Latency remained an issue for those streaming the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, with streams on many platform lagging as much as 60 seconds behind the real-time game action, according to new data released by Phenix.

The Phenix data showed that Tubi did the best job at keeping up with the Philadelphia Eagles’ 40-22 rout of the Kansas City Chiefs, with an average latency of 41 seconds, followed by NFL+ (51 second lag), Hulu (62 seconds), DirecTV (63 seconds), Sling (64 seconds), YouTube TV (67 seconds) and Fubo (78 seconds).

“When we shared the results of our Super Bowl latency study back in 2023, I remember thinking then there was no excuse for delays and buffering, which honestly destroyed the viewing experience for fans during one of the biggest sporting events of the year,“ said Jed Corenthal, former NFL director of marketing and now chief marketing of Phenix.

(Read: Real-Time Streaming Gains Foothold In Sports Production, Online Betting)

“Unfortunately now, 728 days later, and I’m still saying the exact same thing. Fans are spending more than ever on way more services than they need to keep up with exclusivity rights and yet the experience on each continues to be subpar. My appeal to streaming platforms in 2025 is to please make the experience better for fans. I do believe this year is the tipping point, and many fans will cut the streaming cord if we don’t see progress.”

For the study, Phenix collected 62 data points benchmarking latency across seven common streaming platforms on a range of devices and operating systems. For a comprehensive view of latency from the field of play to the average viewer, Phenix benchmarked latency of over-the-air broadcast (OTA), cable and satellite against individuals inside the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans during the Super Bowl game. Phenix then measured the delay from these benchmarked signals to the seven platforms across various U.S. geographies. By combining these measurements, Phenix said, it is able to provide a more accurate picture of the average latency behind the action on the field and of drift for each of the streaming services.

The study also found a wide range in latency issues during the game.

“For the last six years, our Super Bowl latency study has uncovered one of the major issues holding back streaming from being the beacon we all expected when we cut the cord.” Phenix CEO Roy Reichbach said. “More than just being annoying for fans, the business implications around these latency issues are enormous. As a live event buffers or is over one minute behind what is actually happening on the field, things like real-time betting, second-screen viewing, peer interactions and live fan engagements cannot happen. These features are the future of sports viewing and sports culture. The playing field (pun intended) is uneven and each season we deny fans what they’re looking for, frustration grows and networks miss out on massive opportunities. Thankfully the technology exists to remove this barrier, we just have to stop being afraid to use it.”

CHICAGO—Streaming tech provider Phenix Real Time Solutions has joined the SRT Alliance, a group working to advance technologies for lower latency internet video transport.

Phenix is joining the SRT Alliance as part of the company’s overall pursuit to deliver streams with sub-second latency without sacrificing quality or the ability to serve large audiences, including in-person and online betting establishments, sports franchises, and broadcast companies. 

By joining the Alliance and integrating the open-source Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) technology into its platform, Phenix is certified as SRT Ready for ingest into its network, the company said. 

This increases compatibility with existing encoders and contribution frameworks, allowing Phenix’s WebRTC architecture to integrate faster into existing technology stacks and work with other developers and companies to more reliably deliver content across the most inconsistent or unpredictable networks. 

“It’s next to impossible for HTTP architectures to deliver sub-second latency while also scaling to millions of concurrent viewers,” said Dr. Stefan Birrer, chief software architect and co-founder, Phenix. “By integrating SRT into our solution, we’re able to improve compatibility with many of the leading encoders for faster contribution and content delivery across our network.”

The SRT Alliance, founded by Haivision in April 2017, already has more than 500 members. Its mission is to overcome the challenges of low-latency live streaming by supporting the collaborative development of SRT (Secure Reliable Transport). SRT is a free, open source video transport protocol and technology stack originally developed and pioneered by Haivision, which enables the delivery of secure, high-quality low-latency video across the public internet. 

“Interactive streaming applications require real-time, sub-second video that doesn’t buffer and provides greater options of interactivity,” said Peter Maag, CMO, Haivision. “By joining the SRT Alliance, Phenix brings a unique perspective and the rich experience of delivering real-time video at scale and across the public internet. We look forward to their contributions to the community.”

Millions of fans already enjoy exciting real-time streaming opportunities powered by Phenix’s technology. In March, Phenix powered streams of the 2021 Cheltenham Festival, setting records for the number of concurrent viewers (500,000) — all able to watch and participate in betting across any device, in real-time. 

Phenix is also continuing its relationship with Edgecast (formally Verizon Media) and Yahoo! Sports as it delivers watch-together and multi-camera experiences for the 2021–2022 NFL season.

For more information about Phenix’s SRT capabilities, please visit http://phenixrts.com.

NEW YORK—Day-after conversations around the water cooler about sporting events inevitably come around to “did you see that play” or “call”—and when it comes to the Super Bowl, “commercial.”

However, no one ever thinks to ask “when did you see that” –no one except for real-time streaming specialist Phenix. The company, which has created its own spin on WebRTC to power live video streaming at scale with about 500 milliseconds of latency, is keenly aware of the when, especially when it comes to Super Bowl LIII.

“On average, there was a streaming delay ranging from 30 to 47 seconds depending on the platform,” says Jed Corenthal, CMO of Phenix.

To arrive at that finding, Phenix compared the time plays actually occurred on the field at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta to when the same play began on eight platforms used to stream the game, including the CBS Sports App, NFL.com, Xfinity, CBSSports.com, YouTube TV, the NFL App, CBS All Access and the Yahoo Sports App.

The company released its findings Feb. 5 in the form of two online graphs, one laying out the averages for measured lag behind real-time for Super Bowl 2019 and the other presenting the measured audience drift –or ranges of lag for viewers on the same platform—for the game.

More than 800 data points were collected for the eight streams on multiple devices, such as laptop computers, smartphones and tablets. Each was compared by measuring the delay behind the over-the-air, cable or satellite TV signal.

To establish the start times for each sampled play, a Phenix researcher in the stadium reported on a cellphone when measured plays actually began, explains Corenthal, adding that using the cellphone created about 40 to 50 milliseconds of latency.

Some 20 people around the country using different digital devices and streaming platforms then recorded when the same play began on the streaming devices. Measurements were taken throughout the game.

Phenix found that the CBS Sports App performed best among the streaming platforms with an average of 28.2 seconds of latency compared to the on-field game. On the other end of the continuum was the Yahoo Sports App with an average of 46.7 seconds of latency.

The study also looked at audience drift, or the range of lag viewers on the same platform experienced. YouTube TV recorded the greatest drift with 107.8 seconds, while the NFL App with 69.3 seconds recorded the least drift.

The culprit is HLS, or HTTP Live Streaming, which “wasn’t designed for real time,” says Corenthal.

“They [HLS-based platforms] may be able to do things to it that alter the latency of their particular stream, but when you add up the encoding, the content delivery and all of the points along the way, what happens in HLS is you are kind of relegated to a certain amount of latency because that is the way the technology is built,” he says.

Latency may or may not be a problem for viewers, but any Super Bowl fan who was watching the game on traditional TV and also turning to a smartphone or tablet for the game likely saw the effects of streaming latency firsthand.

“Look, for some people that’s OK. It’s not a big deal. But what we are seeing is the general fan is getting tired of that; tired of streams that are behind; streams that are buffering,” says Corenthal.

“The good news is most of the streams had pretty good quality, and quality and scale have been the first two pegs of the triangle that have been somewhat solved. It’s when latency is added –all three pegs of quality, scale and latency—that’s where these platforms come up a bit short in our estimation.”

More information is available on the Phenix website.

AMSTERDAM-- Phenix, a global end-to-end real-time video solutions provider, recently showcased its new solution that offers half-second latency for live video streaming at IBC2018 in Amsterdam. The new adaptive bitrate technology features a real-time transcoding engine that creates multiple bitrate renditions within a single stream and is maximized when multiple viewers are watching content through a single stream simultaneously.

“Adaptive bitrate solutions are a requirement in the real-time market, yet it’s still surprisingly uncommon,” said Bill Wishon, chief product officer at Phenix. “It’s like the ‘Goldilocks’ scenario where it fits the individual user’s needs just right. By adding adaptive bitrate to our platform, we’re making it possible to achieve a true real-time viewing experience at the best quality – especially important in industries where lag time is not an option, like sports, esports, sports betting, and auctions. This is the future of real-time streaming and it’s going to take the industry by storm as viewers become more demanding and aware of the level of latency and quality they should be receiving.”

For more information visit: phenixrts.com.