Service providers still struggle with video latency, multi-device playback – study

Video service providers are having a hard time meeting consumer expectations for low latency and multi-device playback, according to Bitmovin.

The digital video technology company just released its new Video Developer Report, which bases its research off the views of 542 professionals working at broadcasters, streaming providers, publishers and social media companies in 108 countries. It found that latency is the most significant issue faced by 54% of video developers, closely followed by getting playback on all devices (41%).

“The findings show a shift toward new breed technologies such as AV1 and artificial intelligence (AI). We’re also seeing the industry continue to face huge issues with latency and ensuring playback on all devices,” said Bitmovin CEO Stefan Lederer in a statement.

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According to the study, more than half (53%) of all respondents expect to achieve live streaming latency of less than five seconds. Almost a third (30%) hope to achieve latency under one second. Almost two thirds (61.7%) plan to start using low latency live streaming (such as CMAF) before the end of 2020.

The report also found that H.264 is still the dominant video codec, used by 91% of all survey respondents, and that growth in support for VP9 has stalled. But, AV1 is due for some big growth.

Bitmovin said that planned use of AV1 is set to triple and that 7% of respondents have started to work with it, and 20% expect to start using it in the coming year.

“AV1 looks well placed to overtake VP9 as the leading open-source solution and begin to compete with H.265/ HEVC,” the company said. “This will be fueled by rollouts by major device manufacturers, browser vendors and content distributors including Cisco, Mozilla, and YouTube.”