If you are trying to develop an interactive livestream application, you rely on ultra low (real-time) latency. For example for a video conference or a remote laboratory.
The two protocols, which should be suitable for this circumstances are:
- RTSP, while transmitting the data over RTP
- RTMP
*WebRTC: As I'm trying to give a bigger audience the possibility to interact with each other, WebRTC is not suitable. Because as far as I know it is not designed for a bigger audience.
My questions:
Which one should I choose for this use-case? RTSP/RTP or RTMP?
Which protocol delivers better results regarding end-to-end latency, session start-up time?
Which one consumes more hardware resources?
RTMP seems to use a persistent TCP connection. But which protocol is used for the transmission? It cannot be TCP, because this could not ensure real-time latency?
What are in general the pros and cons for using either of the protocols?
I did not find any comparison of these two protocols in scientific papers or books. Only that the famous mobile live-streaming app Periscope is using RTMP.
Other apps like Instagram or Facebook are for example providing text-based interaction with the streamer. If developers want to build the next "killer application" based on interactive live-streams: I think this question is essential to answer.