SeasonCast streams from your device to our ingest servers is under 0.2 of a second. This means our platform is capable of viewer distribution in under 2 seconds in theory. There are two main reasons why in practice, SeasonCast has around a 20-second delay to the end viewer.
1. Today's current browser technology lets streaming companies decide between low delay and scalability/quality. Low delay uses technology that does not scale past a few viewers (ex: WebRTC). This is mostly used in video conferencing. The quality is usually also lower. The only universal live streaming technology supported by all browsers is HLS. HLS is used by all big players in live streaming today. HLS is great at scalability and quality but poor in latency. In theory, HLS minimum is 15 seconds.
Update: We are working to implement HLS low latency as soon as possible to try to lower the delay. In theory, it could be possible to have only a 5-second delay.
2. Peer to peer network: SeasonCast uses a peer to peer network as part of its live video distribution. This helps extend capacity exponentially for popular events. This may add around 5 seconds of delay.
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