WebRTC is an open standard that defines a transport protocol and browser API for real-time communications including audio, video and data streams.
WebRTC is a great component on which to build and provides significant benefits in browser compatibility, but it’s not enough. It does not natively address many of the critical decisions needed for video delivery such as encoding configurations, player behavior, startup strategies, bitrate selection and switching logic required to build a complete video experience.
Phenix addresses those issues, and has developed other features such as real-time automatic scaling to handle flash crowds, real-time encoding, viewer access control, resiliency in the face of outages and degradation and recovery, and analytics. We have taken a ground-up, end-to-end approach to our system design, video encoding and network architecture.
The Phenix Platform delivers broadcast quality streams through WebRTC using its patented SyncWatch™ technology.
Phenix’s patented technology and unique system architecture is a result of our end-to-end approach and dedication to delivering high-quality video to broadcast-sized audiences (500K+ concurrent viewers) with real-time (< 500ms) latency. Many of the features of the Phenix platform include elements outside of standard WebRTC, such as: Geoblocking, Token Authentication, Multi-Angle Sync, Real-Time Encoding & Transcoding.
In addition, Phenix manages complete audience synchronization through its patented Phenix SyncWatch™ technology; supports Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) streaming to broadcast-quality streams to the player, without latency or caching; and employs dynamic forward-error correction (FEC) when Phenix Native clients are used.
As with other video transport standards such as HLS and DASH, WebRTC does not natively address many of the critical design decisions required to build a complete video experience. These critical components are left out of the standard entirely.
Even if there was consensus on player-based topics, there is still more required to create a system that can deliver a high-quality video experience to millions of concurrent viewers in real-time. How a platform handles real-time automatic scaling for flash crowds, real-time (sub-second) encoding, viewer access control, resiliency in the face of outages, forward-error correction, analytics, ad-insertion, closed captioning and other features.
That’s why we’re forging ahead with the Phenix Platform. We’ve unlocked its potential, and have proven that we can deliver to massive audiences, with sub-second latency.