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joetesta's avatar
joetesta
Roku Guru
10 years ago

adaptive HLS taking too long to start

Hello -

I'm working on a new channel using adaptive HLS. Currently encoded at 3 bitrates with 10-second segments.
In other platforms, the video starts almost immediately. Problem is it's taking the video too long to start playing on roku. We're seeing an average of about 13 seconds from hitting 'OK' to actually seeing video and we'd like to cut that by at least half. Paradoxically in our testing, users with lower bandwidth see video sooner.

If we decrease the segment sizes we can get substantially faster load times, however I'm told that decreasing the segments will create a problem with our CDN origin's capacity (number of items or requests will be too many if we do this with all the streams).

Currently the StreamBitrates is 0, since this is adaptive is it true there's nothing more we can do with this setting?

Are there any suggestions for getting the video to start playing faster on roku?

tyvmia
Joe

2 Replies

  • "joetesta" wrote:
    Hello -

    I'm working on a new channel using adaptive HLS. Currently encoded at 3 bitrates with 10-second segments.
    In other platforms, the video starts almost immediately. Problem is it's taking the video too long to start playing on roku. We're seeing an average of about 13 seconds from hitting 'OK' to actually seeing video and we'd like to cut that by at least half. Paradoxically in our testing, users with lower bandwidth see video sooner.

    If we decrease the segment sizes we can get substantially faster load times, however I'm told that decreasing the segments will create a problem with our CDN origin's capacity (number of items or requests will be too many if we do this with all the streams).

    Currently the StreamBitrates is 0, since this is adaptive is it true there's nothing more we can do with this setting?

    Are there any suggestions for getting the video to start playing faster on roku?

    tyvmia
    Joe



    10 seconds is a standard segment size and it should not be a reason of 13sec startup time. I suspect is has to be with the encoding settings of the source feed, and/or with the CDN that you are using for distribution.

    Regarding smaller segment size, it will not affect CDN's capacity, the smaller the segment size the lett tolerant your stream will become towards weak internet connections.

    David
    http://www.livestreamingcdn.com