AVChat Software Product Blog

AVChat 3 , as all the other flash video chats out there, uses a media server (like Red5 and FMIS) to stream audio and video between users. The audio and video data travels from the broadcaster user to the media server and from there to the receiver user.

Even tough there is no receiver (if there is no one watching) the stream still travels from the broadcaster to the media server, thus consuming bandwidth on the media server and on the broadcaster’s Internet connection.

This is where AVChat 3’s “Dynamic Bandwidth Usage Reduction” kicks in. When this feature is activated (it is by default) the broadcaster streams audio and video to the media server ONLY WHEN IT HAS VIEWERS.

Here is bandwidth usage graph explaining how this feature works:

Dynamic bandwidth usage reduction in action

This feature will save a lot of bandwidth over time both on your media server ( or media server hosting account) and on your users Internet connections.

To disable it (now why would you want to do that? ) edit avc_setting.xxx and search for the automaticallyReduceBandwidthUsage variable. Set it to 0 to disable it.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 12:55 and is filed under documentation, tips & tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.