Introduction
Streaming Media Industry is still struggling to do low bandwidth consumption for their services. Which will decrease the cost of companies as well as it will increase the user experience. Because of that we will be able to stream high quality video in small bandwidth.
Although there are various encoding algorithms that works good to stream high quality video in lower bandwidth. Beside that, new techniques are developing to provide better user experience.
These techniques are used to make our end devices more efficient. For delivering best quality video according to real time network health. Lets discuss now one of this technique known as Network Adaptive Encoding in brief.
What Is Network Adaptive Encoding ?
Network Adaptive Encoding is a technique provided in the encoders to provide better video experience to users no matter your network health is varying. This technique works on SRT Protocol or Secure Reliable Transport Protocol.
In other words,
Network Adaptive Encoding leverages the smartness of SRT Protocol to provide a stable video to users.
What happens, sometimes in streaming media industry when we stream our services over Public Internet then due to high traffic in Public Internet our services affect for period of seconds. Means sometimes due to several reasons internet bandwidth of pubic internet vary which results freezing in the video.
Network Adaptive Encoding technique was developed to get rid of this kind of problem.
New Network Adaptive Encoding Technique is developed by Haivision. So Network Adaptive Encoding is function which we need to enable in decoder to get its benefits.
How Does Network Adaptive Encoding Works ?
As shown above in the screenshot we are sending input HD video signal to encoder. This encoder is having Network Adaptive Encoding feature. It is the working of SRT protocol.
Now it is streaming the video to Unstable Network. Which gives the output to Decoder at the other end. This decoder is decoding and displaying the requested content. This is in normal conditions when network health is good.
Now in this normal condition this encoder continuously monitor the health of the network using SRT protocol. Its monitoring is done by checking following points,
(1) Number of re-transmitted data packets
(2) How much data is available in the encoder buffer.
(3) Encoder sends the signal to decoder and wait for its acknowledgements. Now this time duration is monitored.
Now suppose this acknowledgement time duration is longer than expected then it means there is Network Health related issue.
So if network health is not good then this encoder downgrade the bit rate of services for sometime. Until network health issue is resolved. Once it is resolved then this encoder again upgrade the bit rate for services. All of this thing is done by using SRT Protocol.
Now if there is high congestion in network bandwidth. Then by implementing this technique, it will not affect the users. Although quality will be little bit low for small period of time but it will not affect the users that much. Because continuity in video matters more than little bit low bit rate. Because low bitrate doesn’t affect the users that much.
Where We Should Use Network Adaptive Encoding ?
If you are using your dedicated network or MPLS network then it will not be that much beneficial for you. But in case you are using below mentioned two kind of services then it will be beneficial for you for better user experience,
(1) Public Internet
As we have discussed about Public Internet Network sometime have high traffic which results low bandwidth for services. Which generates the glitches at user end.
So when you are streaming your data on public domain internet then Network Adaptive Encoding is right choice for you.
(2) Satellite Communication
We all knows that satellite communication affects from weather conditions. In that case Network Adaptive Encoding can play an important role in it.
When you are doing LIVE using DSNG, of speech or event then a small amount of frame drop can affect your audience too much. So it is useful for these kind of things.
Conclusion
Network Adaptive Encoding is the smart technique to deliver continuous video in low network bandwidth. It is used to get rid of network glitches. The benefit is that implantation of this technique do not add any additional latency in the network.
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