Three Chinese web giants create streaming video 'standard'
(2022/03/11)
- Reference: 1646982131
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/11/bytedance_alibaba_tencent_video_standard/
- Source link:
Chinese web giants Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance – the latter through its Volcano Engine hyperscale cloud service – have teamed up to create, in their terms, a new video streaming standard.
The project was announced at a Chinese conference in late February. The Register has been able to source a little more information than was revealed in the Chinese press at the time.
We now know is that the project focuses on ensuring a better experience in the first few seconds of a live stream by reducing the time required to initiate a stream to a single second – or perhaps even half that. The three companies say stream-watchers today need to count for between three and six Mississippis while they wait for streams to start – which is painful for individuals, and intolerable if streams are piped into broadcast platforms.
[1]
The "ultra-low latency live broadcast protocol signalling standard" – for that it is the standard's name – achieves that low latency with innovative signalling techniques between client and server. The tech appears to build on WebRTC, which the three Chinese giants bemoan lacks robust initial signalling features.
[2]
[3]
While the three companies have termed their work a "standard" and pledged it will be available to all comers, The Register has been unable to find code online. A discussion with one of the participating companies did not yield a definitive answer about when or how the project might be shared – either as open source software or as a project for a standards organization to adopt.
[4]Netflix reveals massive migration to new mix of microservices, asynchronous workflows and serverless functions
[5]Netflix shows South Korea a rerun of 'We Won't Pay Your Telcos For Bandwidth'
[6]A tiny island nation has put the rights to .tv up for grabs – but what’s this? Problematic contract clauses? Again?
[7]ByteDance launches a raft of public cloud services
Whatever the status of the project, if it can deliver on its promise of swift startups for streaming it will be very welcome – all streamers abhor latency.
In China, swift-starting video streaming is perhaps even more desirable as the nation's e-commerce providers have increasingly turned to live-streamed infomercials to promote products. The tech therefore matters to Alibaba. Tencent has reason to care because it offers a Netflix-like service called Tencent Video, and ByteDance cares because its flagship TikTok app is all about streaming video (after video, after video – straight into your kids' brains).
If this tech is submitted to a standards body, the friendliness or otherwise of the reception it finds will be interesting to watch. Western nations and large democracies have explicitly stated they wish to dominate standards processes, thanks to a collective belief that China exercised disproportionate influence over the evolution of 5G standards and to some degree shaped them to meet local needs.
[8]
Low-latency video streaming may not be quite as contentious as 5G, so perhaps global reaction will be positive. But in today's geopolitical turmoil, who can predict anything? ®
Get our [9]Tech Resources
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/02/netflix_cosmos_serverless_microservices/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/08/netflix_south_korea_network_use_fees_dispute/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/18/tv_domain_contract/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/bytedance_volcano_engine_public_cloud/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yisr4FXFnRXuNu7WWunukAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The project was announced at a Chinese conference in late February. The Register has been able to source a little more information than was revealed in the Chinese press at the time.
We now know is that the project focuses on ensuring a better experience in the first few seconds of a live stream by reducing the time required to initiate a stream to a single second – or perhaps even half that. The three companies say stream-watchers today need to count for between three and six Mississippis while they wait for streams to start – which is painful for individuals, and intolerable if streams are piped into broadcast platforms.
[1]
The "ultra-low latency live broadcast protocol signalling standard" – for that it is the standard's name – achieves that low latency with innovative signalling techniques between client and server. The tech appears to build on WebRTC, which the three Chinese giants bemoan lacks robust initial signalling features.
[2]
[3]
While the three companies have termed their work a "standard" and pledged it will be available to all comers, The Register has been unable to find code online. A discussion with one of the participating companies did not yield a definitive answer about when or how the project might be shared – either as open source software or as a project for a standards organization to adopt.
[4]Netflix reveals massive migration to new mix of microservices, asynchronous workflows and serverless functions
[5]Netflix shows South Korea a rerun of 'We Won't Pay Your Telcos For Bandwidth'
[6]A tiny island nation has put the rights to .tv up for grabs – but what’s this? Problematic contract clauses? Again?
[7]ByteDance launches a raft of public cloud services
Whatever the status of the project, if it can deliver on its promise of swift startups for streaming it will be very welcome – all streamers abhor latency.
In China, swift-starting video streaming is perhaps even more desirable as the nation's e-commerce providers have increasingly turned to live-streamed infomercials to promote products. The tech therefore matters to Alibaba. Tencent has reason to care because it offers a Netflix-like service called Tencent Video, and ByteDance cares because its flagship TikTok app is all about streaming video (after video, after video – straight into your kids' brains).
If this tech is submitted to a standards body, the friendliness or otherwise of the reception it finds will be interesting to watch. Western nations and large democracies have explicitly stated they wish to dominate standards processes, thanks to a collective belief that China exercised disproportionate influence over the evolution of 5G standards and to some degree shaped them to meet local needs.
[8]
Low-latency video streaming may not be quite as contentious as 5G, so perhaps global reaction will be positive. But in today's geopolitical turmoil, who can predict anything? ®
Get our [9]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yisr4FXFnRXuNu7WWunukAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yisr4FXFnRXuNu7WWunukAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/02/netflix_cosmos_serverless_microservices/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/08/netflix_south_korea_network_use_fees_dispute/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/18/tv_domain_contract/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/bytedance_volcano_engine_public_cloud/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yisr4FXFnRXuNu7WWunukAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
ULLLBPSS
Headley_Grange
I assume that because of the way that Chinese is written they don't have to waste time thinking up snappy names that make good acronyms.
Re: ULLLBPSS
lglethal
Funnily enough, and admittedly it might just be my mind, but as soon as I looked at the letters in your title, all I saw was the word BULLPISS. That's a pretty good name for a Standard that's not a standard, isnt it?
live-streamed infomercials to promote products
Neil Barnes
So, yet another technique to waste power and bandwidth pushing tat more quickly?
Truly, we live in an age of wonder.
"Western nations [..] have explicitly stated they wish to dominate standards processes"
Good luck with that. Thanks to the belligerence of the Trump presidency, China has been forced to up its game on the IT side of things.
Things are going to go either of two ways, in my mind. If the current standards bodies play nice and treat China as an equal (and why not ? It's not proprietary, hidden stuff, it's all out in the open), then China will likely play nice and all standards will actually be standard in the world.
The other option is for China to manage its own standards and only use our Western standards when selling products to us. That will fracture the market, although I have no idea what the consequences would be.