Top 5 Use Cases for Live Streaming Video Software

Live streaming is a rapidly growing segment of the Tech Industry. With faster and more reliable streaming, adding live video to different use cases is becoming more common. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular.

Interactive Game Shows:

The explosive growth of this interactive, live-action trivia app has given rise to a new game show form where participants can directly get involved from their devices. Take for example the popular HQ Trivia app. You don’t have to fly all the way out to a studio, all you have to do is log in.

For an even better experience, you can play with your friends random than internet strangers. With apps like the Red5 Pro based Joyride, you can play live games directly with your friends.

Of course, with all those contestants your app needs to scale and maintain low latency. Nothing is worse than knowing the right answer only to be disqualified because of lag. Just ask, well, HQ Trivia.

Sports:

There is a giant market for watching sports, and (now in the U.S.) betting on them as well. This is a use case where scalability and delivery are very important. Just consider the hundreds of countries and billions of people that watch the World Cup.

There are even the “smaller” events like the Super Bowl where, sad for us Americans, our football fans are greatly dwarfed by your soccer fans.  (we’ll give you the ratings, but we’re keeping the name)

Live Auction:

Cars, collectibles, even cattle, all have auction sites where you can bid online. There are even some for things that don’t start with ‘c’.

Anyone that’s heard an auctioneer and the torrent of words they produce knows that latency is important. The interval between placing a bid and missing an opportunity is very short indeed. A hesitation might cause you some regret, but a lagging video is unforgivable.

Training apps:

Online mentorship or tutoring can be a valuable experience. The best instructors may not live by you, but a live stream can connect you from any distance. They can display proper finger placement on an instrument, or critique your drawing technique.

Of course, there are other uses beyond the arts. Language instruction, fitness training, classroom instruction, e-sport coaching,  and wherever else there’s a market for learning.

Body Cameras:

The military and first responders are seeing the value of being able to track and monitor the location of a unit and the status of individuals. A central command station can watch the operation live while providing feedback and direction.

Low-latency certainly plays a crucial role here, as every second (and partial second) counts. There is little tolerance for lag and falling out of sync when collaborating on rescue missions or conducting exercises.

Monitoring:

We all love our pets. You don’t have a pet? OK… we all love receiving packages.

Regardless of where you stand on the pets vs. packages debate (That’s a thing now… because I just made it up), both can involve some live-streaming. Often using IP cameras, apps that let you monitor something from afar are becoming more popular.

While on vacation, or maybe just too lazy to go down the stairs, you can check-in with your beloved companion through a pet camera. You can also have a two-way conversation with the Amazon driver standing on your front doorstep and tell him to deliver your package to the back door this time, so someone doesn’t take off with it (again).

Of course, this is far from an exhaustive list. I’m sure there are lots of other ways that low-latency, widely scalable, live streaming can be used. Let us know what you’d like to stream and we can help you build it.

Give us a call, or send a message to info@red5.net. We’d love to get you streaming.