Question / Help Closest to Real Time Host?

[Boeruine]

I'm looking to see if anyone knows which streaming service is the closest to REAL TIME livestreaming. I know both Twitch and YouTube put in a 30-45 second delay for all their streams within the past year, so these are obviously out as contenders. I have tried UStream, and it looks like there is around 15 seconds between what I am doing in game and the stream coming through the browser. HitBox appears to be closer to real-time than any other provider at around 6 second delay. Is there anything else out there that would push things even closer toward 2-3 seconds? I've gone through and tweaked most of the settings in OBS and seen very little difference between running 1200x800 at 30FPS and something like 960x600 at 20FPS as far as the delay goes, so I am guessing it isn't being limited by my hardware. I am around 20up/2down as far as internet goes. Would moving up to a 5mbps upload possibly help with the delay?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

 

[FerretBomb]

No.

Due to the immense amount of work involved in livestreaming (encoding, buffering almost every step, replication, redistribution, decoding) you aren't going to get instantaneous streaming, period. This is not a Skype call, or a Google Hangout where the video is sent directly from you to the other people participating. Doesn't work like that.

HLS is the tech that YouTube uses, and Twitch has moved to (as it is MUCH lower bandwidth and lets them push a large portion of it to a CDN). Most other streaming services will likely do the same. Pre-HLS, Twitch generally had the same ~6-10 second delay due to the IMMENSE amount of work that has to be done on the back end to make a livestream work.

Greater upstream will not help with your delay. A service using RTMP will have around a 6-second delay, maybe down to 4 if you're REALLY close to their ingest server and they prioritize your stream (a la Twitch partner streams under the old video system).

Beyond that, it's all managing your expectations.

 

[Boeruine]

So perhaps the best way for one person not playing a game to monitor 4 others in a game would be through something like Google Hangout with their screens shared? We are trying to have a way for someone to act as a command and control outside of the game to issue real time updates on what he is seeing to 12 other people. Our thought had been to have one person stream their POV from each element to provide the leader (not in game) to get the best real time updates to put out over Team Speak.

 

[FerretBomb]

Yes, but that's still going to induce a delay. Google Hangout would have a lower one than a livestream though. I believe Skype using Manycam to capture the monitor might work as well, on a multi-person call.