Frequently Asked Questions

QUESTION:

What is Adaptive Bitrate and how do I enable it?

ANSWER:

Our Adaptive Bitrate feature allows the publisher to detect the best bitrate that the subscriber can handle in order to provide for the smoothest streaming experience.  This will allow the publishing client to adjust to the available bandwidth and send the highest possible quality. As such, Adaptive Bitrate is enabled exclusively by the publisher.  When using Adaptive Bitrate Publishing in Red5 Pro, the R5Configuration.bitrate property becomes the highest bitrate the publisher attempts to use.  You will want to make that number high if you would like those with better networks to get the best experience.   

To enable this feature, please see our examples for iOS and Android. 

Built-in stream optimizations: 

We drop frames to keep up with real-time on slower bandwidth connections, and we manage to prioritize the audio channel so that it always keeps up. If the connection gets really bad, then we automatically switch to audio only. We also send messages through the SDK that allows you to notify the user through your app when these frame drops and switches occur.

Please note:

For the best quality, you need to set the resolution to an appropriate size for the bitrate setting you’ve chosen.