Frequently asked questions
We have gathered some common questions and answers below. If there are uncovered questions, please feel free to reach out to us. Vindral is massively extensible, configurable and has been adapter to work in several different verticals all across the globe.
General
Why is adaptive bitrate (ABR) important?
Adaptive Bitrate, or ABR, is important in use cases where video quality matters. ABR is a mechanism that enables the client (video player) to upgrade or downgrade to a different bitrate/quality (rendition) based on the performance of the player. For example, if a viewer struggles playing back a stream at 3Mbit/s, the Vindral player automatically downgrades that viewer to a lower bitrate. Competitors: In most HLS setups, ABR is enabled by default. In VOD-scenarios, ABR is not that big of a challenge as ABR only means that the VOD-files should be available at different bitrates. However, in live streaming, ABR is much more challenging as the transcoding into different bitrates has to happen realtime. As a built-in core feature of Vindral, around 99% of our customers run ABR for their streams.
How does video quality (VQ) relate to latency in live streaming?
In simple terms, higher latencies translate into greater margins, as it's easier to maintain a high-quality playout, even as networks fluctuate. Correspondingly, solutions that provide real-time latencies, i.e., faster delivery, are less resistant to network fluctuations, making them more vulnerable.
What are the implications of network fluctuations in live streaming?
Network fluctuations are a collective term used to describe disturbances in networks. These disturbances affect the solution's level of stability. Packets can be lost, delayed, or deviate in their delivery (called jitter). Varying bandwidths among viewers equals different network capacities, which in turn makes it difficult to guarantee a trouble-free experience for all viewers. As stability is crucial to achieving a trouble-free experience for viewers, any solid live streaming solution needs to take these aspects into account. We recommend testing before committing to any solution, which is why we have created guides on testing that you can watch here.
My company runs a CDN and is looking for technology to power our live service. Is Vindral right for us?
It may very well be. As Vindral delivers content at sub-second latency, in sync, and at video qualities up to 4K, it's particularly suitable in use cases such as live casinos, online auctions, sports betting, horse racing, or in any other use case where a high level of interactivity between viewers is crucial. The Vindral Engine contains all the necessary components and tools for deployment, scaling, maintenance, and monitoring.
Streaming features
Is Vindral available as a cloud CDN?
Yes. Vindral is available as a Software as a Service solution, partially or fully managed services, or as a White label version with a complete deployment of the tech stack. Read more about our white label/OEM solution.
What devices can Vindral stream to?
We support most platforms, from desktop browsers to mobile browsers and apps.
Chromecast, Android TV, and Apple TV are also supported. Our adaptive ultra-low latency guarantees synchronized playout between all viewers, even on iOS Safari.
Is Vindral suitable for multi-camera setups?
Yes, it is. Viewers get fast channel switching alongside perfect sync, meaning that a switch in channels resumes playout at the exact same point in the stream; this is a pivotal feature for creating coherent experiences.
Can I sync data and state changes to the stream?
Yes, our frame-synchronized data channel makes it possible to inject cue points which are then received by the player and can be used as triggers for events.
How is Vindral priced?
We adjust our business model to the specific use case. Some clients prefer a flat rate consisting of channel price including transcoding at a maximum concurrent viewership capacity. Others are more interested in a channel fee plus traffic. Contact us for more information.
Do you support both landscape and portrait streams? We want to support mobile on both landscape and portrait.
Yes, you can have one stream optimized for landscape and another for playback. Our SDK supports fast channel switching between streams.
Do you support 4K output?
Yes.
Does Vindral use WebRTC for low latency playout?
No. As WebRTC struggles with playout on varying network conditions, Vindral does not rely on it for playout. Our proprietary transport method adds a configurable buffer to provide a higher-quality throughput.
Do you support WebRTC ingest?
Yes.
What is the expected glass-to-glass latency?
Vindral features a configurable latency that can be set as low as 500 milliseconds. Most use cases reside around one second of latency.
How much can the playback latency differ between clients?
Vindral has a playback synchronization feature that takes several parameters into consideration to provide a stable, controlled, and synchronized playback of a stream.
In most use cases, the latency between clients is less than 50 ms.
Will Vindral require non-standard ports for playout?
Vindral only utilizes standard ports that are allowed on networks in general. Unlike some competing solutions that get caught in firewalls and network policies, especially on corporate networks, Vindral uses the standard port for https (443).
Does Vindral support DRM?
As DRM requires a higher latency, Vindral does not currently support it.
DRM is mainly a feature of interest in the Live Sports vertical, in which brands that rather prioritize latency and quality of experience are the primary targets for Vindral. Instead of DRM, Vindral utilizes a token-based auth mechanism to secure streams from unauthorized access.
Vindral will support DRM in the near future.
Security and distribution
How can we protect our stream from unauthorized ingest?
To be able to ingest to the CDN, you must have access to a private stream identifier. This identifier is automatically generated when your stream is created and replaces the need for a username and password.
Please refer to advanced ingress auth documentation
for more information.
How can we protect our streams from unauthorized viewers?
There are several layers of security in the Vindral. All streams are secured by TLS. By activating the authentication feature in the CDN, only authorized viewers can connect to the CDN and view your stream. Authentication can be set independently per stream.
Can you ensure our streams are kept within a specific region or area?
Yes. We can limit traffic flow to a specific region, area, ISP, ASN, or datacenter.
We can add local CDN capacity provided by you, either located in a local data center or within your studio facilities, or you can license the tech stack and run your own CDN setup on-prem.
If the stream's origin is in the US, and the viewers are located in the US, will the streams be distributed outside the US?
Only if you want them to. The stream will only be distributed to the regions where there are viewers and to regions where you have allowed egress. Also, if stream authorization is activated, the viewers need to be authenticated before they can access the stream.
Because of GDPR requirements, we must ensure the streams are inaccessible outside our country. Is this possible using Vindral?
Yes, by using traffic rules, we can ensure your streams are protected based on the viewer’s location.
For security reasons, we would like to prohibit stream access from specific networks (ASN). Can this be done in your CDN?
Yes, access control can be based on user ASN and can be configured per stream.
Do you provide usage reporting in compliance with GDPR?
Yes. The data available in the Customer Portal adheres to GDPR.
We need to run all our channels on our IP network and in our data centers. Can this be accomplished?
Yes.
Licensing the CDN software stack “Vindral Streaming Engine” allows you to run all components on your own network. Please Contact us for more information on licensing the Streaming Engine.
Can we white-label Vindral?
Yes, using Vindral Streaming Engine or utilizing our CDN as a Managed Service are two ways of creating a white-label solution.
Capacity and redundancy
Is the Vindral Live CDN fully redundant?
Yes, the CDN is redundant in all layers. In general terms, it utilizes load-balancers and redundant instances of all services, running on several different ISPs, networks, and data centers.
How does your CDN mitigate peering issues and outages?
The video player will automatically switch to the closest available and accessible data center that is online and healthy. It does not matter if the reason for the outage is a data center issue or a peering issue on some ISP networks.
What happens if a data center reaches its capacity in terms of load or traffic?
The global load balancer service built into the CDN will automatically choose the closest available data center with available egress capacity. Viewers are not affected.
What is the concurrent viewership capacity?
It is difficult to provide such an estimate. We utilize several major ISPs that have extremely high bandwidth, and we constantly add more data centers and vendors to our CDN. Vindral is constantly over-provisioned and if you have a specific requirement, we can pre-allocate bandwidth for your streams.
Statistics and monitoring
Is your CDN monitored?
Yes, all technical parts and the performance of the CDN are constantly monitored by our team. All the important KPIs are logged and alarms exist on all important metrics. If there is an issue, our team will be instantly notified. Our on-call team is available 24/7 for critical issues.
Do you have a status page?
Yes. Please refer to Vindral Status to view the operational status of the entire service, including scheduled maintenance. You can also subscribe to email notifications.
Can you do maintenance and upgrades without it affecting our 24/7 streams?
Yes. By using traffic routing and redundant resources, we can perform upgrades and maintenance without operational outages. In rare cases, we do need to perform changes that can affect operations. In such a case, this is appropriately communicated to make sure that the operational impact is minimal.
Is client statistics collected from the viewer sessions?
Yes. The Customer Portal provides extensive statistics and analytics capabilities.
Architecture and integration
How do Vindral Composer and the CDN integrate, and how is the video stream ingested to the CDN?
Vindral Composer is a video compositing tool that runs on-prem (in the studio or the facility/site in which the broadcast originates). Composer creates a video stream that can be sent to the CDN using secure RTMPS. In the CDN, the incoming stream is either transcoded to the required ABR qualities or just passed on to the viewers without transcoding.
Vindral Composer is a cost-efficient tool frequently used within the iGaming vertical and game shows. Composer is licensed separately from our CDN and operates independently. As a result, Vindral Composer is compatible with any CDN supporting RTMPS.
Can we have the transcoders located on-prem?
Yes.
Support
Do you provide any Quality of Service tools in which we can study the playback of our streams?
Yes. We provide an online Quality-of-Service tool that can be used to view your streams, as well as study KPIs relevant to stream performance, codecs, latency, and more. The QoS tool is free of charge for our customers.
Do you provide support?
Yes, we provide support for Vindral. We have many different support plans available, ranging from 24/7 to 9/5. Please contact us for more information.
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