This is the first in a series of case studies showcasing how Livepeer’s decentralized video infrastructure works to power the future of web3 video applications and the web3 technology partnerships supercharging them.

Today we’re going under the hood to look at how the latest edition of rAAVE - web3’s hottest party - tapped into the scalability and reliability of Livepeer and Lens protocols working together.

“Lens Protocol livestreamed rAAVE Lisbon to a global audience over Livepeer's decentralized web3 video network. This partnership showcases how web3 video technology can be leveraged by content creators to enhance social engagement and expand reach through Lens. In collaboration with outstanding partners — RadRadio, DripsNetwork, and StreamETH — we’re proud to be part of this innovative use of web3 native technology”

Christina Beltramini, Head of Growth at Aave Companies.

“ rAAVE Lisbon showcased that Livepeer’s decentralized video infrastructure provides powerful and reliable live streaming technology on web3’s killer social layer, Lens Protocol. TLDR ; Livepeer works!”

Shannon Wells, Head of Ecosystem Growth at Livepeer

Rad Radio ☢️ x rAAVE👻

As in-person activations become more frequent for global brands and communities, there is growing demand for a stellar streaming experiences that are accessible to all.

Powered by Livepeer’s video infrastructure and leveraging social live streaming features available with @lensprotocol, @RadRadioLive brought the @letsraave Lisbon vibes to everyone on the internet.

Using Rad Radio, rAAVE empowered a global audience to seamlessly tune in and share their experience on web3 social, while simultaneously providing DJs ways to easily increase their followers and reach new audiences that they can now automatically bring with them throughout the Lens ecosystem.

https://twitter.com/LensProtocol/status/1657748919152001032?s=20

Rad Radio ☢️

Rad Radio is a decentralized live music streaming platform leveraging a full web3 technology stack:

• Livepeer: for scalable and high quality livestreaming

• StreamETH: for on-site production and seamless mobile and web browser viewing

• DripsNetwork: for in-stream tipping

• Lens Protocol for distribution and social engagement

Livestream Scale and Performance: Diving into the Data 📊

Livepeer streams are enabled by realtime transcoding on the Livepeer network (always-on, reliable, cost-effective). When a livestream is delivered to a global audience, it generates a great deal of data about the stream, its performance, and the audience it reaches. We crunched the numbers to show you how Livepeer delivered a highly performant and reliable global video stream for rAAVE’s online viewers:

• Audience Size

  • rAAVE attracted a total of 4,301 viewers during the event

  • Viewership peaked at 1,765 concurrent viewers

  • The event’s reach was truly global - viewers spanned 66 countries and every continent except Antarctica.

• Audience Experience

  • Viewer counts only tell part of the story. rAAVE viewers represented were watching from a wide variety of internet bandwidth characteristics, device types, and locations. The question is: did everyone online enjoy a consistent, high quality experience? In fact, Livepeer’s decentralized infrastructure showed strong, mainstream-ready performance:

  • Livepeer delivered the stream smoothly

    • 86% of viewers did not experience a single “stall” (aka buffer) for the entire time they were watching rAAVE

    • Among the 9% of viewers who did experience a stall, the overall “rebuffer rate” was 3.34% - just under 2 minutes for a 60min stream. However, this was concentrated among a small subset of those viewers

    • Livepeer delivered the stream quickly

      • Livepeer viewers experience a median “time-to-first-frame” (TTFF) of ~0.024s. TTFF: how long it takes for the video to show up once the viewer hits “play”

• Audience Engagement

  • Like all data, engagement analytics should belong to the creator. As a step towards creator ownership of engagement data, Livepeer’s new Engagement Analytics API allows creators and builders to explore data about viewer engagement so that they can understand and grow their audiences.

Livestreaming: Under the Hood ⚒️

Here’s how Rad Radio is able to easily create a high-quality livestream and deliver it to thousands of viewers across the globe across every device type:

• On-site, the StreamEth production team sets up cameras and makes sure they’ve got the angles they need, does extensive audio testing to ensure an optimal quality and adjust lighting to create the desired atmosphere.

• During the event the StreamEth creative director creates a video/audio output by mixing the audio of the DJ set and the video of the different cameras. This video/audio output is then put through a professional video encoder that compresses this output and sends it over to a Livepeer orchestrator using the RTMP protocol. These video encoders can be fed different internet sources like fiber, wifi or 4g, and are used to ensure the signal is always live even if the livestream is happening in a remote location.

• Using OBS (a common broadcasting software that offers a variety of AV mixing and editing tools), the production crew creates an RTMP stream, and pushes it to their Livepeer stream. To avoid any surprises, they make sure to test the end-to-end experiences before the show gets going.

• When their RTMP stream first touches Livepeer Studio gateway, it’s routed to a nearby Broadcaster node. Intelligent load balancing optimizes for geography and server capacity - so even if one server is under strain viewers are ensured of a good experience.

• After it receives the stream, the Broadcaster negotiates with Livepeer Orchestrators - requesting that they transcode segments of the stream, in exchange for ETH-denominated fees.

• Orchestrators return transcoded segments to the Broadcaster in realtime; these are replicated across clustered Broadcaster deployments so that viewers can retrieve the stream from a nearby node instead of incurring latency by requesting the stream from a node halfway across the globe.

• Finally, the stream is passed, segment-by-segment, to the viewing platform. At that point, the Livepeer Player chooses the “rendition” that’s best suited to the viewer’s device, network conditions, and bandwidth

• This process happens so that viewers can be assured of a great experience no matter how and whey they are viewing the stream, and creators can be assured that viewers experience their content the way it is meant to be seen.

Your turn to GO LIVE with Livepeer

Whether you are a video creator or application developer, there are plenty of ways you can take advantage of Livepeer’s powerful livestreaming infrastructure.

Creator?

If you’re a DJ or event organizer who wants host livestream or needs live event production and streaming support, definitely DM @Rad Radio or @StreamETH on Twitter. You can also check out these livestream platforms powered by Livepeer today:

• Beem

• Bonfire

• Mona

• TribeSocial

• Xeenon

• Huddle01

Developer?

If you want to build your own livestreaming application, here’s how:

• Create a stream to begin livestreaming content

• Reach your audience by adding a player to your application

• Build exciting video experiences with help from our guides and API Reference

• Understand your audience with our Engagement Analytics API

• Try something new like our multi-host livestreams (currently in Beta)

• Brainstorm with other video builders in our Developer Lounge

Next Up on Livepeer WORKS: Video on Demand

Keep an eye out for the rest of our Livepeer Works campaign, highlighting the key products powering Livepeer and the partners bringing video innovation to life.

Have feedback or a success story you want to see highlighted? Reach out in Discord

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