DStv’s big edge over Netflix – MyBroadband

While Netflix is the world’s top service in on-demand video streaming, its plan to ramp up its live streaming offering to compete with seasoned live content broadcasters and streamers like DStv could prove challenging and take time.

Netflix’s online streaming services were first launched in 2007, but its first live stream happened in March 2023, when it showed a live comedy special by Chris Rock.

While that stream went off without a hitch, the second attempt was a complete disaster.

Netflix encountered technical difficulties while trying to livestream a reunion episode of one of its most popular reality shows — Love is Blind — in April 2023.

Although some users said they could start watching the stream over one hour after it was supposed to begin, most had to wait until the next day to watch a recording.

Netflix’s co-CEOs blamed the problem on a bug the streamer’s team had introduced when trying to implement changes to improve live streaming performance after the Chris Rock special.

South Africa’s biggest pay-TV broadcaster and streamer — DStv owner MultiChoice — has over 30 years experience with live broadcasting and a decade with live streaming.

In 2023, its SuperSport channel broadcast 34,490 live events, while it is on track to deliver 50,000 live events in 2024.

“DStv and SuperSport have a long history with live sports, so we are better equipped than anyone else on the continent to handle the technical demands of real-time sports events,” MultiChoice recently told MyBroadband.

The company recently told MyBroadband that on-demand and live-streamed content were two very different “beasts.”

“On-demand is simpler; it’s pre-recorded, encoded, and cached on a server near you for instant play,” MultiChoice said.

“Live streaming is a lot more complex and must process content in real-time, from the field to your living room or phone as quickly as possible.”

“The signal needs to be captured, broken into chunks, encoded, distributed, and then reassembled on your device.”

Aside from overall stream stability, Netflix will have to tackle one common challenge with live sports streaming in particular — latency.

Many South African sports streaming users will have had the frustrating experience of a neighbour or nearby venue’s crowd reacting to an important moment in a rugby or football match before they can see it for themselves.

These live streaming delays are not unique to DStv Stream.

In a traditional over-the-air setup — like with satellite TV broadcasts — live programming is delivered via a relatively direct path to the user.

For SuperSport’s broadcasts, cable feeds are pulled from cameras in the stadium or other venue and sent into a broadcasting van, where a mixer selects the best shots to show viewers.

The van has a large dish on top that transmits the selected video to DStv’s satellite, which beams the broadcast to customers’ dishes that connect to their TVs.

In broadcasting, the delay between the on-the-field events and the viewer’s feed is around two to three seconds.

The only people who will know something happens before the DStv satellite viewers are those physically at or near the venue.

In online streaming, the mixed feed is broken up into data packets that are delivered over the Internet using various third-party networks.

First the content is uploaded to a server, which then sends a stream to each individual viewer using a content delivery network.

Once the content arrives at the customer’s destination, its data packets are reassembled and presented to the viewer.

This process takes much longer than a direct broadcast — introducing significantly longer latency from the occurrence of the real-time events.

DStv Stream delay among lowest in the world

Disregarding all the equipment, staff, and expertise it would need to deliver live sports content from a stadium or other venue — equal to the standard of SuperSport — competing on sports streaming latency alone could be a challenge for Netflix in South Africa.

MultiChoice told MyBroadband that DStv Stream had among the lowest streaming delays in the industry.

“Streaming services across the globe face live streaming delays two to four times worse than that of DStv Stream,” MultiChoice said.

DStv has improved its best-case streaming latency versus satellite from around 23 seconds in 2023 to five seconds in ideal scenarios in 2024.

Typically, the DStv Stream latency will be roughly 10 seconds.

“We’re incredibly proud of these results, considering the global average sits between 20 and 40 seconds,” MultiChoice said.

“DStv Stream’s latency has decreased by up to three times over the past year, a testament to our commitment to deliver as much live sport as close to real-time as we can.”

The company said it uses leading encoding and packaging technologies and works with one of the world’s best content delivery network (CDN) providers to reduce latency.

“Our CDN is distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa and has max capacity to handle even the most popular Springbok matches,” MulitChoice said.

“One of the challenges with lowering the latency of live streams is that the risk of buffering goes up, so carefully adaptive bitrates are chosen in case network conditions dip.”

“Getting the balance right is important to make sure the streaming experience is seamless.”

“We’re always looking for ways to make the experience better, while also being data efficient, which we know is important to our customers.”

The company said it continued to analyse and optimise the factors it could control to reduce this even further.

While some DStv Stream users may be experiencing higher latency, this could be due to the stream buffering because of their Internet connection.

To ensure you are watching the most up-to-date feed, users should refresh their browser window or exit and re-enter the stream if they notice a pause occurred and playback continues without skipping.