Application tailored latency: the way forward for monetising sports streaming at scale 

With the high price of sports content rights, streaming providers are looking for new ways to monetise these investments.  

The good news is that streaming offers providers new routes to revenue with applications for betting, watch parties and multi-angle views.  

However, streaming providers face a challenge achieving the right levels of latency – particularly for actions like betting where every millisecond counts – while balancing the cost requirements.  

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) with application-tailored latency are the answer. This latest advanced CDN technology can adjust latency with agility, and even per user, based on their need, within a single streaming service for the first time. This means a streaming application can switch between ultra-low latency for betting; synchronized streams and low latency for watch parties; and broadcast-equivalent latency for everyday viewing.  

While this sounds like a logical goal, every latency tier requires the right combination of delivery technologies and expertise, including support for protocols such as DASH-LL/HLS, High Efficiency Stream Protocol (HESP) and WebRTC. And this is where Synamedia comes in.  

Broadcast latency with DASH-LL/Low-Latency HLS 

 Nobody wants to get an alert on their phone about a goal before seeing the action themselves.  

 DASH-LL and low-latency HLS are ideal protocols for broadcast-equivalent latency in unicast content delivery. By adding AI features to predict scalability needs throughout the day, these smart CDNs can scale faster while consuming less energy and maintaining full control, ultimately benefiting content owners across processing, delivery and playback chain.  

 Expand gameday experience with HESP 

 When it comes to those all-important applications that enhance the viewing experience, six to 10 seconds latency is just not enough. Watch parties where viewers chat while watching a game, or multi-cam action that allows them to zap from one camera angle to another, require stream synchronisation and low latency.  

High Efficiency Stream Protocol (HESP) is an innovative packaging technology designed for these applications. It enables audio, video and data streams synchronisation across devices with typically about two seconds latency. 

Place your bets, leverage WebRTC 

 Betting on live events directly from the app is an important monetisation track. 

 However, enabling betting on live events at home or on the move requires ultra-low latency to prevent cheating. Even one second latency is enough for someone in the stadium to tell a viewer at home about the action.  

Guaranteeing sub-second latency is made possible with standard WebRTC technology. It allows you to add real-time secure communications to your application and ensures the reliability of your solution at scale.    

Don’t just sit on the sidelines; here’s how we can help   

Synamedia CDN’s application tailored latency, with support for WebRTC, HESP, DASH-LL and low-latency HLS is an all-in-one solution that simplifies the adoption of new bandwidth-intensive applications on a single infrastructure and greatly improves the operational efficiency as teams can control and monitor all streaming services from a single console. 

Our unique approach enables the delivery of a variety of immersive multiscreen video experiences to both managed and unmanaged devices across telco, cable and mobile access networks. It allows video service providers to scale from supporting a few thousand streams to multi-million-user streaming events, while providing full visibility and control over latencies. Let the monetisation of sports rights begin! 

For more on delivering at scale, check out our video network solutions: https://www.synamedia.com/deliver/