When the SRT Alliance was co-founded in 2017 by Haivision and Wowza Media Systems, the aim was to develop a contribution alternative to expensive private networks or satellite, and promote an adoption of the SRT protocol as a common video streaming standard for the broadcast industry. Considering the buzz surrounding SRT across the NAB show two years later, it’s safe to say that the SRT Alliance has been taking the right steps towards that goal.
Walking the show floor in the South Upper pavilion (which was lovingly nicknamed “SRT Alley” due to the number of SRT Alliance members in the same area), it felt like SRT was everywhere. With exhibitors showcasing interesting ways that SRT has helped them facilitate their video workflows, from contribution to low-latency delivery, it definitely felt like SRT was NAB’s hot topic this year.
Throughout the show, we were able to witness several examples of SRT in action, from implementation stories told in panel discussions to demonstrations on the show floor. Here are two examples from the show floor that stood out for us:
Record-Setting Live OTT
Red Bee Media were excited to display how they leverage SRT for live event delivery, showcasing OTT delivery faster than that of traditional broadcast feeds. From a camera recording in the Red Bee Media booth, the live feed was sent to a cloud instance in Europe via SRT. After having processed the live signal, the Red Bee Media Channel Store distributed it back to Las Vegas via CDN.
Using open-source technology, Red Bee was able to deliver video to OTT faster than traditional television, creating a premium experience for viewers. In fact, while showing this live OTT feed on the NAB show floor, Red Bee hit a record-low 3.5 second latency – and they achieved this not only with an open-source technology, but with the public Internet as well.
Low-Latency HD Mobile Playback
Cinegy were eager to demonstrate their playback capabilities. Active in the SRT GitHub community, Cinegy have integrated the open-sourced SRT library into their core products and have been a key participant in the development community.
From Nuremberg to Nevada via SRT, Cinegy were showing a 5Mbps HD H.264 stream to a cell phone over LTE with under 500 milliseconds of latency using the Haivision Play for Mobile app. As per Lewis Kirkaldie, Head of Product Management at Cinegy:
“For me – being able to just grab their app off of the Google Play store or Apple store, plug it in and start pulling streams down off of our technology – that’s an amazing value add.”
Creating new opportunities with SRT
Are you ready to see what your team can achieve with the low latency, open source SRT protocol? Download the free SRT Protocol Technical Overview to explore the technical aspects of the protocol, and learn about the different ways you could implement it into your workflows.
Are you already working with SRT? Please share your stories of how this open source protocol has impacted your workflows – we would love to share with the rest of the community!
