Live Streaming is the method of media transmission used when someone watches video content on the Internet. It is a way to deliver a video from a remote location to viewers’ devices. It transmits small portions of the video file over the internet, allowing viewer devices to play the entire video without downloading it.

Live streaming has become an increasingly popular way to share events and experiences with others in real time. Whether you’re a gamer, musician, or just want to share your daily life with friends and followers, live streaming offers a unique and engaging way to connect with your audience.

On this page you’ll find definitions of terms, ecoders and decoders, protocols, and other technologies used in Live Streaming. You can find detailed information by clicking on the cards.

Streaming Protocols

A streaming protocol is a standardized method of transmitting video or audio streaming content among devices over the internet.

What are streaming protocols?

RTMP

Real-Time Messaging Protocol. RTMP, Transmission Control Protocol-based technology, was developed by Macromedia for streaming audio, video, and data over the Internet.

What is RTMP?

WebRTC

Web Real-Time Communications. WebRTC is HTML5 compatible and you can use it to add real-time media communications directly between browser and devices.

What is WebRTC?

RTSP

Real-Time Streaming Protocol. It establishes and controls either a single or several time-synchronized streams of continuous media such as audio and video.

What is RTSP?

HLS

HLS is an adaptive HTTP-based protocol used for transporting video and audio data/content from media servers to the end user’s device.

What is HLS?

SRT

Secure Reliable Transport. Developed and pioneered by Haivision. It is a royalty-free, open-source video transport protocol that supports low-latency and high-performance streaming.

What is SRT?

CMAF

Common Media Application Format. It is an extensible format for the encoding and packaging of segmented media objects for delivery and decoding on end-user devices.

What is CMAFr?

Video Bitrate

Video bitrate refers to streaming speed and file size. It measures the speed of transfer over the internet and how much bandwidth it will consume.

What is video bitrate?

Video Resolution

Video resolution measures the width and height of a video in pixels. A higher concentration of pixels leads to better visual quality.

What is video resolution?

Video Codecs

Codecs are compression technologies with two components; an encoder to compress the file in the first device and a decoder to decode the file when played by the end device(viewers).

What are codecs?

Video Containers

Video containers bundle and store all elements of a video into one package. Elements include the video and audio streams, subtitles, video metadata, video codec, and more.

What are video containers?

WebRTC Servers

A server that provides the functionality required for the proper connection of WebRTC sessions in order to make your WebRTC projects work is called a “WebRTC server”.

What is WebRTC Server?

RTMP Server

A server software allows you to take an incoming RTMP live video stream from an encoder and transmux it into a playback protocol for viewing.

What is RTMP Server?

Live Streaming Latency

Streaming latency is basically the delay between the camera capturing an event and the event being displayed on viewers’ devices.

What is streaming latency?

Low Latency

Low latency is described delay of five seconds or less.

What is low latency?

Ultra-Low Latency

Ultra-low latency is described as latency of a sub-second.

What is ultra-low latency?

Live Streaming Encyclopedia