Dacast Joins the SRT Alliance

We are proud to announce that Dacast is now part of the SRT Alliance! The SRT Alliance brings together the top players in the online video streaming industry to develop low latency streaming solutions.

We’re excited about joining this group, representative of cutting-edge technology! We’re also looking forward to the ways this new partnership could allow us to expand the low-latency streaming solutions here at Dacast.

What is SRT?

SRT stands for Secure Reliable Transport. This is the name of a free, open-source video transport protocol and technology stack that aims to reduce streaming latency. Latency refers to the delay between an event being filmed and the live stream broadcast appearing on viewers devices. Typically, most live streams using prior technologies have latency of 30 seconds or more.

SRT improves on standard streaming protocols in a number of ways. It protects against jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth fluctuation. By reconstructing streams on the receiver side, SRT can deliver high-quality streams even under severely fluctuating network conditions. It also provides customizable controls to reduce latency, and end-to-end encryption functionality.

The bottom line: SRT delivers better video quality with less lagging and fewer artifacts, and it does so faster. Check out the video comparison on the SRT Alliance homepage for a pretty stark comparison of the old tech vs. SRT.

SRT was first released as a public, open source protocol in Spring 2017. Since then, more than 100 companies have endorsed the product and 30+ companies have released SRT-ready solutions. Since it’s free and open source to implement SRT, and since it’s the best available technology, vendors and clients minimize their risks and maximize rewards by joining SRT and integrating this technology into their networks.

What is the SRT Alliance?

Any new technology needs a few things to be successful. It needs to be useful, and it needs champions. The SRT Alliance was founded by two streaming industry companies, Wowza and Haivision. The goals of the alliance are to promote the widespread use of SRT technology and to accelerate innovation in low-latency streaming.

Any business or institution in the streaming media world can apply to join the SRT Alliance here. And if you’re interested in the code, you can check out the rep on Github, here.

What does this mean for Dacast users?

By joining the SRT Alliance, Dacast has joined the cutting edge of low latency live streaming. We have been experimenting with low-latency live streaming for some time.

The industry and viewers have benefited from HLS becoming the de-facto standard for live streaming. Compatibility and quality are excellent. However, HLS does increase latency compared to other protocols. We recently introduced a new beta low-latency feature allowing Pro accounts and above to stream HLS feeds with 10 seconds (or sometimes less) latency.

SRT will allow us to build on these efforts and stay abreast of major changes in the industry. Moving forward, you can expect Dacast to remain on the bleeding edge of low-latency live streaming.

Interested in learning more? The SRT Alliance and Dacast will be at the NAB show, the world’s top conference for the media, entertainment, and tech industry. The event takes place April 7-12, 2018 in Las Vegas. To learn more, visit the NAB Show website. We hope to see you there next week!