Live Event Transcoding: Where Quality and Cost Savings Meet
Live event streaming presents unique challenges, especially when it comes to delivering the highest possible quality while managing costs effectively. Whether streaming concerts, conferences, or product launches, businesses require a platform that provides reliability, scalability, and flexibility to ensure a seamless viewer experience. In a recent webinar titled Maximizing Transcoding Flexibility and Cost Efficiency with Wowza, Barry Owen, Wowza’s Chief Solutions Architect, explored the transcoding and deployment options that best meet these demands.
Live Event Transcoding
“When it comes to a single high-quality stream,” Owen explained, “transcoding costs are minor in comparison to the overall delivery cost. Quality is paramount.” Accordingly, for most live events, the focus shifts from minimizing transcoding costs to ensuring optimal output quality. In such cases, CPU-based encoding usually provides the best balance between cost and quality. Owen noted that even with the complexity of handling multiple output formats or codecs, CPU solutions remain an effective choice.
To illustrate this, Owen shared a cost breakdown for transcoding a single 1080p input stream with a seven-rung ABR ladder. The data revealed that CPU encoding costs just $0.68 per hour, while GPU-based solutions cost $0.75 per hour, and U30-based encoding costs $0.65 per hour. Given these modest differences, CPU-based transcoding is usually the most cost-effective, offering the best possible quality for single-input workflows without significantly impacting budgets.
When quality is paramount, the ability to tweak transcoding settings ensures that your output meets the desired standards. If your production team has transcoding expertise, then you can self-manage the event, and control all transcoding options. If you don’t have transcoding expertise in house, then you can choose Wowza-managed deployments. As Owen highlighted, “This is a perfect use case for Wowza-managed deployments because we manage everything for you, ensuring smooth and reliable streaming.”
Going Beyond Transcoding
Looking beyond transcoding, Wowza’s platform offers a range of features specifically tailored to the needs of live event broadcasters. For example, adaptive bitrate streaming ensures the best possible quality on all playback devices, while minimizing buffering. This makes the Wowza platform ideal for global audiences, and those watching on a variety of playback devices, from smartphones to smart TVs. You can deploy your own video player for the live event, or Wowza’s own best-in-class Flowplayer.
For unexpected viewership surges, Wowza’s secure global video CDN provides the scalability needed to manage even the largest audiences. With support for sub-second latency through WebRTC workflows, the Wowza platform also enables interactive experiences, making it well-suited for events requiring real-time engagement.
Security is another critical factor in live streaming. With robust features like token-based authentication, digital rights management (DRM), and geo-blocking, Wowza can protect your streams from unauthorized access and content piracy, ensuring that your live content remains secure throughout the event. For those looking to extend the value of their live events, Wowza also supports live-to-VOD capabilities, allowing broadcasters to record streams and repurpose them for on-demand viewing.
During the event, the Wowza platform provides monitoring tools that help you anticipate, detect, and resolve issues that could disrupt the stream, as well as monitor participation and quality of experience in real time. After the event, Wowza’s analytics allow you to review audience engagement, assess stream performance, and gain insights into viewer behavior.
These analytics provide valuable data for understanding what worked well and identifying areas for improvement, enabling you to refine future live streaming events. With detailed metrics on stream health, audience retention, and playback quality, Wowza ensures you have the tools needed to deliver a consistently exceptional experience for your viewers.
By combining its 17 years of expertise in live streaming with continuous platform enhancements, Wowza has become a trusted partner for event organizers and enterprise broadcasters alike. From sporting events and concerts to product launches and town halls, Wowza’s solutions ensure that businesses can deliver high-quality, reliable streams to audiences worldwide.
As Owen reiterated, “Quality is job one,” and Wowza delivers on this promise by providing the tools and expertise needed to elevate live event streaming. Whether you choose a self-managed deployment or opt for Wowza’s managed services, the platform ensures smooth, professional results every time.
Join Barry Owen and Jan Ozer as they discuss how Wowza’s transcoding options and flexible deployment models help you optimize cost, quality, and throughput for your streaming applications.