How to Stream Video from Remote Locations
Max Lapshin
Board Member of Otter Video | Founder and CTO at Flussonic | Entrepreneur | Developing video streaming software
Read the original article on our blog.
The factories of many enterprises are often located outside of large cities, and sometimes even in the middle of the ocean. Drilling platforms and other remote sites often have no connection with the head office, except by satellite. Companies always need to be aware of what is happening at their production facilities to provide proper security to their employees and monitor the workflow. We have developed a solution for drilling platforms that can be applied to different remote facilities - video streaming with enabled real-time monitoring without using satellite internet.
Drawbacks of a satellite
Enterprises with a distributed network incur high costs for traffic transmission via satellite internet.
How come tens of thousands of dollars from the company’s budget are spent on sending 1 mbps to the satellite? The signal received from the satellite does not cost much, as it is headed in one direction (users constantly receive a signal from the satellite dish). But in order to send a signal to the satellite, we have to turn the entire stream in the opposite direction. An operation like this costs a fortune. Thus, a company would need to spend millions of dollars every month on supplying 200 drilling platforms with an internet connection (this only implies receiving photos from cameras). Another huge disadvantage is that you can not understand which way the object in the photo is moving. One wrong perspective can lead to drawing the wrong conclusions and making a wrong decision.
How Flussonic provides video streaming from remote locations
In order to avoid accidents, the platform needs to constantly transmit video data to the management office. A slideshow of pictures, taken every 5 seconds is not going to save the world. That is why we have created a way to provide our clients with an opportunity to see a complete video of what’s happening on the drilling platform.
At the drilling platforms, each tower is equipped with a small satellite dish for receiving incoming traffic from TV channels. The plate allows you to send a signal at a speed of 1 mbps, into which you need to fit the traffic from all 10 cameras.
The solution we offer is to mount a transcoder that converts the original signal into a compressed one for transmission with a low bit rate (50 kbps). Ultimately, the video stream from 10 cameras occupies half of the allocated bandwidth (500 kbps). The other half of the channel remains free and is used to allow you to watch a video from a particular camera in high resolution or to transmit additional data from the remote platform.
What is an Archive Replication?
In bad weather, satellite communication does not work properly or does not work at all. The signal is weak and often interrupted, which leads to large losses. If that happens, an archive is recorded at the site for three days in order to avoid any data loss. As soon as the connection is restored, the missing data is uploaded to the servers in the office, filling in any gap in the recording from where the connection was broken.
What problems does Flussonic video broadcasting solve?
There are not many solutions on the market that allow you to work with highly compressed video. Our approach provides businesses with a resilient solution and enables video delivery even in the worst weather conditions. Video broadcasting helps to monitor the state of the platform and the activities of workers at the facility at any time. In addition to the obvious advantages, our solution is a more economical option for transmitting video broadcasts from distantly located facilities without losing quality.