Major platforms have been racking their brains and constantly innovating in gameplay in order to grab traffic for their own live answer. The competition has spread from iOS to Android. At present, most platforms still acquire users by sharing invitation codes and downloading apps. Some front-end developers are asking, what’s wrong with the H5?

H5 live answer really impossible? In this paper, we try to explore the possibility of H5 to realize live answering.

What are the questions for H5 live?

H5 live answering mainly takes place in three environments: PC terminal, mobile browser and wechat terminal, which includes wechat browser and wechat applets. In fact, two live broadcasting platforms have developed mini programs for answering live questions. What are the benefits of doing so?

1. Low user participation threshold. At present, after scanning the code, users need to jump to the App Store to download the App. If it is an independent App like Chongding Conference, it is fine. If it is a live broadcast platform, users need to take one more step to enter the game. Anyone who makes a product knows that the more steps you take to register, the higher your churn rate. If we let the user scan the code and log in at the H5 end, he can be the first to participate in the game and become your user. Can engage new users faster than other competitors.

2. More convenient dissemination. The form of H5 is easier to spread, coupled with almost zero threshold of participation, easier to attract and grab new users. If the development is a small program, by sharing among wechat’s 930 million monthly users, it will produce a disruptive spread.

But there are downsides to the H5 live quiz. H5 does not have notification function. After acquiring users, we also need to adopt some operational methods to retain them, such as logging in to the App to get more resurrection opportunities. In this respect, opinions vary.

Ii. What are the difficulties in developing H5 live answers?

There are two difficulties in H5 live answering questions:

  • The video is synchronized with the answers

  • Service stability

1. Video and video synchronization A month ago, the synchronization of video and answer on Native App was a big problem, and it will also be one of the major difficulties on H5 terminal. Because audio and video streams and topics are sent to H5 terminal through two sets of systems respectively, they have different end-to-end delay, so it is a problem how to make the topics appear when the host gives the command after arrival. If you want to achieve synchronization, the most common method at present is to add time stamp, but CDN itself does not support, requiring developers to carry out secondary in-depth development. Therefore, a month ago, in order to be the first to launch the first batch of live answering apps, there were varying degrees of questions and live broadcast synchronization problems.

On wechat, it’s a little different. Because wechat browser for video, audio format compatibility problems are serious. And the wechat browser is currently not very compatible with H.264. So you also need to transcode, and many of the labels or SEI data on the original codestream need to be translated once. This adds to the complexity of synchronizing questions with live broadcasts.

2. Stable service Because there will be high concurrency in a short period of time when live answering questions start broadcasting, you need to pay attention to node deployment and avoid congestion in the backbone network.

So let’s look at the basic idea. For PC Web and mobile browser viewers, we can directly through the CDN scheme. Special attention should be paid to two points: one is to pay attention to the deployment of edge nodes and transmission of weak network environment; the other is the synchronization of live broadcast and topic. The basic principle is shown in the figure below. For non-wechat browsers, the audience needs to be decoded, rendered and then played locally. Of course, there is another option, is directly implemented through Agora Web SDK, without worrying about a number of server transmission, device adaptation, echo, availability and other problems, and support mass and high concurrency, perfect solution to the problem of live broadcast and subject synchronization.

Wechat terminal is somewhat different, as we can see from the comparison below. For viewers opened in wechat terminal, the live stream needs to undergo a MPEG1 transcoding, and then the video is distributed to wechat terminal through relay Server, and decoded and played through JSMpeg. JSMpeg is used because it is small and runs smoothly in most browsers.

However, it should be noted that the data obtained by wechat users through CDN will also go through transcoding Server and relay Server, which will not only be an extra cost for developers, but also magnify the end-to-end delay after transcoding Server and relay Server. In addition to CDN, edge nodes need to be deployed, and transcoding Server and relay Server also need to deploy edge points, so the synchronization problem between live broadcast and answer on wechat H5 terminal will be aggravated.

If the development of Native is the “shortcut” to deal with the current rapid competition of live answering, then the development of H5 is a new way to acquire the disruptive communication.

If you observe carefully, you will find that there is a high degree of convergence between some of the livestreaming answer manufacturers and the livestreaming doll manufacturers last year. H5 is the first choice of many manufacturers, but there is no strong demand for live answers. Our analysis may be due to two reasons: first, although the threshold of PARTICIPATION in H5 doll grabbing is low, but the loss rate is high, so few people try it in Xinfengkou; Second, wechat mini programs now have audio and video interfaces, so developers may choose mini programs as their first choice. However, there are still access restrictions on the live broadcast rights of mini programs, so there are not many mini programs to release live answer questions.

If you are interested in our solution, or you have any development problems, please visit our Agora q&A section to communicate with our engineers.