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If you’d like to broadcast your video live on YouTube, for example, you’d have to make some adjustments. That’s what’s considered “low latency” in live streaming. To give you a reference of how high these values are, surveys show that more than half of video developers expect to achieve latencies of less than five seconds. Online video streaming has a wide latency range, with higher values resting between 30 and 60 seconds. The thing with latency is that there are no standards that govern what is “high” and what is “low.” What we think of when we say “low” latency is usually “low when compared with the average in that field of broadcasting.” Whether that particular value is good or bad - low enough or too high - is a whole other question. If the delay between you making the footage and it appearing on viewers’ screens is two seconds, we say that the streaming has a latency of two seconds. So, if you’re streaming live video, latency means that your viewers will never see you exactly in real time - they will always see you with delay. Video latency, as a more specific application of the term, is used to describe the time between the capturing of a frame and the end user having it displayed on their screen. That is, at least, the simplest way to understand it. Let’s get straight to it: latency means “delay.” When you want to send information from point A to point B, the latency is the time it takes the information to appear at point B after leaving point A.
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So let’s see what low latency is, when you need it, and how to achieve it.
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Some types of live streams might need it more than others, but it’s still one of the key technical characteristics you need to understand about live streaming.
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In live streaming, low latency critically influences the sense of immediacy of the video. It shouldn't surprise you that there’s a need for faster, better, and more immediate video. That’s a sentiment 87% of marketers could agree with. Some of it is just for fun, but businesses are learning to rely on video to help them attract and engage an audience. Video content has been getting a lot of love these past couple of years.
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