Wowza Media Systems is launching a new “Ultra Low Latency Service” as a part of the Wowza Streaming Cloud platform and promising global streams with less than two seconds of end-to-end latency.
“Our new Ultra Low Latency Service makes it possible to deliver consistent user experiences around the world, with streams that start instantly, don’t buffer and rarely drop—regardless of existing network conditions,” said Dave Stubenvoll, CEO and co-founder at Wowza Media Systems, in a statement. “Unlike legacy networks, our new platform is designed to deliver at the speed needed for the next generation of applications and services, so it doesn’t cache and won’t artificially inject latency based on demand or scale.”
Wowza is deploying the service on Microsoft Azure data centers and outfitting its platform to detect the closest ingest point and deliver through a unified network. Wowza is also using the WOWZ video transport protocol and WebSockets to reduce time-to-first-frame and end-to-end latency.
Wowza is also offering real-time monitoring and self-healing functionality, which it said will allow it to offer “enterprise-level redundancy, stability and uptime.”
RELATED: Fox Sports Go executive says latency is still the No. 1 complaint with online video
Video streaming continues year after year to take up a bigger chunk of global web traffic, and for companies looking to cash in the customers’ appetite for video on demand, user experience is crucial.
Clark Pierce, senior vice president of TV Everywhere for Fox Sports Go, said during a panel at Streaming Media East earlier this year that latency is still the main gripe for online video consumers.
“We are acutely in touch with users and latency is the No. 1 complaint,” said Pierce, adding that social media monitoring is making the gap even more glaring.