NAB 2018: What Was Missing

Last week, the media broadcasting community gathered together at the NAB Show to discuss industry achievements and trends.

A wide range of speakers discussed various topics from optimizing end to end delivery, leveraging CDNs, and effective ad-insertion. Not to mention the numerous vendors touting live streaming monetization strategies.

OTT

Of course, the always growing OTT (Over the Top) market was represented by a strong contingent of over 90 vendors. This is unsurprising given the current trend towards increased mobile and tablet use.

Take for example the Real Salt Lake Soccer/Football team. After launching a free, ad-supported app, the team has drawn roughly 30,000 to 50,000 OTT views for each two-hour game. By comparison, Real Salt Lake averages about 20,000 fans at its home games.

Despite this, there was one concept surprisingly absent.

Realtime Latency

Shockingly, most broadcasters seem unconcerned with latency. Except, of course, for our partner Limelight. They are very concerned with keeping their latency low. Actually, it would be more accurate to say they were concerned since they now have real-time latency after integrating our WebRTC solution into their network.

As we have discussed before, real-time latency is essential for a natural experience. From guarding against spoilers to keeping a conversation flowing, real-time latency isn’t a nice to have feature, it’s absolutely necessary.

Look at applications such as HQ Trivia. Consumers are looking for enhanced viewing experiences full of interactivity.

It’s widely acknowledged that live-streaming is the future of video, so it’s curious that low-latency was virtually unrepresented at NAB. Afterall, you can’t have a delay in your stream if you really want it to be live.

Predictions for the Next NAB

From what we are seeing there’s a huge demand for real-time latency video streaming at scale, and we are providing a much-needed solution for what is a growing market. We expect by the time the next NAB rolls around, real-time streaming will be in the forefront. We are excited to be innovating in this new space and look forward to enabling you the developer to create truly live interactive video experiences.

For more on real-time live-streaming, check out Red5 Pro. Send us a message at info@red5.net or schedule a call.