Blog
Keep up to date with all Vindral and Composer related updates
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Jun 9, 2023Vindral in the media
Our CEO Daniel Alinder in an interview with Streaming Media Magazine on some of the most important topics for live streaming today, where they discuss topics related to synchronization, latency and the future of quality.
Read or watch the interview in its entirety here.
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Jun 1, 2023Time for #STSWE23!
Meet us in Stockholm on June 1st 2023 to discuss low latency, synchronized high-quality live streaming. Looking forward to getting together with some of the best in the industry around the topic of future performance. See you there!
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May 29, 2023How Tasracing builds for the future
When Tasracing decided to upgrade its live streaming to boost the customer experience, maximize retention, and future-proof their stack, Vindral stood out as the top choice of live-streaming technology.
A challenge for live streaming-powered businesses is to keep up with customers’ preferences; demands are ever-changing and accelerating fast, leaving a large portion of the market ill-prepared. Moving into 2023, live streaming needs to address requirements beyond latency alone. Australia-based Tasracing is one with the puzzle sorted out.
In horse racing and greyhound alike, dedicated fans constantly examine each animal’s form, especially during warm-up, emphasizing the need for a crystal-clear video to make proper predictions. And for long, this aspect alone has served as the foundation when adopting new live-streaming technology. But times are changing. The Aussie live operator previously operated on traditional high-latency technologies granting stability; now, ultra-low latency is added to the list of requirements. With money riding on the races, cutting the latency down to a minimum is imperative, and so is adding synchronized playout for fairness. Tasracing has throughout focused on the wagering speculator and to keep up with the sweeping changes in expectations, they realized they needed to refine the live experience from the ground up. Going with Vindral means moving away from the inherent latency challenges of traditional live solutions without reducing stability; it means adding support for 4K quality and synchronized playout, leaving Tasracing better equipped for the future.
“The main objective for us is understanding our customers, and delivering a great service for them. In transitioning to Vindral, we have improved the live experience; our aim is to be as close to physical presence as possible. As a bonus, we are ready for the future – with several ideas in the pipeline requiring synchronized playout and high-quality video.”
Jackie Farrelly, General Manager Marketing at Tasracing.
A game-changer with minimizing latency is the enablement of in-play betting, allowing bettors to place their bets closer to the start of each race – extending the window of opportunity. Adding synchronized playout means adding accessibility, as bettors can follow the action on the go. Besides, synchronized playout enables the development of social layers, too, as races can be enjoyed across platforms.
“We are happy to support Tasracing in creating a next-generation experience for their fans. Horse racing and Greyhound are verticals where Vindral is an amazing fit, due to the unique position where low latency and high quality are both sustained. We call this the Sweet Spot; the only way to create a service that truly satisfies fans.”, says Daniel Alinder, Chief Executive Officer at RealSprint.
Connectivity and compute power are both of importance to deliver reliability in live streaming. To support these aspects in Tasmania, RealSprint selected Oracle as the infrastructure partner for the delivery of the Tasracing streams, due to Oracle’s strong presence in Oceania.
Tasracing has a history of being driven by innovation, and utilizing Vindral reinforces the commitment to build for the future.
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May 3, 2023Platinum Sponsors of Streaming Media East 2023
This year we’re kicking it up a notch as we enter Streaming Media East as platinum sponsors – a great opportunity to showcase Vindral at one of the leading knowledge hubs in the industry. Although there are a lot of exciting topics to listen in on, make sure to keep an eye out for these two:
Breaking Down the Best: How to Evaluate Live-Streaming Solutions at the Innovation Track Session on Thursday, May 18, 2023 1:30 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. Presentation by Per Mafrost, CTO of RealSprint.
The Bleeding Edge Of Streaming: What’s Left To Build? panel discussion featuring Daniel Alinder, CEO of RealSprint on Friday, May 19, 2023 1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Mark your calendars and ping us to meet up!
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Apr 5, 2023Meet us at NAB 2023, Las Vegas
This year’s NAB show is just around the corner. The five-day event, which is taking place in Las Vegas from the 15-19th of April, is full of promise as it’s celebrating 100 years of innovation. Join us for some intense days, and ping us to meet up!
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Apr 5, 20232023 Streaming Media Europe 51 list
Streaming Media Magazine’s Europe 51 list is out. We’re glad to be featured among the best of the best.
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Feb 1, 2023ICE London 2023
This year’s Ice London is coming up, taking place at ExCel London during the 7-9th of February. Let’s meet!
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Jan 3, 2023Kicking off 2023!
Wrapping up 2022
A new year and the beginning of a new chapter lie ahead. Together with you, we produced some of our best work yet in 2022, making it a year for the books.
During the past year, the total license volume for both Vindral and Composer multiplied, exceeding all expectations. We also made some great additions to our team as we’re now growing into a global organization with some serious talent. Throughout the year, we’ve been an active voice in transforming the narrative around live streaming – away from the siloed latency-alone perspective to one that encompasses not only latency but quality and synchronized playout as well. And if 2022 has taught us anything, it’s that more verticals than ever are catching on.
A webinar on the future of live streaming took place in November, in which our CEO Daniel Alinder discussed the importance of resilient technology. Take a look here.
Our Customers
In 2022, we were lucky enough to meet with a bunch of you – either on-site or at one of the many events we attended (ICE, IBC, NAB, SME, Sigma, among others). It’s always a pleasure meeting with those who build services and games on top of our stack and learning more about your needs, plans, and expectations. It remains one of the greatest drivers behind our product road maps and strategic decisions.
We’re dedicated to delivering future-proof technology, which wouldn’t be possible without all your valuable feedback and feature requests. Our developers made several significant releases in 2022, adding lots of exciting new features to our solutions. Let’s have a look at the past year from our products’ perspectives.
Vindral – A year of growth and expansion
In 2022, Vindral took a quantum leap in terms of the number of customers, viewers, and overall capacity. We added more data centers in all regions and expanded into two new ones (Australia and South Africa). Today, the U.S. and Asia make up our largest markets, followed by Europe.
Furthermore, we added four new partners to secure future delivery capacity, Oracle (OCI) being one of them. Our white-label clients also gained new ground with several high-profile events using Vindral to stream at ultra-low latency and high quality.
AV1
Together with NETINT and Oracle, we launched the world’s first AV1-powered ultra-low-latency service as a part of our offering. Check it out at https://av1demo.vindral.com.
2023 – What’s coming up?
Just as stability and redundancy were a top priority for 2022, customer APIs and observability are major priorities moving into 2023; we’re excited to roll out support for channel management and stats via a new customer-facing API.
In the past year, we added support for Android TV, Apple TV, LG WebOS, and Samsung Tizen OS. During 2023, we will continue to expand our platform support.
Composer – Forward-looking igaming power
During 2022, we released four new versions of Composer, each one including new and important features and improvements, performance optimizations, and more tools for monitoring and integration. In total, we’ve carried out over 500 improvements, many of which were based directly on your feedback.
Composer, AV1, and 10-bit HDR
As mentioned above, the world’s first ultra-low latency playback featuring AV1 was one of our major achievements of the year. The live video source of the AV1 demo is powered by Composer, running a preview of a brand new 10-bit HDR video rendering engine. Check out the comparison to H.264 below.
2023 – What’s coming up?
For 2023, we are planning four new Composer releases – with features presenting new gaming opportunities. The first release is scheduled for Q1, and as always, subscribing customers will have free access to all new releases.
New customers and accelerated product development ahead
The growth of Vindral and Composer allows us to add more resources to our teams and further strengthen our products as we move into 2023. During Q1, we are launching a Partner Portal in which you will find a knowledge base, downloadable resources, and all the information you could possibly need as a prioritized partner.
All in all, 2022 has been a fantastic year working together with you – our clients, partners, and friends. Together, we’ve delivered outstanding live experiences across the globe, and we’re looking forward to continuing to do so in 2023.
Cheers!
RealSprint and Vindral team -
Oct 4, 2022Vindral at LLB Expo 2022
Our partner Entercast Nordic is showcasing a multi-camera live stream utilizing LiveU’s LU800 Pro together with Vindral. Make sure to visit booth B.08.31 and check it out!
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Oct 3, 2022The next-gen AV1 codec
Video is taking over. Up until 2029, the compound annual growth rate of video streaming is close to 20%, as reported by Fortune Business Insight. Yet, the live experience of 2022 is not nearly as good as it should be, and it’s partially due to the inadequacy of established high-quality video codecs supported by the majority of devices.
In a joint effort to develop a royalty-free, alternative video codec, the Alliance for Open Media was formed, involving practically every influential tech company. Its founding members: Google, Intel, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Huawei, Arm, Cisco, Mozilla, Nvidia, Netflix, Tencent, and Samsung, are all heavy hitters, accompanied by many more promoting members.
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Sep 20, 2022RealSprint’s CEO Daniel Alinder in Streaming Media Magazine Interview
RealSprint’s CEO Daniel Alinder sat down with Streaming Media Magazine during IBC to talk about our latest collaboration with Oracle and NETINT Technologies Inc., the future of AV1, and how we beat the industry-wide struggle of retaining a high-quality playout.
More information on AV1 and our partnership with NETINT can be found at https://vindral.com/articles/av1-codec/ and https://netint.com/worlds-first-av1-live-streaming-cdn/.
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Sep 14, 2022Vindral at the forefront of innovation
The future of live streaming is taking shape. Today Realsprint can announce the world’s first AV1 4K 10-bit HDR live streaming solution at sub-second latency and synchronized playout, with Vindral playing a major role in the development. Behind the technology is a three-way partnership between RealSprint, NETINT Technologies, and Oracle, which paved the way for the solution’s development – available in a live ABR demo with four profiles ranging from 360p to 4K at 12 Mbit/s. The solution utilizes Vindral, delivering high-quality video at sub-second latency and synchronization at scale, augmented with NETINT Technologies ASIC-powered Quadra T2 Video Processing Unit (VPU) and Oracle’s cloud infrastructure for global scale out. The performance marks a significant breakthrough, as it amplifies the viewing experience globally and showcases the thrilling performance of future live streaming.
Beating industry-wide shortcomings
Live experiences are rarely flawless. Watching a live stream on-the-go can be a frustrating experience. Live streams often lag, buffer or jitter, and video quality can drop quickly, especially on congested networks. At the same time, the consumer is expecting flawless delivery, now more than ever. The demand for higher quality, greater stability, better synchronization, and faster delivery, highlights the industry-wide inefficiency of contemporary codecs, such as H.264’s ability to stream high-quality content over the internet. Even though H.264 is currently the most widely deployed codec for the web, it’s unlikely to perform well in the future, as rising quality in video content require more bandwidth. In contrast, the effective quality-to-bandwidth performance of the AV1 codec opens the possibility to stream video content more efficiently, even in markets characterized by extensive bandwidth limitations and instabilities.
The compression of AV1 is approximately 50% more effective than H.264 and 30% more effective than HEVC, which clearly positions AV1 for the future. Although device support for hardware accelerated AV1 decoding is still limited, the solution points to the potential of AV1’s broad-scale adoption. Youtube and Netflix have both adopted the royalty-free, open-source AV1 codec to tackle the issue of rising qualities in OTT streaming, delivering higher frame rates in high-resolution formats, including 4K and even 8K. Now, that possibility is becoming a reality in live streaming as well.
Viewers are driving expectations for higher qualities, and new live verticals requiring the compression-efficiency of AV1 are emerging. Live sports, live auctions, live shopping, and interactive game shows all make the case for the promising AV1 codec. Beyond quality, these verticals require guaranteed sub-second latency and playout synchronization at scale to accelerate the user experience and reinvigorate the field of interactive live streaming. Thus, moving beyond the capacity of real-time-based solutions such as WebRTC and LL-HLS Chunked CMAF, trimmed exclusively for either fast delivery or stability. Vindral positions in the so-called Sweet Spot between these technologies, yielding an all-around performance enhancement.
The solution is available as a live demo at AV1 Demo. There is also a side-by-side comparison between AV1 and H.264 to use as a benchmark, available at comparison. Have a look. We’ll be curious to hear what you think.