When most people think about streaming video, they picture two extremes:
- Security operators watching live feeds in a control room.
- Or Netflix-style services pushing video on demand.
But there’s a whole world in between — where live video is mission-critical, low latency is non-negotiable, and reliability has to be engineered in from the ground up.
That’s where ORBNET’s Streaming Engine comes in — especially now with support for Low Latency HLS (LL-HLS).
Why Low-Latency HLS Matters
Traditional HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) revolutionised video delivery by breaking streams into small segments and distributing them over standard HTTP(S). It made video accessible to browsers, mobile devices, and CDNs at scale.
But there’s always been a trade-off: buffering those segments introduced latency of 15–30 seconds. For entertainment, that’s tolerable. For security operations, drone feeds, or live events, it’s unacceptable.
LL-HLS (Low Latency HLS) changes that dynamic by:
- Shortening segment size (to fractions of a second).
- Allowing partial segments (players can start playback before the whole segment arrives).
- Reducing buffer windows without sacrificing stability.
This means you can achieve latency as low as 2–3 seconds, while keeping all the advantages of HLS: browser compatibility, CDN scalability, and HTTP(S)-based delivery through standard firewalls.
How ORBNET Makes It Work
The ORBNET Streaming Engine acts as a protocol gateway and optimisation layer inside your Milestone ecosystem. Here’s what that means in practice:
- Multi-Protocol Output A single video source (camera, drone, or Milestone Recording Server) can be output simultaneously as RTSP, RTSPs, RTMP, SRT, and LL-HLS — so you can serve multiple consumers without re-encoding each time.
- Resilient Outbound Streaming With failover awareness, only the active Milestone Recording Server pushes the outbound stream. If a failover occurs, the backup takes over automatically. That’s continuous streaming with no operator action.
- Load Balancing at Scale Multiple Streaming Engines can share the workload. One stream in from a camera or server can be replicated across Engines and distributed intelligently — meaning your infrastructure scales horizontally without hitting single-server limits.
- Low CPU Usage Designed to minimise processing overhead, the Engine relays streams rather than brute-force transcoding wherever possible. That means efficiency and lower costs, even at scale.
Unusual but Powerful Use Cases
LL-HLS isn’t just for control rooms — it opens up entirely new ways to use your video infrastructure:
- Pop-Up Command Centers Emergency services can spin up a secure, browser-based dashboard with live drone feeds in seconds.
- Training Environments Fire brigades or police academies can stream exercises to large groups of cadets with near-real-time feedback.
- Visitor Engagement Zoos, aquariums, or theme parks can build subscription-based “virtual tours” — turning cameras into new revenue streams.
- Critical Infrastructure Utility companies can securely share live feeds of substations or plants with engineers on the ground.
- Election Transparency LL-HLS enables ballot box monitoring or live count streams to be shared with thousands of public viewers simultaneously, with minimal delay.
- Sports & eSports Multiple feeds can be shared with referees or analysts via a web interface — no broadcast truck required.
Why ORBNET?
The Streaming Engine isn’t just another streaming server. It’s:
- Resilient – aware of Milestone failover states, so streams don’t die with servers.
- Scalable – balancing load across multiple Streaming Engines.
- Flexible – simultaneous multi-protocol output from a single source.
- Efficient – built for low CPU usage and high reliability.
- Integrated – designed to sit natively alongside Milestone XProtect.
Whether you’re streaming to five operators in a control room or 50,000 viewers on a CDN, ORBNET’s Streaming Engine ensures your video stays live, low-latency, and reliable.
Final Thought
Streaming is no longer just about watching. It’s about using video in smarter, faster, and more creative ways.
With LL-HLS, scalability meets responsiveness. With ORBNET, resilience meets simplicity. Together, they unlock entirely new ways to get more value from the video you already own.
— Justin Butterworth Technical Director, ORBNET Systems