Please wait while we enable your Account

0%

Contacting Amazon Web Services
Deploying Cloud Servers, Storage, Transcoding & Database Servers
Deploying Global CDN
Deploying Firewall & Enabling Security Measures
Deploying the CMS & Admin Module
Deploying Website, Mobile & TV Apps framework
Creating your FTP account
Finishing up all the modules
Preparing for launch

How to Analyze CDNs for Live Streaming

Bishnu Published on : 23 February 2021

Why CDN is Important

CDN (Content Delivery Network) plays a major role in streaming industries. As the need for online video streaming grows year after year, the volume of delivery for these videos is greater and challenging than ever before.

How do They Work?

To understand the functionalities of CDN we have to understand the delivery network of any popular online shopping sites like Amazon, Flipkart, how they deliver orders the same-day or in a couple of days. They have the local/regional stores to keep products ready rather than to ship from a central location.

Similarly, CDNs have a larger network of sophisticated servers strategically placed on different geo locations to provide the contents when published. The subsequent request will be served from local / nearest pop server from the cache rather than the origin. 

For Live Streaming Content

To deliver live streaming content is more challenging with respect to VOD content that has already been published. These days the HLS and Dash are more popular methods for live streaming with ABR as a de-facto standard. There are some specific areas to be taken care of such as

  • Quality – To provide the best user experience without video lagging/freezing, ABR is the best option. CDNs carry the chunks to the end-user network at high speed delivering without delay or waiting for the player for the next chunks.
  • Scalability – The most important factor where a smart CDN will be a game-changer. To deliver the live content to large, unpredictable live audiences.

Case Study

Here are some scenarios of the leading CDN providers which we have analyzed with respect to buffer level and playing live-stream content at the end-user. We have some basic factors as constant for each scenario

  • The same Livestream server located in a single place.
  • Ingesting: The RTMP stream has ingested from a single source.
  • Egressing: HLS with ABR with 4 formats (Low, High, HD, Source)  
  • Multiple CDNs have pointed to the same origin server

Scene#1:Live streaming within a Production environment

  • Live-streaming server @ US region
  • RTMP Input from US server point to the same streaming server
  • HLS view at India

CloudFront

Limelight CDN

Scene#2:Live streaming within Production environment (VPN)

  • Live-streaming server @ US region
  • RTMP Input from US server pointing to the same streaming server
  • HLS view at Ireland via VPN

Cloudfront CDN

Limelight CDN

 

Scene#3:Live streaming within a Production environment (OBS)

  • Live streaming server @ US
  • RTMP Input from OBS (India) pointing  to the same streaming server
  • HLS view at India

 

Cloudfront CDN

Limelight CDN

Written by: Bishnu

Bishnu is a Lead Engineer and Full Stack developer at Muvi with in-depth knowledge of jQuery and JavaScript. Shy by nature, Bishnu however is passionate about learning new technologies and often turns out to the most active contributor in engineering discussions. He is a nature lover and an avid traveler too.

Add your comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Try Muvi One free for 14 days

No Credit Card Required

.muvi.com
Your website will be at https://yourname.muvi.com, you can change this later.

Upcoming Webinar
April 25

8:00AM PST

Keep it Secure, Keep it Safe: Tips and Techniques to Protect Your Video Content

Streaming content security has quickly elevated to the number one priority across the industry. That’s because billions are being lost in live event revenue, such as sporting events, to pirates each year. But securing streaming content from theft isn’t an easy task. There are hundreds of possible vectors, everything from network intrusion to player/app doppelgangers to CDN leeching, through which pirates can obtain and redistribute content. In this webinar, SVTA CEO Jason Thibeault will take a look at some of the more prominent vectors, techniques and tips to mitigate potential problems, and discuss the recent SVTA Security Working Group publication, “OTT Streaming Security Checklist.” 

Why Attend the Webinar:

  • Understand the current state of streaming piracy.
  • Understand some of the more popular ways through which pirates get access to content.
  • Learn some tips and techniques to create a “layered” approach to mitigating piracy.
  • Learn about the new SVTA publication, “OTT Streaming Security Checklist”.

Streaming content security has quickly elevated to the number one priority across the industry. That’s because billions are being lost in live event revenue, such as sporting events,…...

Event Language: English
1 hour