Live Streaming CDNs Need to Know [2023 Update]
Content creators and broadcasters who use live-streaming as their creative tool of choice know how hard it is to retain their audiences. Staying visible and relevant among the hoards of viewing choices today takes more than just engaging live streams.
Today’s live-streaming scene is highly comparative, with viewers spoilt for choices. That means minor inconveniences such as buffering or slow-loading videos can cause damage much greater than the sum of their parts.
Your viewer’s experience, on the whole, ultimately decides the popularity of any broadcaster. One thing that turns viewers off is lagging and buffering. In the era of instant gratification, the buffering wheel often prompts your viewers to switch to other live streams rather than waiting it out.
Constant interruptions and technique glitches can ruin the viewing experience for your audience. No matter how engaging and relevant your content might be. Live streaming CDN is one technology that works behind the scenes to ensure your viewers enjoy uninterrupted viewing. It’s vital to have a basic understanding of technologies such as real-time CDNs that make smooth content delivery possible.
No matter how extravagant and new his content, how many viewers do you think Mr. Beast would have had today if his content came rigged with glitches and needed buffering? Not too many, for sure.
Imagine this: you want to cook an authentic Chinese dinner but need ingredients such as Chinese five-spice. Regular supermarkets don’t carry these items. What would be the fastest way to get the specialty ingredients you need? Ordering directly from China or visiting your local specialty grocery store?
Live-streaming CDNs act as stores that carry local and specialty products. That’s how they help accelerate the video delivery process. Instead of waiting for your package to travel to you from China, they supply you with the needed products quickly, locally, and conveniently.
If you were to live stream from the USA, viewers wanting to stream your content live in Australia or any remote part of the globe would have to wait for the content to load. That would increase latency by a lot.
But when you use a streaming service with CDNs integrated into the platform, your live stream can jump to the server closest to your viewer. Resulting in smooth viewing of your content, no matter which part of the globe your audience belongs to.
A CDN is a group of geographically distributed streaming servers. They catch internet content, such as your videos, from a location closest to the person trying to view your content. That helps speed up the delivery process of your videos to your viewers.
There are many possible live-streaming solutions on the market that streamline online broadcasting, but you’ll also need to consider the technical elements of content distribution. Among these technical considerations is ensuring you can deliver your content quickly and effectively to a large audience.
In this post, we will discuss the value of CDNs for live-streaming before we compare 10 of the top live-streaming CDN providers on the market. We’ll wrap things up by looking at four video hosting platforms with reliable CDN partnerships.
What Is a CDN?
A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers and data centers spread around the globe. They are essentially cell phone towers for video content. Each network location caches content, which is a fancy way of saying that they take your data, in this case, your video content, copy it, and store it at all their different locations.
Why does this matter? A CDN shortens the distance between your content and the end user. The shorter the distance your content travels between where it is stored and the end-user, the faster the content will get to them. A short travel distance also preserves the quality of the content.
The terms “content delivery network” and “content distribution network” can be used interchangeably.
Today, video streaming CDNs deliver a large portion of the data sent over the internet at any given moment. Businesses usually rely on CDNS for their content delivery needs due to the hefty cost of employing worldwide servers.
How CDN Works?
CDN delivers a range of content, not just video files. Content that is sent through CDNs includes
However, CDNs are most often used to distribute large files. A CDN uses a widely distributed network of live-streaming servers for your content.
Viewers who request content from a CDN are automatically routed to the closest server. This is called the “edge” server. A viewer’s IP address generally dictates the server to which they’re directed.
The further a user is from any given server, the potential for latency increases. A top-tier CDN reduces buffering and maximizes the quality of secure live video streaming.
The streaming speed is about more than just one’s internet connection speed. Content delivery speeds are also determined by the number of “jumps” content has to make en route. When content is hosted by an old or distant server, the content may load slowly no matter how fast the internet connection is at the destination.
A high-quality CDN can revolutionize and streamline the download process. That way, you can focus on creating high-quality content for your viewers!
Live Streaming CDNs and Video Hosting
Watching video content through any website involves a server. Here’s how it works:
Your computer sends a signal to a server requesting content, which gets delivered to you. You know that a CDN comprises hundreds, if not thousands, of these dispersed streaming servers. The same thing goes for video hosting platforms. While you may not see a connection, there is.
While you can host videos online for free on YouTube, you’ll want a more professional streaming platform as a business. The dedicated online video streaming service you choose will provide a network of computer servers to store your video content. It also provides a robust network connection so viewers can easily access the videos without any network lag.
Businesses need the best options for remote video strategy. If you stick to the free public platforms, your growth will be limited. However, if you use a secure video hosting platform and CDN video streaming, your growth can continue, and there’s no stopping you.
Many top video hosting solutions use HTTP live streaming (HLS), which is supported on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, and almost every other modern platform. It doesn’t require a plugin but instead uses built-in HTML5 browser functionality. HLS streaming via an HTML5 video player is now by far the preferred method for video playback.
In 2019, over 79% of all global consumer web traffic came from video, most likely from HTML5. That figure will continue to grow in 2021. Given this trend, HTML5 and mobile-compatible live streaming are absolutely essential for businesses.
Mslive provides an HTML5 player that can be embedded in any website or app. This video player is white-label and fully customizable, which means you can add your company’s branding, colors, and more. To deliver your video, you can utilize the latest cutting-edge technologies and long-established standards.
Conclusion
Now you know the basics of live streaming CDN, how it works, and who some of the top players in the industry are. So you can make informed decisions for the uninterrupted delivery of your video and live-streaming content.
Live-streaming is a great way to share your content and experiences with the world, but it requires some technical knowledge to make things easier. A great video hosting platform is another must-have asset that’ll help you in your journey as a content creator.
That’s how you can ensure that you only need to work on improving your creative delivery while Mslive takes care of the technical side of live-streaming for you. So you’re always ahead of your competitors and consistently deliver the quality your audience expects from you.
Online video delivery doesn’t have to be challenging and complex. Using a live-streaming CDN can afford you peace of mind. It ensures that your content never encounters major speed bumps or service disruptions due to server overload.
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