Question / Help How do you solve 5 to 10 sec latency on streaming?

[ygreq]

Hi guys!

A bit of a newbie here. I want to create a one to one video chat app. but there seems to be a 5 second latency. Can I reduce that to less than a second? I am testing OBS right now. I tested while streaming on Youtube and with a private stream. I did it via nginx. I used this great tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA_06zRKE4c

For Youtube the stream was Webcam -> OBS (on PC1) -> nginx (PC2 on the same network) -> youtube
For private stream the stream was webcam -> OBS (on PC1) -> nginx (on PC2) -> VLC (on PC3). All on the same network.

So like I said, for both Youtube stream test and the private test, the latency I got was about 5 seconds (time difference between webcam image refresh to Youtube or VLC refresh image. For example what I mean is that I raise my hand this moment and I see the hand after 5 seconds on the VLC/Youtube screen. Fom what I gathered, there should not be such a big latency. What am I doing wrong?

Thank you so much!
ygreq

BTW, I am still trying to figure out how to stream without nginx or similar. Is it possible?
PS: For streaming to Youtube I also used an Amazon server (AWS) like in the tutorial above and the latency was ~10 sec

 

[dodgepong]

Fom what I gathered, there should be such a big latency.

I'm not sure if this is a typo, but this statement is correct -- that amount of latency is pretty normal.

 

[ygreq]

It's a typo. Damn! So I cannot get it any lower? Like less then a second? Not even on the same network?

 

[ygreq]

I tried this service, which it seems is done with OBS and the latency is less than 1 sec. You can try it https://obs.ninja/

So how is this possible then?
I would like to do a one to one video chat setup so this is why I need it to be latency free

Thank you for all your help!

 

[dodgepong]

That is a browser-based chat program that likely uses WebRTC, not RTMP streaming like OBS. You can try streaming on Mixer using their FTL streaming instead of RTMP, and that should have a pretty small delay. But if you're using RTMP, like most sites, then this kind of delay is normal.

 

[ygreq]

Thank you, dodgepong! Your advice was precious. I searched for webRTC and found a few apps that do exactly what I was searching for.

https://appr.tc/ (with a github in case someone wants and knows how to use this: https://github.com/webrtc/apprtc)
https://talky.io/
https://meet.jit.si/

Thank you once again!
ygreq