Interactive live-streaming technologies and approaches for web-based applications

Interactive live streaming is a key feature of applications and platforms in which the actions of the viewers affect the content of the stream. In those, a minimal capture-display delay is critical. Though recent technological advances have certainly made it possible to provide web-based interactive live-streaming, little research is available that compares the real-world performance of the different web-based schemes. In this paper we use educational remote laboratories as a case study. We analyze the restrictions that web-based interactive live-streaming applications have, such as a low delay. We also consider additional characteristics that are often sought in production systems, such as universality and deployability behind institutional firewalls. The paper describes and experimentally compares the most relevant approaches for the study. With the provided descriptions and real-world experimental results, researchers, designers and developers can: a) select among the interactive live-streaming approaches which are available for their real-world systems, b) decide which one is most appropriate for their purpose, and c) know what performance and results they can expect.