If you’re like most business owners these days, you likely use video frequently for internal communications. In fact, a survey by Kaltura found that 82% of respondents said video is good for improving collaboration and productivity among employees in different locations. According to the same survey, 76% said video is second only to in-person interaction, much more than written text. This is especially true of live video broadcasts.

So relying on video to communicate with employees is a good idea. But that’s only if your videos—and the network—boast good quality, with low latency being one of the most important factors. If you’re not familiar with latency, here’s what it is and why it matters for enterprise video broadcasting.

What Is Latency?

When it comes to live video, latency is the amount of time between when a frame is captured and when it is displayed on the screen. The goal is to have low latency, meaning that there’s very little time between frame capture and display, so it’s as close to real-time as you can get.

For example, you want to be able to wave your hand in front of the camera and see it on the screen almost instantly. And if you’re using live video for two-way communication with employees, you don’t want to deal with delays between when you speak and when your employees hear your voice. The less delay there is, the better, as it can be distracting and even confusing when there’s too much latency.

So, how low should your latency be for best results? There isn’t exactly an agreed upon number, but there’s a range of generally accepted figures. In general, the higher end of latency for online video is typically 30 to 60 seconds, but those who seek low latency strive for something much lower than this.

One survey found that 53% of video developers strive for latency of less than five seconds, while about 30% were ambitious enough to hope for less than one second. The survey also found that latency is the biggest problem faced by 54% of the video developers who responded. So if you’re worried about high latency, you’re not alone!

Why You Need Low Latency for Corporate Communications

The point of live video is to mimic in-person meetings as much as possible. That’s hard to do when you have high latency, where it takes 30 seconds or more for your actual movements to show up on the screen. In that case, your viewers may become impatient and confused, and will subsequently lose interest in the video.

Basically, high latency creates a frustrating viewing experience at a time when you’re trying to improve employee engagement through video. Whether you’re streaming a live video to your entire office or having a video conference with one employee at a time, low latency is critical to the entire experience.

For instance, if you’re streaming to the office and want to allow employees to weigh in with questions via a chat box, you don’t want more than a few seconds to go by before you see the questions to answer. If it takes 20 seconds or more, you might be done with the question and answer session and ready to move on to another subject by the time you even see some of the questions your employees have. This can throw off your schedule if you have to extend the video to answer those questions, and it could make employees feel ignored if you don’t get to their questions.

And if you’re in a live video conference with one or more employees, you definitely need low latency. Otherwise, you’ll end up talking over each other if the display is several seconds behind the real-time conversation. Imagine how complicated a simple conversation could become if your employees couldn’t see or hear you for 30 seconds after you expressed an idea! Both you and your employees would quickly become exasperated and want to end the video, when you should be enjoying the ease and convenience of this type of communication.

Get Help Improving the Streaming Quality of Your Video

All of this is why you need to check on your video latency if you plan to regularly communicate with employees this way. If you’re worried your latency is too high, you can get help through a company like Hive Streaming, which can assist you by providing a software based CDN that delivers video streams using the network you already have.

This way, you get the advantage of a video distribution process that uses a much smaller amount of capacity than the typical CDN. As a result, you get lower latency and better video performance overall without having to buy new hardware.
If you’re interested in an enterprise video distribution solution like this, you can contact Hive Streaming to learn more about what will work for your office!