Music Streaming: Delivering Songs with Low Latency
Music Streaming: Delivering Songs with Low Latency Low latency matters as music apps grow interactive. Listeners expect instant playback, precise lip-sync in social rooms, and quick responses to controls. Even small delays can feel like a flaw. The good news is that engineers have practical tools to shrink the delay from encoder to speakers. Latency comes from several stages. Encoding and packaging add a few milliseconds, but network travel, segment timing, and the device’s buffering and decoding time add the most. On average, users notice delays when they wait for the first note or when two friends try to cue a song together. The goal is to reach sub-second delays where possible, while staying smooth under varying network conditions. ...