Streaming a live auction
 

Hi Guys

Is there any way to avoid latency when streaming something like a live auction. On Livestream.com the video lags about 17 seconds behind the live action so that's obviously a no go for overseas bidders as by the time they phone in a bid, a local bidder could have beaten them to it.

Are their any CDN's that can provide live video that's almost in sync with the live action ..I'm sure a few milliseconds wouldn't be an issue but a long lag defeats the purpose of sending a live feed to overseas buyers.

Any bright ideas?

Re: Streaming a live auction
 

nope
expect 30 seconds.

Re: Streaming a live auction
 

Thanks Bruce that's brutally honest! My average on livestream seems to be 17 seconds but of course that doesn't affect the viewer as they are not there. I don't have an issue with the delay at all in all my broadcasts but I have a client who does property auctions and he needed the direct interaction. I already have told him it's not going to work but figured it was worth asking!!

Re: Streaming a live auction
 

Latency Sucks is the cover article on Streaming Media magazine this month. I have the paper copy but have not read it yet. Here is the link to the on line version:

JanuaryFebruary 2017 - Streaming Media Magazine

Steve

Re: Streaming a live auction
 

Chris,

Due to the inherent latency caused by transcoding, try looking into systems designed for video conferencing, but just use it for one-way communication.
Think Google Hangouts, but only one-way.
Very low latency, sometimes low quality too - but it should be OK if you are only sending one video stream.

We created a pier-to-pier application for government meetings where they wanted to allow people from different cities to provide live public comment. It was basically like Skype (but it worked every time). We used a regular telephone conference call as a backup and sometimes the conference call audio lagged behind the pier-to-pier video! So I would consider that to be very low latency. ;)


Andrew

Re: Streaming a live auction
 

If it's only the one client. You could phone him and have the audio live and he could watch the 17-second delay video separately. Also let the auctioneer know what's happening he mich give you extra time to put your / his bid in. Other than that it's Skype as suggested above.

Re: Streaming a live auction
 

Well HLS pulls 3 segments before playback so if you get your segments down to 1 or 2 seconds (I have done 2 seconds before and your server is configured for low latency then you could see Streams only 6 seconds behind. Even when you add a CDN to the picture if you tune their configs to only cache the minimum time needed for the m3u8 files you should have a delay of 7 or 8 seconds. This would allow you to stream to ios, desktops and even most androids. If you went with RTMP (limited to desktop) then low latency can get down to just a few seconds. I have done one to many on a single wowza server and had a 1 second delay via RTMP

Re: Streaming a live auction
 

Won't a bidder need to be on the telephone anyways, to make a bid?

I'm a streaming fanboy and all, but, if there's an existing technology that is rock solid and low-to-no latency, and the stream has many potential points of failure... and will even bidders accept streaming?

Were it me, and determined to do it, I'd look at a Wowza server to desktops as Josh suggests. Though W configuration is not for the masses.

Re: Streaming a live auction
 

Thanks Seth ..that's what I told him ..they always have a local bidder taking overseas bids so he would have to maintain a phone link anyway ..maybe he wants to be able to see the overall mood of the buyers and bids ... I passed on the offer as I don't want to have to create a completely different setup just for the odd auction that might have international bids and yes, I believe they would still need a physical body on site to bid on what the remote buyer tells them too !