Low latency Video Streaming service like Twitch

By Nandini Ramachandran | Posted on April 13, 2021

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What is Latency?

Latency defines the lag between capturing the video and displaying on the viewer’s device. It takes time when a piece of data passes from one place to another place, so latency develops each step of the streaming workflow. The term glass-to-glass latency helps to express the absolute time difference between source and viewer, in other terms like capturing latency or playing latency at a particular step of the streaming workflow.

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What is a low latency?

When it comes to streaming, low latency represents a glass-to-glass lag of five Moments or fewer. It is an individual term. The familiar Apple HLS streaming custom defaults about 30 seconds of latency while popular cable and asteroid broadcast observes with about a five-second lag behind the live event. Despite this, some people want even faster performance. For this purpose, separate categories like low latency and real-time have developed, appearing at below one second. Maintaining this collection of streaming attention is for interactive use cases such as two-way chat and real-time system control.

What is Twitch?

Twitch is a live video streaming service performed by Twitch Interactive, a company of Amazon. The introduction of this was in 2011, as a general-interest streaming platform, this site mainly focuses on video game live-streaming, including shows of esports competitions, in addition to music shows, creative content, and real-live streams. The content can be seen either in live or through video on demand.

Twitch Streaming with Low Latency.

Twitch is all about audience interaction. Streamers should be attentive and responsive to their chat. Reducing your latency to the viewer is one of the best tools to boost the business.  

Enable Low Latency Mode on Twitch.

The latency mode is possible to enable the crucial thing. It is present in the Dashboard below Settings > Channel at the bottom of the “Stream Key & Preferences”. Without this, average latency to broadcasters can range from 5 to 7 seconds; with this average latency enabled to a host is usually 1 to 5 seconds. Unfortunately, Twitch has not told how this setting works.

How to stream low latency on Twitch?

To damage or allow low latency on your Channel, give the title to your dashboard. First, click the hamburger icon, then open the Choices drop-down menu and select Channel. 

Learn more about : Low Latency Streaming Platform

Simple Steps to Fix Twitch Lag.

Computer with Better Specifications.

Computer specification is the reason why Twitch is lagging. If you are a streamer, it’s going to be your concern. Viewers have much more problems; Twitch is just like watching a video on YouTube. For streamers, it is a little different, apart from the extreme bandwidth that is needed to stream. Having a good computer with better specifications is the least that we should have. We have gathered a list of things that we should keep in mind. Below is a list of items.

Check Firewall Settings

Firewall settings would prevent it from running Twitch quickly. In this case, if any changes happen in Twitch, the firewall disables it. Antiviruses are to stop any software leeching your bandwidth in the background. Uploading and downloading progress in streamer continuously happens and falls in the list of things that are controlled by the antivirus software—two ways to solve the problem. Either you can change it to gaming mode while twitch streaming or you can make it inactive. 

Good Internet Connection.

Net connection is a bigger problem and similarly hard to know and solve. Internet connection is a significant factor in Twitch videos when loading is not proper. Better internet connection is a must and also to make sure throughout the day you’re getting constant bandwidth. Whenever you are going to Twitch, check the network connection through the speed test. This speed test gives the idea of how the internet is performing.

  • Use a wire connection.
  • Disconnect all devices connected to your network.
  • Change the Wi-Fi password.
  • Remove the existing users.

Use Of VPN.

VPN is a simple way to fix the problem. You can download the VPN browser extension straight to the VPN site. If you already use a VPN, this would be the problem behind Twitch stream. In that situation, you should disable your current VPN and see if any changes occur.

Change your Browser.

The simple way to find a solution for Twitch lagging is to use a different browser. If Twitch stops running for unknown reasons or does not start then the problem is in the browser. Updating is also a solution to the problem, and you can also switch over to different browsers like Firefox, Opera. It mostly happens if you are using Chrome as your default browser. Chrome is famous for taking up a lot of memory and leaving little for your stream. You can quickly solve it by going to the Chrome settings and turn off “hardware settings”. Steps to turn off hardware settings

  • Open the Google Chrome browser.
  • Select on the three horizontal points at the top right of the browser window showing a drop-down box.
  • Pop on the Settings option at the bottom of the drop-down menu and scroll down this page to the “Advanced” button. 
  • To reach the system area scroll down the new page. First, disable the hardware acceleration in Google Chrome, and clear the hardware acceleration checkbox data.
  • Make sure and restart your browser by closing and reopening Google Chrome.

How to Reduce Your Stream Delay?

Step 1: Sign in to your Twitch account and select your profile in the upper right-hand side corner.

Step 2: Select the settings drop-down menu.

Step 3: Click the “channel and videos” tab at the top of the screen.

Step 4: Look for “Latency Mode” under “Stream Key and Preferences” and select the “Low latency”.

When to Use Low Latency Twitch?

Most streamers set Twitch delay to avoid doing stream-sniped. A malicious broadcast lets other gamers know where you are and your result.

Some viewers use your stream to track or interrupt your gameplay.

They were being attacked by another group who came in exactly to find you because they traced your place on stream. 

How to Add Stream Delay on Twitch?

There is an expected delay of about 4-35 seconds. To raise that time on the Twitch platform, you must have a Partnership status set in your Creator Dashboard. If you aren’t a partner in Creator Dashboard, you can also set it up through your broadcasting software.

Reasons to Use Stream Delay on Twitch.

The main reason to use stream delay is to avoid “stream sniping,” the action of a viewer or a group of viewers by using the gaming advantages.

  • Following a player on a battle game using the broadcast, makes it easy to eliminate them. It happens typically to popular streamers as they are easy to realize.
  • I am tracing a guild’s process through a global event to find it a better advantage.

Test Your Ingest Servers.

TwitchTest is an open-source program that allows you to measure your speed to all Twitch servers easily. Picking a server with enough frequency, low RTT and a high-quality rating will guarantee the best results when streaming to Twitch. In all modern versions of Windows, the Twitch test will run. It requires a Visual Studio program. This program will help to run as an administrator as link quality statistics; it can measure below admin mode. 

Test Duration tests each server for the selected portion of time; the Test Duration will not take the whole testing process to finish. 

What is RTT?

The term RTT stands for Round Trip Time. RTT is the amount of time, generally, in seconds, it takes the information from point A to the network or set of connected systems to point B. In this state, A is your computer and point B is a Twitch ingest server. The lower your RTT to Twitch, the lower your reply time to chat and the better your stream.

How to fix Twitch Buffering Issues?

Twitch is one of the most famous live-streaming services for gamers; many users complained about Twitch buffering issues. These issues can stop with user experience and may be caused by missing any action.

Twitch buffering issues are entirely irritating, some related problems all users have faced:

  • Twitch VOD, clips buffering:

 This issue can happen because of background applications. If any downloads running in the background stop them and check the problem is solved.

  • Twitch buffering Chrome, Firefox, each second, lag:

These are several problems that you can find mostly in any browser. To solve these issues, try all the solutions. 

  • Twitch playback buffering:

Many users informed me that Twitch playback continues buffering on the PC. Still, they managed to solve the issues quickly by blocking a specific IP address in their firewall. 

How to solve Buffering Issues in Twitch?

Check for background applications.

If you’re facing Twitch buffering issues, the problem will be in background applications. Since Steam can start updating several games in the background, confirm that Steam isn’t downloading anything.

Also, check other applications using your bandwidth in the background and stop them. After you stop these applications, check if the problem is still happening.

Check your antivirus.

If you are having Twitch buffering issues, check if your PC is not affected by malware. If there are no malware issues on your PC, maybe the problem is your antivirus.

If the antivirus is the problem, then disable certain antivirus features and check the issues are solved, you can disable your antivirus altogether and check if that helps. If the problem is still not solved, your next solution is to remove your antivirus.

Once you remove the antivirus, check if the problem is still there. After removing the antivirus if the problem is solved, this would be an excellent time to consider switching to another antivirus solution. There are various antivirus tools available on the market.

Disable browser extensions.

This problem would be related to your browser extensions. Many users manage to use different attachments to improve the usability of their browser. But these extensions interfere with your browsers and cause some issues.

Disable hardware acceleration.

Some features of your browser can cause Twitch buffering issues. Many users reported that the hardware acceleration feature causes the PC, and to solve this problem, you need to disable this feature. In case you don’t know, the hardware acceleration feature will use your GPU to prepare data, and this feature can be useful, it can also solve several problems. 

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Comments

9 responses

  1. Nathan
    Nathan

    This blog gives a clear outline of the common twitch buffering issues and easily resolving streaming issues and get back a smooth stream experience

  2. ayarana
    ayarana

    This blog is very helpful for me to resolve my twitch buffering issue in my streaming platform. Thanks for sharing

  3. bajiraeo
    bajiraeo

    The above-mentioned low latency video streaming buffering strategies fix all our buffering issues so that we can go back to enjoying our stream

  4. catelina
    catelina

    The low latency issues are frustrating there are more techniques we can use to increase our internet loading times. This blog gives me a clear explanation on buffering issues

  5. aliphiaa
    aliphiaa

    The steps to build video streaming platform like twitch is clearly explained and it helps me to choose a low latency streaming platform

  6. Ramya
    Ramya

    Thanks for sharing about the video streaming platform like twitch buffering issues

  7. Eshwar
    Eshwar

    Dazzling examples!

  8. Dhruv
    Dhruv

    These are amazing ideas!

  9. Hemang
    Hemang

    I enjoyed reading this!

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