Interactive Live Streaming Standard Overview

Last updated 2021/11/19 04:37:49

Agora Interactive Live Streaming Standard is a product designed for live streaming scenarios featuring “light interaction” between the host and audience. Light interaction in this case refers to situations that require a timely exchange of text messages, comments, or virtual gifts, with less reliance on audio or video communication. Typical scenarios include live online classes, live-stream shopping (e-commerce), trivia gaming, or live sports streaming.

The product adopts a UDP-based AUT protocol developed by Agora and relies on SD-RTN™, a software-defined real-time network built by Agora, to provide high-quality, low-latency live streaming experiences with good synchronization.

Live streaming solution comparison

The following table shows the differences between Agora live streaming products and traditional CDN live streaming:

	Agora Interactive Live Streaming Premium	Agora Interactive Live Streaming Standard	Traditional CDN live streaming
Typical scenarios	Live streaming events where the host(s) and audience have frequent audio and video interactions that require ultra-low latency on the audiences' clients.	Live streaming events where the host(s) must be able to respond quickly to the audience's text messages, comments, and virtual rewards or that require less frequent audio and video interactions.	Live streaming events that do not require audio or video interactions.
Latency	Latency from one host to another host: < 400 ms Latency on the audience's client: 400 ms - 800 ms	Latency on the audience's client: 1500 ms - 2000 ms	Latency on the audience's client: > 3000 ms
Synchronization	Excellent synchronization between the host(s) and the audience Excellent synchronization among the audience	Good synchronization between the host(s) and the audience Good synchronization among the audience	Poor synchronization between the host(s) and the audience Poor synchronization among the audience
Interactive experience	Excellent	Good	Poor
Pricing	High	Moderate	Low

A host‘s client refers to the client that calls an API to set the user role as host. An audience's client refers to the client that calls an API to set the user role as audience. A host can both send and receive streams, while an audience member can only receive streams.
The latency between host's clients in Interactive Live Streaming Standard is the same as that in Interactive Live Streaming Premium, while the latency level on the audience's client in these two products is different:
- Interactive Live Streaming Standard: Low latency (1500 ms - 2000 ms) from the host's client to the audience's client.
- Interactive Live Streaming Premium: Ultra-low latency (400 ms - 800 ms) from the host's client to the audience's client.
You can switch seamlessly between Interactive Live Streaming Standard and Interactive Live Streaming Premium by calling setClientRole and setting the latency level as low on the audience's client.

Scenarios

Together with the Agora RTM SDK, Interactive Live Streaming Standard enables you to implement the following live streaming scenarios:

Scenario	Description
Lecture Hall	In a large online class, the low latency of Interactive Live Streaming Standard allows the teacher's audio and video to be quickly synchronized to the clients of thousands of students. The low latency between the audio and video of the teacher and the courseware makes real-time teaching more effective. Students can interact with the teacher through text messages, online quizzes, and similar means to enhance the learning experience.
Showroom	In a showroom live streaming, the audience can send virtual gifts to the host. Thanks to the low latency of Interactive Live Streaming Standard, the host can promptly thank the audience for their gifts, and the audience can receive the host's thanks in a timely fashion, which helps to strengthen the emotional connection on both sides.
Live-stream Shopping	In a live-stream shopping scenario, customers can ask sellers for product and activity information via real-time messages. The low latency of Interactive Live Streaming Standard allows sellers to quickly respond to customers' questions, and customers can promptly see sellers' answers, thus encouraging transactions. In addition, the high synchronization of Interactive Live Streaming Standard ensures a consistent experience on the audiences' clients for activities such as responding to flash sales, and grabbing time-sensitive offers (seckilling) and coupons.
Live match streaming	Live streaming sporting events or games in real time, synchronized so that there are no problematic delays.
Trivia Game	Apart from providing a smooth live streaming experience, the high synchronization of Interactive Live Streaming Standard also ensures that players receive the questions at the same time. This gives the audience members the same amount of time to answer—and an equal chance to win.

Functions

Interactive Live Streaming Standard boasts a flexible combination of functions for different scenarios.

Function	Description
Single Host	Low-latency live streaming by one host. The audience can join the channel and watch the live streaming.
Becoming a host	An audience member can switch their user role and become a host. Then they can interact with other hosts via audio and video.
Co-hosting across channels	Hosts interact with each other across channels.
Audio mixing	Hosts combine the audio of a local or online file with their own voice, and then send it out in the channel.
Basic image enhancement	Sets basic beauty effects in a video call, including skin smoothening, whitening, and cheek blushing.
Screen sharing	Hosts share their screens with the audience in the channel. Supports sharing the whole or part of a window or screen.
Modify the raw data	Developers obtain and modify the raw voice or video data of the SDK engine to create special effects, such as voice-changing effects.
Inject an online media stream	Injects an external audio or video stream into an ongoing interactive live streaming channel. The host and audience in the channel can listen to or watch the stream while interacting with each other. You can set the attributes of the video source.
Customize the video source and renderer	Users process videos (from self-built cameras, screen sharing, or files) for image enhancement and filtering.
Push streams to the CDN	The host publishes the audio and video in the channel to the CDN (Content Delivery Network): Starts or stops publishing at any time. Adds or removes an address while continuously publishing the stream. Adjusts the picture-in-picture layout.

Temporarily, the Agora RTC Web SDK does not support modifying the raw data.

Properties

Property	Agora specifications
SDK package size	4.61 MB to 13.94 MB
Host capacity	Up to 17 users
Audience capacity	Up to 1 million users
Audio profile	Sample rate: 16 kHz to 48 kHz. Support for mono and stereo sound.
Video profile	SDK video source: Up to 1080p @ 60 fps. Custom video source: Up to 4K resolution.
Audio anti-packet-loss rate	70% (uplink and downlink)

Compatibility

The platform compatibility of Interactive Live Streaming Standard is as follows:

For the host‘s client, Interactive Live Streaming Standard supports platforms including Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Web, and cross-platform frameworks (Unity, Electron, React Native, and Flutter).
For the audience's client, Interactive Live Streaming Standard supports platforms including Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Web.

The following table lists the version requirements of different platforms:

Platform	Supported Version
Android	≥ 4.1 The Android SDK supports the following ABIs: armeabi-v7a arm64-v8a x86 x86-64
iOS	≥ 9.0
Windows	≥ Windows 7 The Windows SDK supports the following architecture: x86 x86-64
macOS	≥ 10.10 The macOS SDK supports the following architecture: x86-64 arm64
Unity	≥ 2017 The Unity SDK supports the following platforms: Android (armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, x86) iOS Windows (x86, x86-64) macOS
Web	See Web SDK Compatibility
Electron	≥ Electron 1.8.3
Flutter	≥ Flutter 1.0.0
React Native	≥ React Native 0.59.10

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