), ISO/IEC 23009-1:2022, “Information technology-Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH)—Part 1: Media presentation description and segment formats,” Oct. 2022. EXTERNAL
- Wikipedia, Sept. 2023, “Head-of-line blocking”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-of-line_blocking EXTERNAL
- Internet Engineering Taskforce Internet Standard, April 1998, “SDP: Session Description Protocol”, https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2327.txt EXTERNAL
- Internet Engineering Taskforce Internet Standard, August 1980, “User Datagram Protocol”, https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc768.txt EXTERNAL
- MS-SSTR, Smooth Streaming Protocol, Oct. 2022, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-sstr/8383f27f-7efe-4c60-832a-387274457251 EXTERNAL
- Internet Engineering Taskforce Internet Standard, March 2012, “TCP Candidates with Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE)”, https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6544 EXTERNAL
- International Telecommunication Union, August 2021, “Advanced video coding for generic audiovisual services”, https://www.itu.int/ITU-T/recommendations/rec.aspx?rec=14659&lang=en EXTERNAL
- Apple developer documentation, “HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) authoring specification for Apple devices”, Sept. 2023, https://developer.apple.com/documentation/http-live-streaming/hls-authoring-specification-for-apple-devices EXTERNAL
- Internet Engineering Taskforce Internet Standard, March 2003, “STUN - Simple Traversal of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) Through Network Address Translators (NATs)”, https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3489 EXTERNAL
- Internet Engineering Taskforce Internet Draft, Sept. 2022, “The SRT Protocol draftsharabayko-mops-srt-01”, https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-sharabayko-mops-srt EXTERNAL
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), “WebRTC: Real-Time Communication in Browsers", Mar. 2023, https://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/ EXTERNAL
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Working Draft, Sept. 2022, “Media Source Extensions™” https://www.w3.org/TR/media-source-2/ EXTERNAL
- Internet Engineering Taskforce Internet Standard, Sept. 2007, “Stream Control Transmission Protocol”, https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4960 EXTERNAL
- Internet Engineering Taskforce Internet Standard, June 2022, “RFC 9110 HTTP Semantics”, https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110.html EXTERNAL
- Internet Engineering Taskforce Internet Standard, August 2022, “Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9293 EXTERNAL
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Olie Baumann; Ultra-low Latency Video Delivery using WebRTC Data Channels, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2023); SMPTE, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-61482-964-5. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/M002032
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Olie Baumann; Ultra-low Latency Video Delivery using WebRTC Data Channels, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2023); SMPTE, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-61482-964-5. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/M002032
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Olie Baumann; Ultra-low Latency Video Delivery using WebRTC Data Channels, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2023); SMPTE, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-61482-964-5. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/M002032
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<span class="citation">Olie Baumann; <cite>Ultra-low Latency Video Delivery using WebRTC Data Channels</cite>, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2023); SMPTE, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-61482-964-5. Available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5594/M002032" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5594/M002032</a></span>
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Olie Baumann; Ultra-low Latency Video Delivery using WebRTC Data Channels, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2023); SMPTE, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-61482-964-5
doi: 10.5594/M002032
url: https://doi.org/10.5594/M002032
doi: 10.5594/M002032
url: https://doi.org/10.5594/M002032
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<li> Olie Baumann; <cite id="bib-10-5594-m002032">Ultra-low Latency Video Delivery using WebRTC Data Channels</cite>, SMPTE Meetings and Conferences ( October 2023); SMPTE, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-61482-964-5 <span class="doi">10.5594/M002032</span> </li>