Advanced Content Delivery, Streaming, and Cloud Services

Chapter 2Live Streaming Ecosystems

Dom Robinson

id3as-company Ltd., Rottingdean, Brighton, Sussex, UK

2.1 Introduction

Although there are many isolated events and microsteps that have converged to evolve today's rich and versatile range of live streaming applications and technologies, there are a few milestones that demark clear step-changes of note. The live streaming systems in use today are all derived from video conferencing technologies. Largely because audio requires less bandwidth to transmit over a network than video does, it is also worth noting that voice and audio streaming predates video streaming.

This chapter contextualizes the reader by providing some background to (and clarifying a common understanding of) the term “live streaming” [1]. It takes a look at what “live” means in the context of networked telecommunications, highlighting that there may be delay between the production of the content and listener's or viewer's experience of that content, and yet that user's experience would still be considered to be of a “live” stream. This chapter also outlines and explains some of the key network considerations when producing “live streaming” over the Internet. It highlights that despite some optimization techniques being more efficient and capable of bringing the “live” experience of a receiver closer to the moment of production of the content, other less efficient network technologies have proven to be successful because of a variety of wider technical and economic ...