Does Bitmovin Player support Low Latency streaming?

Yes, Bitmovin Player supports Low Latency playback of live streams in multiple formats, which vary depending on the platform:

Web SDK and Android SDK:

DASH CMAF Low Latency playback is supported. Bitmovin Player’s Web ABR now has early support for CMAF Low Latency, so please get in touch for more details of how to enable this. You can also override the Player’s Web ABR using the onVideoAdaptation callback.

For both Web & Android SDKs, the DASH manifest must contain the availabilityTimeOffset attribute and be fully compliant with CMAF specs. A UTCTiming element for clock synchronization is not strictly necessary, but recommended. For more accurate latency calculations, it’s also recommended that the segments contain a Producer Reference Time mp4 box (prft). An example can be found here.

HLS CMAF Low Latency is not supported by Web & Android SDKs at this stage, only DASH.

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Note

On Safari browser, as long as Bitmovin’s PlayerType is set to “native”, the browser's native capabilities are being used, which means that Apple’s LL-HLS proprietary protocol is supported since Safari 14+

iOS SDK:

On iOS devices, Bitmovin Player relies on Apple’s native AVPlayer for playback, which handles and supports Apple’s LL-HLS proprietary protocol since iOS 14+. As a requirement for low latency playback, the configuration tweak isCustomHlsLoadingEnabled must be set to false. As a consequence, Bitmovin does not have access to additional details from the manifest if Apple doesn’t provide such details.

On older iOS versions as well as if the configuration mentioned above is not disabled, the stream will still play back just fine, but in non-low latency mode.

Note: Starting with iOS 17 Beta 2, low latency playback now works with the isCustomHlsLoadingEnabled option enabled.