Bringing the best live video experience to Cloudflare Stream with AV1
Consumer hardware is pushing the limits of consumers’ bandwidth.
VR headsets support 5760 x 3840 resolution — 22.1 million pixels per frame of video. Nearly all new TVs and smartphones sold today now support 4K — 8.8 million pixels per frame. It’s now normal for most people on a subway to be casually streaming video on their phone, even as they pass through a tunnel. People expect all of this to just work, and get frustrated when it doesn’t.
Consumer Internet bandwidth hasn’t kept up. Even advanced mobile carriers still limit streaming video resolution to prevent network congestion. Many mobile users still have to monitor and limit their mobile data usage. Higher Internet speeds require expensive infrastructure upgrades, and 30% of Americans still say they often have problems simply connecting to the Internet at home.
We talk to developers every day who are pushing up against these limits, trying to deliver the highest quality streaming video without buffering or jitter, challenged by viewers’ expectations and bandwidth. Developers building live video experiences hit these limits the hardest — buffering doesn’t just delay video playback, it can cause the viewer to get out of sync with the live event. Buffering Continue reading
