nanocosmos: market changes and opportunities: the advancements in live streaming technology

1. Looking at the iGaming / online gaming market what trends do you see and what requirements evolve for live streaming providers like nanocosmos?

There is growth and a continuous demand for mobile live gaming via browsers. To ensure a great experience for players, operators depend on a solid solution that provides live video streaming with ultra-low latency. Only this will offer smooth interaction with a live dealer in real-time. At the same time this is one of the biggest challenges platform operators face, especially when it comes to live casinos and sports betting to ensure a seamless user experience when players are on the move. No matter which network or location you are in, any changes to network bandwidth – 3G to 5G to 4G to bad WiFi – that can interrupt or even cut gameplay. This challenge has been met with the rise of new, innovative technologies like adaptive bitrate streaming on any device. 

Knowing this is a major challenge for the igaming businesses, we at nanocosmos are  introducing a new generation of live streaming, including the brand new nanoStream Player at ICE this year. It is a key component of our platform nanoStream Cloud and now enables live streaming with sub-second latency enabling and maintaining full interaction between live dealers and players, yet stability for even bad networks on all devices, anywhere in the world, based on our unique Adaptive Bitrate technology.

On top of the live stream, additional tools and features are getting more and more important: data insights with an analytics platform, and security and protection against any possible misuse of your online live content.

2. nanocosmos has more than 20 years of experience in the audio/video industry and also expertise when it comes to B2B interactive live streaming – Why is it all about the latency and what are the strings attached?

Interactive live streaming can only be successful if latency is under control. Otherwise the players’ experience is subpar. That is why latency is cited as a particular challenge for certain use cases like betting and online gaming. The other factor that comes into play is that successful interactive live streaming is a concerted effort. Each component has to work well together such as camera, ingest, player, delivery around the world, latency etc. plus data insight to understand how the stream that is provided offers the right quality to the right targets. However, the most important aspect of latency is to approach it end-to-end for an immersive real-time experience. 

3. How does nanocosmos offer something unique to other regular streaming solutions?

Generally speaking our solution is different in terms of the fact that it is with ultra-low latency to enable live interaction for gaming and betting with large audiences anywhere in the world. Hence we are not competing with regular streaming that traditionally does not require low latency. Looking at other interactive live streaming solutions in particular, we see our head start in terms of the most comprehensive approach to integrate businesses’ requirements with a comprehensive API in a future oriented way into their operations. You can look at it as an equation. Our solution nanoStream Cloud covers the following parts of it to result in success for our clients: It is easy to use, with end-to-end control, supports live metadata, offers a global network (CDN), player, analytics and stream protection besides the fact that it is white label and can be branded to your own solution.

We have been constantly innovating. Now we will be introducing the new generation of nanoStream Cloud with new features that will ensure lowest latency and highest stability of your live content, with sub-second latency glass-to-glass, this means from the camera to the player. Updates across all key components of our platform were made to ensure the best quality of service and quality of experience for our customers and therefore to their customers as well.

4. Can you provide an outlook in terms of live streaming interactive games and how technology adapts to changes?

We have always been focussing on innovation with the belief that innovation is a continuous process. Based on our long-year experience in the professional video business with a strong engineering team, we launched new innovations like Adaptive Bitrate Playback, Live Transcoding, extended Analytics and an amazing dashboard for stream management in 2020. Now it is time to focus on extended Analytics and stream protection/ security and the player for sub-second latency. This is based on close cooperation with our clients, good client relations and a continuous drive to move forward: each step counts to get better as long as it serves our clients.

We will continue to improve the quality of service, ensuring a seamless experience for our customers and their customers. Next step from our point of view is data-driven streaming.