Performance of Low-Latency HTTP-based Streaming Players

Abstract

Reducing end-to-end streaming latency is critical to HTTP-based live video streaming. There are currently two main technologies in this domain: Low-Latency HTTP Live Streaming (LL-HLS) and Low-Latency Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (LL-DASH). These protocols are now supported by many popular streaming players, including HLS.js, DASH.js, Video.js, Shaka player, THEO player, and others. With some players, such as DASH.js and HLS.js, there are also several different rate-adaptation algorithms that may be deployed. This paper is dedicated to the evaluation of the performance of such low-latency players and their adaptation methods. The evaluation is based on a series of live streaming experiments, repeated using identical video content, encoders, encoding profiles, and network conditions, emulated by using traces of real-world networks. A variety of system performance metrics, such as average stream bitrate, the amounts of downloaded data, streaming latency, as well as buffering and switching statistics have been captured and reported. These results are used to describe the observed differences in the performance of low-latency players and systems.