SVG Sit-Down: Vindral CTO Per Mafrost on the Rise of Media Over QUIC

SVG Sit-Down: Vindral CTO Per Mafrost on the Rise of Media Over QUIC What are the advantages and what's to come for the video-delivery standard By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Monday, December 2, 2024 - 11:07 am

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Delivering high-quality, latency-free live video over the internet is media's challenge of our time. Over the past few years, numerous protocols and standards have emerged to meet the moment.

Media over QUIC (or MoQ) is an emerging delivery solution for audio and video using the QUIC protocol. QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connection) was created to improve web-browsing speed and reliability, but MoQ adapts it specifically for streaming. Its focus is simple: making media delivery faster and more flexible.

One of the companies championing the rise of Media over QUIC is live-content-delivery vendor Vindral. SVG spoke with Vindral CTO Per Mafrost to get the skinny on the strengths of MoQ and the future he sees for it.

Vindral's Per Mafrost: Eventually, MoQ could become a go-to choice for verticals like sports, where latency, reliability, and scale are key.

Out of other standards and protocols for live video delivery today, why has Media over QUIC captured Vindral's attention?

MoQ is interesting because it does many of the things we've been focusing on at Vindral - like ensuring low latency, smooth delivery, and great compatibility - but it does this in a more standardized way. It's nice to see the industry moving toward something that aligns so well with the practices we've been refining for years. It feels like a natural progression, and that's why we've decided to transition our previously proprietary delivery to MoQ.

The overall process of subscriptions, communication, and formatting was remarkably similar. Consequently, we have already transitioned our internal communication to MoQ and are preparing to implement support for last-mile MoQ as well. The most apparent improvement since incorporating MoQ has been further enhanced resilience on poor connections.

What are the advantages of Media over QUIC, in your opinion, for sports broadcasters specifically?

For sports broadcasters, timing is everything. MoQ's ability to handle network issues without dropping quality is a big deal when viewers expect smooth streams, even during high-pressure moments. Additionally, it ensures better connection stability by leveraging QUIC's ability to preserve connections through changes in user IP address, making it ideal for mobile viewers. It also makes interactive features like live stats or synchronized playback between viewers, and for second screens, easier to achieve.

On the contribution side, the protocol also supports stream multiplexing, allowing multiple media streams to be transmitted over a single QUIC connection without interference, which is beneficial for delivering multiple camera angles or supplementary content.

How does MoQ improve video quality and delivery?

It's mostly about how QUIC handles data. Connections start faster, so there's less waiting around for a stream to begin. And, if the network gets shaky, QUIC adjusts quickly, helping avoid annoying pauses or pixelation. MoQ adds structure to this, making the delivery smoother and more reliable overall.

MoQ is also adaptable to various codecs, providing flexibility for sports broadcasters to use modern codecs, such as AV1 for video and Opus for audio, greatly improving the quality over, for instance, H264 and AAC.

It's still the early days of MoQ. What growth needs to occur?

A lot of groundwork is still being laid. It needs to become more standardized to ensure seamless integration across broadcasters, players, and hardware.

Adoption takes time, but the foundation is promising and already provides a good reference point for providers such as Vindral to achieve the same or better results as earlier in a standardized way.

What do you expect to come next for MoQ?

I think we'll see many early adopters experimenting with it either internally or in smaller, controlled environments. As the industry gains confidence, more tools and solutions will emerge to support it. Eventually, MoQ could become a go-to choice for verticals like sports, where latency, reliability, and scale are key. It's exciting because it offers a standardized way of tackling challenges we've been addressing for years, and that could drive even more innovation.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2024/12/02/svg-sit-down-vindral-cto-per-ma...
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