Firebase Storage Video Streaming
I'm working on an app that has video streaming functionality. I'm using firebase database and firebase storage. I'm trying to find some documentation on how firebase storage handles video files, but can't really find much.
There's mentioning in the docs that firebase storage works with other google app services to allow for CDN and video streaming, but all searches seem to lead to a dead end. Any advice?
Answer
I think there are several types of video streaming, which could change our answer here:
- Live streaming (subscribers are watching as an event happens)
- Youtube style (post a video and end users watch at their convenience)
Having built a live streaming Periscope style app using Firebase Storage and the Firebase Realtime Database, I pretty strongly recommend against it--we uploaded three second chunks and synced them via the Realtime Database. While it worked (surprisingly well), there was ~5 second latency over very good internet, and it also wasn't the most efficient solution (after all, you're uploading and storing that video, plus there wasn't any transcoding). I recommend using some WebRTC style, built for video transport, and using the Realtime Database for signaling along side the stream.
On the other side, it's definitely possible to build mobile YT on Firebase features. The trick here is going to be transcoding the video (using something like Zencoder or Bitmovin, more here: https://cloud.google.com/solutions/media/) to chop up your uploaded video into smaller chunks of different resolutions (and different formats, iOS requires HLS for streaming, for instance). You client can store chunk information in the Realtime Database (chunk name, resolutions available, number of chunks), and can download said chunks from Storage as the video progresses.