Why Low Latency HLS?
HLS of RFC8216 is currently a de-facto standard for live and VOD delivery. Chunks of content with simple playlists delivered over HTTP/1.1 give the simplicity of implementation, wide platforms availability, adaptive bitrate (ABR) support, easy caching and scalability. However this approach has its disadvantages for live streaming. The chunk size recommended by Apple is 6 seconds which practically means up to 20 seconds latency.
Low Latency extension of HLS enables new capabilities for video streaming:
- Partial segments (parts) can be accessed before full chunks of content are available.
- Using HTTP/2 to reduce connections' overhead.
- Playlist requests optimized manipulation.
- H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC content delivery.
- Full backwards compatibility with legacy HLS.
Nimble Streamer media server is fully capable of streaming Low Latency HLS:
- LL HLS can be packaged from any available live source such as RTMP, SRT, RTSP, MPEG-TS or Icecast.
- It allows using fMP4 (CMAF) and audio-only containers.
- Live Transcoder decodes and encodes live content between supported codecs, along with building transformation chains.
- WMSPanel provides wide reporting capabilities.
Learn more:
- Read setup article to get all details about Nimble Streamer LL HLS setup.
- Watch video tutorial about LL HLS setup in Nimble Streamer.
- THEOPlayer has LL HLS testing page where you can try your steam with their implementation of LL spec in any browser.
Apple Low Latency HLS provides up to 3 seconds of delay on Apple devices.
How about same latency on HTML5, Android and native iOS?
Use SLDP ultra-low latency technology.