StreamApi
Responsible Streaming is an approach that has three objectives :
- to measure GHG emissions from streaming
- to reduce these emissions
- to contribute to the sequestration of carbon
The need for responsible streaming
The environmental footprint of digital is equivalent to that of civil air transport. Video accounts for 80% of data transfer on the Internet (There is also abusive use of the term “bandwidth consumption”) and 20% of greenhouse gas emissions from digital technology. This transfer is constantly growing with the multiplication of smartphones, the explosion of social networks, the increase in the resolution of streams and the delinearization of television.
A responsible or sustainable attitude consists in showing moderation, avoiding excesses, using appropriate means to satisfy a need.
The public or consumers cannot be expected to voluntarily do without a comfort offered to them, even if they know it is superfluous. Who would choose to degrade the playback quality of a video to reduce data flow and associated greenhouse gas emissions? Individual gestures are often perceived as insignificant. Only a group dynamic can motivate people to change their behaviour, with the perception their action will become more efficient.
With the best will in the world, individuals can only achieve by their actions a quarter of the GHG emission reduction target set by the Paris agreement. The target can only be achieved if companies and administrations provide the remaining three-quarters. In addition to “doing their part” in the effort, they can set virtuous examples and educate individuals to adopt responsible behaviour.
With this note, we propose “actions for the environment” for companies and organisations that manage and distribute online videos. Here are at least three good reasons to adopt them:
- savings to be made through more digital sobriety
- commitments to be credited to the CSR balance sheet
- a strong message in internal or external communication
The impact of the various proposed actions varies greatly, but none of them are useless. It is the small streams that make the big rivers. Small gestures of low impact are often the simplest to carry out and their symbolic value can be very strong.
Good practices applicable by producers and broadcasters of digital content.
| Description | Example | Application |
Production of digital content |
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| Adapt the quality (resolution and frame rate) to the nature or destination of the content | No need to produce in a resolution too high to be perceptible. For example, it is useless to exceed 720p for a program intended to be seen on small screens or which does not justify a higher definition (conferences, interviews…). Studies show that a 4K picture on a large TV set is only recognized if you stand at a distance of less than 1.3 times the screen width… which is rarely the case. There is no need to encode at more than 15 fps for a screencast or more than 25 fps for footage with little action. |
Streamlike recommends “mezzanine formats” for source videos uploaded to the platform or for live streams, to optimize file quality and size according to the nature and destination of the program. |
Management of digital content |
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| Stay in control of your publications, with the possibility of deleting them at any time. |
Avoid allowing media to be downloaded, so that they don’t recirculate endlessly without your knowledge. Prefer a single publication and the sharing of a link for streaming playback. This way, you keep control of the broadcast and you can easily identify media that have become obsolete and delete them everywhere. Avoid publishing your videos on social networks that become co-owners and where they will be kept for life even when they have become obsolete. In practice, no one deletes these videos… which are difficult to retrieve. |
By using a platform like Streamlike to centralize the management of your media content, you simply integrate or share links to your media, whether in web pages, emails, instant messaging or social networks. |
| Limit the number of encodings to what is strictly necessary. |
The most recent codecs are optimized for very high definitions (4K, 8K…) and allow a significant reduction of the encoding rate without loss of quality, but they do not work with all browsers and OSes. This can lead to multiply encodings in order to always have a compatible version. For classic web uses it is preferable to limit yourself to the only standard which is H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC). The more powerful codecs (AV1, and H.265 (MPEG-4 HEVC) are still very little supported but should be considered for very high quality broadcasts. |
Streamlike encodes only in H.264 but allows optional encoding in H.265, although Safari is currently the only browser to support it. |
| Measure and reduce the carbon impact of your digital activity. |
Digital technology accounts for 4% of the world’s GHG emissions and is expected to account for 8% in 2025. Through the electricity used by infrastructures, networks and terminals, online video is responsible for 20% of these emissions. If we can quantify the GHG emissions linked to our digital activity, we can observe the effect of the measures taken to reduce them and we can contribute to the storage of the volume of CO2. Responsible streaming can be virtually carbon-free. |
The Streamlike console details the daily volumes of GHGs emitted by servers, networks and terminals for the distribution of your media. You can follow their evolution and know the amounts that will be compensated by CO2 sequestration. |
| Archive or delete videos that are no longer being watched or are no longer current. | There is no need to keep videos that are no longer being viewed on high-availability storage. The solutions are to download them to archive them locally (hard disk, USB key, SD card, DVD…) or to move them to a “cold” online storage (server only restarted on request). | On Streamlike, the archiving of a video moves its source to a cold storage, with the possibility to search and unarchive it at any time. |
Integration and broadcasting of digital content (sustainable interaction design) |
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| Use adaptive streaming instead of downloading |
A basic and universal integration consists in integrating a video file (for example of type mp4) between “video” tags. When this is done, the file is downloaded as soon as you start playing it. If the “preload” parameter is added to reduce startup latency, about thirty seconds of video will be systematically transmitted even if the video is not played. Preload is a comfort that has a high price in unnecessary data transfer. On sites with very high traffic, one can reach very large volumes of data transferred while the videos are seen very little. Adaptive streaming makes it possible to transmit only the data actually read, at a rate “adapted” to the Internet connection. This ensures that both too much data will not be sent and that playback will never be interrupted. From an environmental point of view, downloading is only justified for media that will be saved locally and replayed several times. For example, it is better to download music that you listen to often (this is the principle of podcasting) than to listen to it online, in streaming. |
Since its origin in 2006 and before it was a standard, Streamlike was already doing “adaptive http streaming”. Saving “bandwidth” was already the main goal. Other benefits are the security of the stream and the possibility to know exactly what has been seen and at what rate, for each second of a media. The Streamlike player plays media in adaptive streaming. Media can exceptionally be downloaded when embedded in a podcast stream (audio or video). |
| Avoid addictive design and auto-playing videos |
Addictive design is all about offering you more and more videos that might be of interest to you, either remotely related or unrelated to what you came to see. It’s also about using catchy catchphrases to get you to play them. The use of autoplay is also debatable because it “forces the hand” of the user by imposing content that he/she might not have chosen to play. It is also a means of transferring a lot of unnecessarily data over the networks. |
Predefined settings can be combined and applied to the Streamlike player for optimal eco-design. For example, it is possible to block the autoplay, limit the playback rate (“throttling”), and reduce the weight of the player (“landing” mode) at the same time… In webtvs, content associations are only made on the basis of shared keywords to ensure relevance. |
| Limit the playback bitrate when very high quality is not required |
It is possible to voluntarily reduce the quality (bit rate) of a video by adjusting it from the player, but very few Internet users know, think about it or want to do it! When the subject does not command high definition playback, when the video is played on a small screen or when the video is not played in full screen, it is up to the broadcaster to set a bit rate limit and not to offer the higher bit rates that would eventually be available. |
A setting in the Streamlike player allows you to set an upper limit on the bitrate to be played. For example, a limit of 3000 Kbps will hide the HD and 4K versions that may be available for a video. |
| Cut the video stream if it’s not being watched | It’s not uncommon to listen to a lecture, training video or music video while the browser tab is no longer active. The sound is heard, but the image is no longer seen, even though it accounts for around 97% of the volume of data transmitted. | A setting in the Streamlike player allows only the audio stream to be played if the video stream is not visible. As soon as the tab where the video is playing becomes active again, the video stream is played again. |
Prefer sharing over posting on social networks and instant messengers |
To make your content visible on social networks, you can either host it in one place and share a link that will read it from there, or publish it (i.e. send the files) on each social network. For example, you can host your videos on YouTube or Streamlike and share the links on Facebook, LinkedIn, instant messengers etc… When doing so, the player features are the same everywhere and all viewing statistics arrive at the same place. Above all, you keep the possibility to privatize, deactivate or delete your content at any time, wherever it has been shared. If you publish your videos directly on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Yammer, Chatter, Whatsapp etc., not only do you multiply the transcoding and storage, but you risk losing track of them and not being able to remove them when they become obsolete. |
Videos hosted on Streamlike can be shared across all networks as links, thanks to their preview metadata. If needed, they can also be published to YouTube with a single click. In this case, any action on the version hosted on Streamlike is automatically applied to its clone on YouTube. |
In summary, here is the Responsible Streaming approach advocated by Streamlike :
- Measure the GHG emissions related to your digital business. Seek to reduce them and contribute to CO2 sequestration to the extent of your emissions.
- Combine all the eco-design solutions at your disposal: adaptive streaming, bandwidth limitation, no autoplay, reduction of preloaded data (player and media), relevance of content associations etc…
- Move little consulted media to a “cold” storage.
- On social networks and messaging, share rather than publish.
Individual good practices
On an individual level, don’t be under any illusions: even if you make an effort, you will always continue to consume more digital. But it should not stop you from doing your best.
What everyone can do is to weigh the pros and cons, the benefits and consequences of each of their actions. It’s not a question of giving up all the comforts of digital, but of using them wisely.
For example, if you buy a movie on VOD, don’t force yourself to watch it on your smartphone on the grounds that it uses 10 times less energy than your TV, 3 times less than a laptop or 1.6 times less than a tablet. On the other hand, avoid flying to London for a weekend…
Let’s start with an observation: You won’t necessarily have the choice to consume less data and use less energy because the offer of services and equipment will prevent you from doing so.
Virtually all new television sets have a 4K resolution while there are very few programmes at this resolution. A 4K TV consumes 30% more energy than an HDTV. The amount of data broadcast is 2.3 times greater. And 8K is coming…
Internet connection speed has long been a limiting factor. With fiber and the arrival of 5G, the volume of data will continue to increase, requiring more and more network infrastructure and data centers.
This video is bad for climate change…
Video produced by The Shift Project to warn about the necessary changes in individual behaviors:
Pay streaming (SVOD Platforms)
It is important to distinguish between videos or musics for which you pay and those that are free.
If you pay for a subscription to a VOD or audio streaming platform, you are its customer and you can demand that it practices sustainable streaming. If you are a “binge watcher”, you know that it is not without impact for the planet but you can influence the platform you have subscribed to so that it contributes to the decarbonation of its activity. Not easy, but possible: You buy a service, not a right to pollute, and you have a say on its environmental policy. In 2017, Greenpeace compared the “cleanliness” of many services and applications: http://www.clickclean.org/france/fr/
As a user, you can at least choose a stream quality suitable for your terminal: Do not activate 4K if your TV, computer or tablet only displays HD.
Free videos
As far as free videos on social networks are concerned, you are the product. The authors count on you to ensure their distribution. Either they get paid on your personal data and advertising, or the social network takes advantage of the audience you offer him, always by exploiting your personal data and through advertising.
The more you watch “free” videos or the more you share them, the warmer the planet gets because no one cares about absorbing the greenhouse gases you have emitted or contributed to emitting.
Don’t succumb to all the videos that flood the social networks and entice you with “sensational”, “you won’t believe it”, “just hilarious”, “watch it to the end, the fall is just extraordinary”… By watching them, you’re contributing to global warming. Consider well that in the end, the one who generates greenhouse gases is the one who watches, not the one who broadcasts. If you don’t watch, the video is not broadcast!
Disable video autoplay on your social network walls. Avoid sites that play videos you didn’t request while you came looking for something else. As for video ads, they also have an environmental impact but their existence is generally the counterpart of free content.
Before you share or publish a video, think about whether it’s an environmentally neutral act and ask yourself if it’s worth the price. By sharing a video, you lead your friends and followers to emit GHGs when they may not be aware of it. These emissions become exponential if they in turn share the video. Viral videos behave like viruses: you can spread them and be responsible for the environmental consequences of your sharing, or you can stop their spread.
As an example, a 30 second video of a dog on a skateboard in low quality (500 Kbps) shared 1 million times will emit about 320 Kg of CO2 or the equivalent of a 1500 Km drive in a car.
Other effective actions
The University of Bristol has quantified the impact of a fairly common practice: music videos account for 27% of what is viewed on YouTube, but between 10 and 50% is simply listened to without being watched. If audio were broadcast alone, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be between 100 and 600 KT of CO2 equivalent per year, or between 0.5 and 3.5 days of traffic for the entire French passenger car fleet! The lesson to be learned is that it is better to listen to music on music platforms than on YouTube. The volume of data transferred – and the environmental impact – will be about 30 times less.
When a TV channel is broadcast on DTT, satellite and on the internet (via its site, an application or your box), prefer DTT or satellite. Via the internet, distribution is individual, whereas in terrestrial reception, the energy used is the same regardless of the number of viewers.
The case of streaming video games
This is not strictly speaking online video, but the impact of network games is even worse. When the data rate of a Full HD video is around 8 Mbps on Netflix (and it’s already high…), it’s double for a game like Red Redemption2 streamed at 60 fps. In 4K, the bitrate increases to 45 Mbps, which is almost 6 times more than an HD video! The environmental impact is proportional. Imagine the impact of future games in 8K, HDR, at 120 fps…
The video game industry claims to be concerned about the issue with the United Nations’ “Playing for the Planet” initiative. Don’t be fooled: their plan is to offer a “low consumption” mode on consoles -which nobody will use-, “to integrate environmental themes into video games” or “to disseminate messages related to environmental protection”, for effects to be observed in 2030!
The ultimate illustration of today’s excesses is this incentive video (addictive design) seen on a social network, which invites you to watch, download or share a demo video of a game in 8K: 16 GB for 15 minutes of video, i.e. a bit rate of 149 Mbps, 20 times higher than that of a Full HD video! Is it really necessary to click?
Sobriety or degrowth
In the end, is streaming bad? Is digital decay the solution?
Streaming a movie consumes about as much energy as producing a DVD and sending it by mail. On the other hand, less non-recyclable waste is generated.
Between 2000 and 2016, the dematerialization of music avoided the use of 53,000 tons of plastic… but total carbon emissions increased.
The issue is not to eliminate digital technologies from our lives to save the planet, but to rethink the way we use them.
“Sustainable streaming” is as much a matter of individual behaviour as it is of the exemplary behaviour of broadcasters, be they platforms, media, companies, game publishers or hosting providers.
Nothing is free or unlimited, and especially not the natural resources consumed by digital technology. We must know how to resist the temptation of technological outbidding and digital over-consumption.
It is possible to reduce without regressing. All that is needed is to behave as a responsible broadcaster or consumer, demonstrating digital sobriety.
It is up to everyone to do their part. Streamlike is doing its own.
