Chinese tech companies launch standards for low latency streaming

BEIJING - Chinese tech giants Alibaba, Bytedance and Tencent have jointly released a new set of low latency streaming standards to provide users with a better video streaming experience on mobile platforms.

In recent years, mobile users have had an increasing demand for real-time broadcasting with low latency in streaming events such as sports games, online courses and e-commerce.

However, even though the network speed is fast, the livestreaming is still slow. When watching a live soccer game on a mobile phone, users often see the goal later than the TV audience.

According to the companies, the new open standard will reduce the traditional time lag from three to six seconds to less than one second to provide users with more timely broadcasting.

Most current streaming systems are based on WebRTC, an open-source project providing web browsers and mobile apps with real-time communication. But WebRTC does not define the signaling interaction process, and each streaming platform has its own interaction logic between the client and the server, which leads to the latency in livestreaming.

Volcano Engine, an enterprise service platform under ByteDance, said the new standard is an open protocol that any companies and developers can access.

The companies expect the new standard to promote video technologies and application innovation.